I feel the Pope should let Priests get Married

[babochka]

1. Please note my corrected post numbering in evidence.
2. We don’t need excuses we need the reality of facts. Continued confusion can be removed only by the facts.
3. The Apostolic Norm from the beginning was unilaterally overthrown at Trullo.

Who is confused? You seem only interested in a particular set of facts.

I think we also need to deal with the facts as they are today, and not only reach into antiquity.

The Catholic Church ordains married men. The Catholic Church has done so for centuries. It is the norm in several Churches within the Catholic communion. Those priests serve their parishioners with dedication and holiness. Celibacy (in the monastic life) is highly esteemed and encouraged.

The Latin Church ordains married men, in exceptional circumstances. It has done so on an increasing basis for decades now. Those priests serve with dedication and holiness. Celibacy remains the norm and will in all likelihood continue to do so.

Those who have the authority to make these decisions (the bishops in union with the Pope) do not do so lightly. You and I do not have such authority.

 

[otjm]

Again, more references to celibacy being the norm for only a millennium. Technically true. Again, though, clerical continence has essentially been the norm in the west for 2,000 years. It’s been relaxed as the norm for deacons, but has continued to be applied to the episcopate and presbyterate.

I probably would not use the word “relaxed” because to me, that implies that the rule is in place, but not as strictly. I am no Canon lawyer, but my recollection of a discussion a few years ago concerning the matter was that Canon law applied it to deacons (this was a discussion among two or more Canon lawyers), and Rome simply said “Nope!”, which to me means rescinded (although it may be on the books).

otjm, unless you’re asking that we ordain married men with the expectation that they live as brother and sister with their wives, it’s misleading to talk as if you’re advocating a change to only a millennium old discipline and a return to the norm before then. If you still advocate for changing the norm, that’s one thing, but I haven’t seen you acknowledge it as being anything older than a millennium, which is why I keep harping on it. I apologize if I’ve missed it.

No, you have not missed it. Concerning some things I choose, in what minimal modicum of wisdom and/or common sense I may still have, to keep my opinions to myself.

I would point out that both history and common sense would indicate that a matter brought up at a Council and made a mandatory rule would not necessitate it coming up in further Councils, unless it was a rule on the books but not in the lives and actions of those under said rule. That does not justify anything but it is reality.

Lacking a Protestant upbringing with the ability so many of them seem to have, that ability to quote Scripture off the top of my head, I seem to recall the comment somewhere that we are not to lay too heavy a burden on others. An absolute continence? Sorry, I am not going to be drawn into a discussion of it, except to say that a modified continence may be the end result.

You are not harping; you are just poking into an area in which I have had several opinions, onwards of 45+ years, and I choose to keep them to myself.

The whole matter is nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Rome will do, or not do, what it chooses. Some think the results are at the direction of the Holy Spirit, and I have seen others rush into that breach, insisting that the Holy Spirit may be completely absent in the process of rule making. Whatever.

Someone commented that possibly the married deaconate was a first step towards a married clergy; and someone else commented that it wasn’t working all that well because those pesky deacons and their demanding wives just wouldn’t cough up enough time for the pastor (okay, I will lay off the irony). And OMH! one of them was divorced.

I find the discussion - interesting, since right off the top of my head I cannot come up with any acceptable term. I suspect, among select groups prior to the permanent deaconate being reinstituted, that similar arguments were made against it, and why it would not “work”. Parsimonious is the only term I can come up with.

 

[Abu]

babochka #101
Those who have the authority to make these decisions (the bishops in union with the Pope) do not do so lightly.

Unless and until the fact of the revolt at Trullo is acknowledged and understood you will continue to be misled. **The “decision” was not made by the Pope or the Church.

**“In Canon 13, Trullo explicitly (and polemically) rejected the discipline of Rome—that is, the universal discipline observed to that time.

