High-ranking US Jesuit: Married priests would be healthy for the Church

[GEddie]

Maybe, but they are human, we all have weak moments, and not just that they would have or wanted to be married, but that they didn’t have the option to choose. Hopefully, they would see that they chose the celibate path to become a priest. It was a sacrificial choice. Of course, just because sacrificial love is beautiful, doesn’t mean it isn’t hard sometimes.

They had a free choice: marriage or the priesthood. What they were not given was the option to do both. But that doesn’t make the choice they made less free.

Most married men would not have the option either if the rule were changed, due to young children, debt, or other family need, to pursue ordination as priests.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Sarcelle]

Maybe, but they are human, we all have weak moments, and not just that they would have or wanted to be married, but that they didn’t have the option to choose. Hopefully, they would see that they chose the celibate path to become a priest. It was a sacrificial choice. Of course, just because sacrificial love is beautiful, doesn’t mean it isn’t hard sometimes.

Marriage is hardly a walk in the park too. It also involves sacrificial love. Add to that the demands of priesthood and marriage gets even harder.

 

[JimG]

Marriage is hardly a walk in the park too. It also involves sacrificial love. Add to that the demands of priesthood and marriage gets even harder.

Which is exactly why Brandon Sheard considered the vocation of the ministry and the vocation of marriage to be incompatible with each other, even as a Protestant.

 

[ChemicalBean]

I think that as demanding as priesthood is on a celibate man, it would be infinitely harder on a married man with family. I think that a mature, married, family man would be far more likely to decline a call to priesthood to protect the life to which he has already committed himself. Such a discipline change could actually result in fewer priests long-term!

I have been told that in Eastern churches who do permit married men to become priests, there is often a delay in their ordinations. If they ever wanted to be married it must be done first! Again, a discipline change would likely result in fewer priests in the short-term, or even long-term if a search for a wife that they never find keeps them from ever accepting ordination. Instead of discerning just celibacy as part of a call to priesthood, a seminarian must discern celibacy OR marriage, and another person must also discern to admit him to marriage! All this while he and the church discern priesthood. It rightly sounds burdensome.

As in all cases, bishops are celibate, so they must come from the ranks of celibate priests (or the rare celibate permanent deacon who has the proper training and would accept priestly orders first). A discipline change would certainly winnow out good candidates for the episcopate if they had both gifts for celibacy and marriage and chose marriage. I am told that for this reason, Eastern bishops primarily come from the ranks of monk-priests; yet, is the monastic life always sufficient preparation to lead a large diocese?

For these reasons, although there would be a lot of good and richness to the Church if we had more married men as priests, it is not something that we should worry about in times when the Church is already struggling for priestly vocations. If marriage became normative, it could weaken us severely.

 

[jilly4ski]

Marriage is hardly a walk in the park too. It also involves sacrificial love. Add to that the demands of priesthood and marriage gets even harder.

Yep. The sacrificial love in a marriage is very beautiful, but it can be very difficult (I would imagine it would be the same with all vocations). Marriages sometimes fail, or spouses have weak moments, or break their marriage vows, same with priests and religious.

 

[thejeopardyfan]

Salient: wdtprs.com/blog/2015/12/could-this-be-the-the-next-synods-theme-married-priests/ EWTN tweeted this.

 

[smos]

After reading all of the posts on this thread, it seems like the argument for maintaining the status quo is all the hypothetical “what ifs” that could arise if the celibacy requirement is lifted. Those seem pretty petty when compared with the history of sexual abuse, scandal and cover ups that have plaqued the Catholic Church. That is the ugly truth that can’t be ignored. I recently saw the movie Spotlight and apparently research indicates that 6% of Catholic priests act out sexually against children and 50% are not celibate. This should be a serious wake up call to the Church. It is just not realistic that we humans, with primal sexual desires, who are all prone to sin, can truly live in celibacy. Especially when the priesthood is reserved for only men. That is a recipe for disaster and we are seeing that bear out in our church communities. Case in point, the day after seeing the Spotlight movie, which is very good by the way, I open my paper to see that 18 more monks from St. John’s Abbey are being named in the decades long sex abuse scandal there. It just never ends! And I do not believe it ever will until the church starts allowing married men into the priesthood.

 

[smos]

I don’t think ending celibacy would have any connection to preaching.

Preaching is a gift from God. Not every priest has it, just as not every priest has a good voice. Sexual life is a totally separate matter.

Now, Protestants do often have better preaching. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not that they are married. Rather, because Protestants do not have the Mass, preaching is the ministers’ primary obligation (which is why many are called “preachers”). If someone can’t do it, they will be replaced with someone who can.

ICXC NIKA.

But restricting the potential pool of candidates for the priesthood to unmarried men, eliminates many who would be great preachers and servants of the church. And while protestant preachers don’t have a “mass” per say, they do have many other duties beyond the sermon to concern themselves with, just as the Catholic priests do.

 

[GEddie]

Gee whiz, that means that all those instances of pedophilic behavior among school teachers, scout leaders, and non-Catholic clergy need to be addressed by ending celibacy in those subsectors…wait a minute…!

ICXC NIKA

 

[smos]

The research came from A.W. Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist and expert in clergy abuse. He has a very extensive website, and has written the book "Celibacy, Sex, and the Catholic Church. He also happens to be one of the experts that the Boston Globe worked with to shed the light on the Boston Scandal. I am just trying to shed a light on something that I believe is harming the church. Matthew 18:9 says if your eye causes you to sin, cut it out, I believe that eye is the celibacy requirement of the Catholic Church. If 30-50% of priests are homosexual, which for many leads to tremendous failures of adultery, fornication and sexual abuse of children and this fact discourages heterosexual men from entering the priesthood, this constitutes great harm to the church. This is the reality in my community as I’ve had scandal in my parish with several Crozier priests, in my diocese of St. Paul, and the University of St. Johns where my son attended school and his floor priest was named in covering up the scandals there. This problem is much bigger than “a stick to beat down Catholics”. We’re allowing ourselves to be beaten down by burying our heads in the sand and not calling for change in the Church.

 

[otjm]

You need to use the title of the article for the thread.

I would like to see celibacy stay. People are commenting on the comments section on Crux regarding the number of Priests, but vocations are increasing in some places, so perhaps seminaries that are struggling to attract vocations, should look at the places were vocations are increasing, and see what it is that they are doing that is different, if anything.

Deacon Greg Kandra said:

patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2015/08/loyola-chancellor-calls-for-married-priests/

As a curiosity, is there a reason for your first comment?

Allowing married men to be ordained is not going to be the end of celibacy, if 2,000 years of Church history are any evidence. The Eastern rite Churches have had married and celibate clergy for 2,000 years; and yet, I continue to see an issue pop up in discussions that seems to imply that if we ordain married men, celibacy will come to an end.

Or perhaps I am reading too much into your comment?

 

[otjm]

I do not want to see married priests, and this is coming from someone who is considering the priesthood. However, I do like seeing exemptions being given for married men who are former Anglican and Lutheran pastors.

Out of curiosity, why?