I feel the Pope should let Priests get Married

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The immediate effect of a Catholic married clergy would be the end of daily mass, since a married priest must abstain from marital relations for at least a day. Unless a parish has more than one priest, celibate or married, it would be impossible to keep the cherished Western custom of daily mass.

Pax Christi
 
The real question is, how many priests that have dedicated their life to this life style are really asking to get a wife? Isn’t this a question of some one who doesn’t want to be a priest because of its’ implications. The same question should be asked to a single person. Why get married if you can’t handle the responsibilities that come with this sacrament.
 
GEddie said:
There are 2 primary reasons given for changing to a married priesthood; to my mind they do not hold up.

A). “The priestly shortage would be cured if seminarians didn’t have to face celibacy.”

First of all, the priestly shortage is mostly a European/NA issue, but the Church is worldwide. Also, celibacy is 1000 years old, but the supposed shortfall in priests is far more recent.

And as was said, priests never “get married.” The deepest change that could occur would be the normative admission of married men to formation. I’d expect that, if celibacy were really such a red flag, we would see men rush out of formation to “find a wife.” This would result, for a generation at least, in fewer priests, not more.

B) “Celibacy is the reason for all the sexual stuff in the recent past.”

No it’s not. Other subsectors that tend to kids (and have never practiced celibacy) have long generated the same problems.

ICXC NIKA.
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đź‘Ť
 
I feel married men should be aloud to become priests… I see and understand the time and effort to become a married man, with kids and the alike… Can married men become priests? I feel when you make the commitment to become a priest you are preaching to a community that love God, he should be strong as Jesus was. Period.
 
mdef303 said:
I feel married men should be aloud to become priests.
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OK. So, it seems that you’ve read the responses to your original question and have come to the recognition that, at the very least, asking priests to marry is fraught with difficulties.

So, having reached that perspective, let me ask you: what problems does allowing married men to become priests solve? Do these solutions outweigh the additional problems that a normative married presbyterate create? Is there any benefit, in your mind, to a celibate priesthood? If so, what benefits will be lost by a married priesthood?
 
Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8 that “I wish that all were as I myself am,” meaning celibate, even he refrains from making it a hard-and-fast rule. He goes on to add the following caveat a few verses later: “But if they are not practicing self control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” May god give grace to the priests for self control. If some priests are aflamed with passion for a woman like Iam. I would like to get married. May God bless and protect the priests of good.
 
phil19034 said:
**FIRST: Priests have never **been allowed to get married. Even in the Orthodox Church, priests are not allowed to get married. However, MARRIED MEN are allowed to become priests. The Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches allow MARRIED MEN to become priests, just like a MARRIED MAN can become a Deacon in the West.

**NOW: Why Married men should not generally be allowed to become priests…
**
It’s not an issue of just theology. It’s an issue of logistics.

There are reasons why the Latin Church worked for centuries to slowly create an all celibate priesthood.

Let’s just look at the modern parish today. Priests in the US are paid approx $25,000 + plus health benefits and the rectory to live in. Typically, more than one priest lives in each rectory. If priests are to marry, they are going to need to be paid a lot more money. They will need to send their kids to Catholic School (even if that’s a free benefit for them, the diocese would need to cover their costs). They will need to send their kids to a devout Catholic College. Since they won’t be using birth control, they may have many children. Unless they receive significant raises in salary, the mother will need to work in order to support the family, which means full-time nanny.

Many priests work around the clock, from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed (visiting the sick, attending meetings, hearing confessions, spiritual counseling, writing homilies, praying the hours, funerals, taking care of families who have lost loved ones, etc. We complain that we don’t have enough priests as it is. If we have married priests, they will need time with their families too. So their workload will need to be diminished, which means more priests will be needed. So you either have to pay now a ton more money to several priests, or start hiring part time priests. This becomes a crazy situation, similar to some protestant churches (like the Methodists). Some methodist ministers work part time for several small Methodist Churches, and not full time for any, or just full time for only one.

You have to also remember the size of Roman Rite Catholic Parishes. Many are very large with thousands of families. On average, Protestant and Orthodox churches are not as big, so there are less people for the pastor to help, and more time for his family.

There was a married Catholic priest who died a year or two ago who used to publicly say that it would be a bad idea for the Church to allow married priests to become the norm. He knew first hand how hard it was for a Catholic priest vs. an Anglican one (he used to be Anglican) to have a family.

If the Church made married priests the norm, it would cause a ton of issues that the Catholic Church currently doesn’t have.

Finally, the only thing I could see them doing one day is allowing older, Permanent Deacons who do not have young children become ordained as a “volunteer priest.” But to insure no abuse, they would have to be a Deacon for a set amount of time, be good at homilies, approved by the Bishop, and perhaps be over 60 years of age.

BTW - in regards to St. Peter, tradition says that he was most likely a widower because his wife is never mentioned. Also according to the Jewish tradition at the time, it would have been strange for the things his Mother-in-Law did in scripture not to have been done by his wife, unless she was ill or passed on.

God Bless
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Not true, the Church of the East and Nasrani church prior to the latinizations of the synod of diamper had priests who married after consecration, and even bishops who did so too, if my memory does not fail me.
 
Medical_Student said:
Not true, the Church of the East and Nasrani church prior to the latinizations of the synod of diamper had priests who married after consecration, and even bishops who did so too, if my memory does not fail me.
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If they did, I would venture to guess that it was while they were not in communion with Rome. But this is the first I’m hearing this.

I do know for example that the Eastern Orthodox (obviously not the same as the Church of the East) do not allow single, ordained priests to marry and they do not allow married priests to become Bishops.
 