“This was a significant break with apostolic tradition. The Council tried to justify its actions by appealing to the Council of Carthage (397). When it quoted Carthage as a precedent, Trullo changed what Carthage had decreed in order to provide a precedent for Trullo’s unprecedented action. The Carthaginian canons were widely known. Trullo did not simply make a mistake. Trullo falsified the Carthaginian canons for its own purposes. This is the origin of the Eastern Orthodox discipline regarding priestly celibacy.

**“Rome has studiously avoided suggesting that the Eastern practice is of equal value with the apostolic tradition of clerical celibacy preserved by Rome.”
**cuf.org/2003/05/priestly-celibacy-is-here-to-stay-the-history-of-priestly-celibacy/

Prayer and Celibacy
The apostolic origin of priestly celibacy. Father Wojciech Giertych, OP
The Priest 8/1/2011
“In 390, in Carthage in North Africa, there was a local synod that gave an explanation of this ancient discipline. The synod was attended by only a handful of bishops. Its decision however, was remembered and quoted by many following councils, although the Council of Trullo, which released eastern married priests from the obligation of marital continence, quoted Carthage erroneously and based itself on a claim that a certain Paphnutius, the bishop of Upper Thebes, had defended at the earlier council of Nicaea the marital rights of priests. This information had been given by the Byzantine historian Socrates, who wrote a century after the Council of Nicaea. **It is now known, due to the historical research of an East-German Lutheran historian Friedhelm Winkelmann that the story of Paphnutius is apocryphal, and so the Trullo Council erred in its historical judgment.
**
“The will of the Church finds its ultimate motivation in the link between celibacy and sacred ordination, which configures the priest to Jesus Christ the head and spouse of the Church” (St John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, No. 29).”
osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/Article/TabId/535/ArtMID/13567/ArticleID/7943/Prayer-and-Celibacy.aspx

As a discipline an Apostolic Norm can be changed by the Church – it was NOT changed by the Church at Trullo.

The continued attempts to assume what the Church actually requires and what She teaches, without the facts, is most unhelpful and misleading. No wonder there is so much confusion when the real facts are ignored.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Prayer and Celibacy
The apostolic origin of priestly celibacy. Father Wojciech Giertych, OP
The Priest 8/1/2011

Father Giertych is a fine and capable theologian. However, eventual disposition on this matter does not rest with us who are theologians or with the laity…it rests with the Magisterium. As His Eminence, Pietro Cardinal Parolin, said recently at a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Holy Father with the world’s bishops will consider what is best for the Church. The Holy Spirit will certainly guide them in their deliberations and in the conclusions that they will reach.

As Babochka has well said, it is really fruitless to discuss an outcome on something that rests in with the bishops and, ultimately, the Vicar of Christ, who has his thoughts on this matter. It is in the best of all possible hands and the Church will implement what they dispose with thoughtfulness and deliberation, just as happened with the restoration of the permanent diaconate endorsed by the Catholic bishops of the world at Vatican II or the pastoral provision for ministers of other confessions to be ordained as Catholic priests, dispensed from the obligation of celibacy by papal rescript.

The whole purpose of the recent conference of theologians was to facilitate the discussions the bishops are conducting amongst themselves.

*(Vatican Radio) The Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, delivered the keynote address on Saturday morning at a conference being hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University on the past, present, and future of the discipline of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church.

In his prepared remarks, the Cardinal Secretary of State recalled that the requirement of celibacy is a disciplinary one that has never been imposed by the whole Church, and one from which men have more or less frequently been dispensed.

Cardinal Parolin addressed the opinion that it is time to lift the discipline in the Latin Church, where it is mandatory for all priests, and not just bishops and religious. “If the problematic [situation of a so-called ‘vocations crisis’] does not appear irrelevant,” he said, “it is nevertheless necessary not to take rushed decisions, or decisions based solely on the basis of present need.”

Cardinal Parolin went on to say, “It remains true now as ever that the exigencies of evangelization, together with the history and multiform tradition of the Church, leave open the possibility for legitimate debate, if these are motivated by the [imperative of] Gospel proclamation and conducted in a constructive way, [and] safeguarding the beauty and high dignity of the choice for celibate life.”