JimG said:
I recall a talk once given by the wife of a married priest (former Episcopal priest.) She opposed a married priesthood for Catholics for some of the same reasons that have already been mentioned, salary, supporting a family, having time to see one’s family, or neglecting parishioners.

And there would inevitably arise the problem of divorced priests, priests seeking annulments, etc. And what kid would want the undue responsibility of being a priest’s kid?
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Ah, there is nothing like someone with a personal agenda to dictate to all others.

As to divorced priests, annulments, etc. - we have married deacons. Doenst seem to be a problem. Frankly, I would rather have a married priest than a priest with serious same sex attraction. There are enough of those already.

As to what kid would want… there is one in our parish; she seems really proud of her father when he comes to visit, and her children seem very proud of their grandfather.

And then there are those kids who are embarrassed because their did is (___________ fill in the blank).
 
There has been posted herein the statement that a priest cannot get married. That is true,w ith an exception: in the Eastern rites, or at least in some, if a married man is ordained, has young children, and his wife dies, in some circumstances he may remarry.

Other than that, it has been the tradition of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that a celibate who is ordained may not later marry.
 
Augustine said:
The immediate effect of a Catholic married clergy would be the end of daily mass, since a married priest must abstain from marital relations for at least a day. Unless a parish has more than one priest, celibate or married, it would be impossible to keep the cherished Western custom of daily mass.

Pax Christi
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That custom went by the wayside in any number of places, as we got down to the number of priests equaling approximately the number of parishes.

It also presumes that ordination numbers would stay about the same as they are now - stable or slightly increasing. If ordaining married men did not cause celibate men to no longer seek ordination, then it is a non sequitur.
 
otjm said:
There has been posted herein the statement that a priest cannot get married. That is true,w ith an exception: in the Eastern rites, or at least in some, if a married man is ordained, has young children, and his wife dies, in some circumstances he may remarry.

Other than that, it has been the tradition of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that a celibate who is ordained may not later marry.
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Yes, this exception is true of deacons too. In general, if their wife dies they may not remarry unless they have young children.
 
tamedlion said:
The real question is, how many priests that have dedicated their life to this life style are really asking to get a wife? Isn’t this a question of some one who doesn’t want to be a priest because of its’ implications. The same question should be asked to a single person. Why get married if you can’t handle the responsibilities that come with this sacrament.
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I am not sure exactly what you are saying. If you are responding to priests getting married, hsitory indicates that is not going to happen.

If you are saying that priesthood ontologically implies celibacy, it doesn’t.
 
Historically we know 5 Pope’s were married before becoming Pope ( one had thee sons who were also married and priests)
12 sired illegitimate offspring and one was exposed after his death as being gay.
These days priests who abused children are being exposed by the church’s critics daily.
There is NO theological reason why priests should not marry. There is no evidence that it makes a priest a batter man. There is evidence many priests have co-habited in the past. In recent years two of the best young Bishops in the UK left because of affairs with married women. The church here is the poorer for their leaving. In Europe we are running out of priests. Ireland once the staunchest of Catholic country’s, has been shaken by priestly scandals. So too has Italy, Spain and even Poland. Soon the Catholic faith will be at its weakest where it first began. It can no longer walk away from the issue or bury its head in a Medieval Theology Book.
 
Gorgias said:
OK. So, it seems that you’ve read the responses to your original question and have come to the recognition that, at the very least, asking priests to marry is fraught with difficulties.

So, having reached that perspective, let me ask you: what problems does allowing married men to become priests solve? Do these solutions outweigh the additional problems that a normative married presbyterate create? Is there any benefit, in your mind, to a celibate priesthood? If so, what benefits will be lost by a married priesthood?
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I don’t know that any problem has to be solved for the Church to decide to ordain married men - other than the problem that ordaining anyone solves.

Nor do I think that there are anywhere near as many “problems” involved in ordaining married men as people want to posit.

We already have, and have had for longer than I have been alive (which was well prior to Vatican 2), priests who have had a “day job” - teachers primarily; scientists, doctors… Just because many people have never met them, or never stopped to think it through, does not mean that every priest who is ordained in a diocese has to be a parish priest.

Married deacons often have a “day job”, and definitely not all are in a parish 24/7… and the world and the Church have not fallen apart because of it.

Do I think we would be inundated with married men wanting to be ordained? Nope. That not only requires a calling, but will also, as in the case of married deacons, require the wife to agree. That in itself would be self limiting.
 
Augustine said:
The immediate effect of a Catholic married clergy would be the end of daily mass, since a married priest must abstain from marital relations for at least a day. Unless a parish has more than one priest, celibate or married, it would be impossible to keep the cherished Western custom of daily mass.

Pax Christi
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Where does it say that a priest has to abstain for a day? I never heard of that.

-Tim-
 
phil19034 said:
Yes, this exception is true of deacons too. In general, if their wife dies they may not remarry unless they have young children.
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They cannot marry even with small children unless they are laicized.

They cannot be un-ordained but laicization dispenses them from the canonical responsibility to remain unmarried.

-Tim-
 
otjm said:
As to divorced priests, annulments, etc. - we have married deacons. Doenst seem to be a problem.
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I know you are speaking of the issue of divorce, but deacons do not offer sacrifice at the altar as priests and bishops do. If you go back to the Church fathers, that’s frequently the justification for a continent priesthood. Similar to how the Levitical Priesthood refrained from sex before serving in the Temple (and only served in the Temple after long periods of not serving). And the Church Fathers also appealed to a continent ordained ministry as being apostolic in origin.
 
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