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/02/06/card_parolin_addresses_gregorian_conference_on_celibacy/1206478
*

 

[Abu]

Don Ruggero #104
As Babochka has well said, it is really fruitless to discuss an outcome on something that rests in with the bishops and, ultimately, the Vicar of Christ,

False and thus poorly said.
The “outcome” was decided by the falsity at Trullo.

The Ancient Tradition of Clerical Celibacy by Mary R. Schneider
Ignatius Press Homiletic & Pastoral Review, July 2007
“The Holy See, which was not represented at The Council of Trullo (691-92), angrily refused to recognize its authority, especially its brazen claim that it was an ecumenical council whose canons were binding upon the whole Church. Naturally, Rome rejected Trullo’s canons on clerical marriage, which deviated so clearly from a tradition of clerical chastity that had long been observed in both the East and West.”
catholicculture.org/cultu…TOKEN=77729727

The reality:
**“Rome has studiously avoided suggesting that the Eastern practice is of equal value with the apostolic tradition of clerical celibacy preserved by Rome.”
**cuf.org/2003/05/priestly-celibacy-is-here-to-stay-the-history-of-priestly-celibacy/
[Fr. Ray Ryland, from the May/Jun 2003 Issue of *Lay Witness Magazine]

 

[Don_Ruggero]

False and thus poorly said.
The “outcome” was decided by the falsity at Trullo.

The Ancient Tradition of Clerical Celibacy by Mary R. Schneider
Ignatius Press Homiletic & Pastoral Review, July 2007
“The Holy See, which was not represented at The Council of Trullo (691-92), angrily refused to recognize its authority, especially its brazen claim that it was an ecumenical council whose canons were binding upon the whole Church. Naturally, Rome rejected Trullo’s canons on clerical marriage, which deviated so clearly from a tradition of clerical chastity that had long been observed in both the East and West.”
catholicculture.org/cultu…TOKEN=77729727

The reality:
**“Rome has studiously avoided suggesting that the Eastern practice is of equal value with the apostolic tradition of clerical celibacy preserved by Rome.”
**cuf.org/2003/05/priestly-celibacy-is-here-to-stay-the-history-of-priestly-celibacy/
[Fr. Ray Ryland, from the May/Jun 2003 Issue of *Lay Witness Magazine

]

A discussion with you is, once again, purposeless.

You may argue at me or anyone here as much as you wish. I don’t know how you think doing so is of utility or influences the decision which the Holy Father will make – either motu proprio or in concert with the College of Bishops. The decision is his. Or, if he decides, it is his with the College.

I am a theologian and have been for a very long time, at this point in my life. If a synod father for the next Synod of Bishops asks for my theological opinion or briefing on this topic, I would happily give it to him…and the thoughts would not be formed or based on anything said to me on an internet forum or things in such popular and non academic periodicals as you have referenced…but whether I have given my thought as a theologian or not, the matter rests with the Magisterium.

As Pope Benedict XVI said so eloquently before his election as Bishop of Rome, the theologians are not a parallel Magisterium. There is one Magisterium: the successors to the Apostles, with and under the successor of Peter. And let me be perfectly clear: I completely follow what they decide on this, as any other issue. A theologian’s vocation is to illuminate the deposit of the Faith in service to the Magisterium. I do not argue with the Magisterium or dissent from the Magisterium.

The thoughts and opinions and postulations of other people, such as I read here, can have an interest to me but only in so far as such conversations either give me an insight or have a theological weight and thereby elucidate some facet of my own thought or theological reflection. What you have offered does not rise to the level of doing that.

 

[Abu]

Is Pope Francis about to eliminate celibacy? (9 things to know and share)
by Jimmy Akin 09/12/2013
“Who made the remarks?

“That would be Archbishop Pietro Parolin, who is set to replace Cardinal Tarciscio Berone as the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

“He currently lives in Caracas, Venezuela, where he has been serving as papal nuncio (ambassador) to Venezuela.

“What significance does this actually have?
Not much.

“There is, actually, nothing new here. The archbishop is correct in stating that clerical celibacy is not a dogma.

“It is a matter of discipline and—although I have yet to see a mainstream media story point this out—there are, in fact, married priests today, even in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, where most priests are required to be celibate (that is, unmarried).

“But beyond the non-newness of this, there is also the forum in which the exchange occurred: It was a concluding interview with the local nunicio in a local newspaper.

“This is not the place that the Church uses to make dramatic, official statements.

“In fact, this was not an official statement at all. It was a personal interview.”
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/is-pope-francis-about-to-eliminate-celibacy-9-things-to-know-and-share

He has continued his approach now, but the Apostolic Norm is very unlikely to be further weakened, despite the unseemly clamour in some quarters.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

There should be a ‘shadow a priest for 24 hours’ program. People might see why the rules are what they are, outside of the marriage to the Church bit of Holy Orders.

I am somewhat fascinated…why do you say this? As a priest, I find the suggestion bizarre. Shadow my life for 24 hours? And that would tell someone what? To what end? I could point to various of my brother priests of my own presbyterate whose lives you would learn precious little about by stalking me. Let alone priests I have worked with in other countries and continents. So what would one learn from stalking me which would be useful in evaluating the life of a priest in Mexico? In Sierra Leone? In Belgium? In Kenya? In Poland? In Brazil? In Austria? In the United States? What you will hear from the priests and bishops in each of those places will have their own nuance.

More importantly, what difference does it make what “people” think on this issue? It is not the decision of “people”. The decision of this issue rests with the Pope acting unilaterally or, if he chooses, the decision rests with him and the College of Bishops.

When the decision was made to restore the permanent diaconate, and thereby re-establish a married clergy in the West, there were no mass consultations with the laity or, for that matter, with priests. The decision was announced and it was then implemented diocese by diocese and everyone was to comply with the decision made by his own bishop as to whether it would be immediately implemented or not.

I remember it well. The decision was made on its concrete implementation at the diocesan level. A process of formation was created at the curial level. Candidates were selected by the Bishop with the advice of a committee of priests. Formation occurred across the prescribed period of time according to the methodology decided. The first class of deacons were ordained. And the newly ordained deacons were assigned by the Bishop to the pastoral charges entrusted to them. To be sure, there was an adjustment for everyone in those early years.

As far as concerning changes relative to priests, the Bishops quite well understand their presbyterates; they know how they work and how priests’ lives are organised or could be organised given an alteration in the discipline…they certainly do not need to stalk us. They are part of our lives, they share our lives, they were once priests – just as we are – before they were elevated to the episcopate, whereby they became fathers to us. No one needs to explain to a bishop the life of being a priest or the implications for changing our lives.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Is Pope Francis about to eliminate celibacy? (9 things to know and share)
by Jimmy Akin 09/12/2013
“Who made the remarks?

“That would be Archbishop Pietro Parolin, who is set to replace Cardinal Tarciscio Berone as the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

“He currently lives in Caracas, Venezuela, where he has been serving as papal nuncio (ambassador) to Venezuela.

“What significance does this actually have?
Not much.

“There is, actually, nothing new here. The archbishop is correct in stating that clerical celibacy is not a dogma.

“It is a matter of discipline and—although I have yet to see a mainstream media story point this out—there are, in fact, married priests today, even in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, where most priests are required to be celibate (that is, unmarried).

“But beyond the non-newness of this, there is also the forum in which the exchange occurred: It was a concluding interview with the local nunicio in a local newspaper.

“This is not the place that the Church uses to make dramatic, official statements.

“In fact, this was not an official statement at all. It was a personal interview.”
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/is-pope-francis-about-to-eliminate-celibacy-9-things-to-know-and-share

He has continued his approach now, but the Apostolic Norm is very unlikely to be further weakened, despite the unseemly clamour in some quarters.

This information is now quite out of date. The archbishop, the former nuncio you reference, is in fact now a Cardinal, and now Secretary of State. The topic also has moved in two and a half years. This column, which answers the questions of those who are reading at a popular level, is also quite apart from the discussions occurring among the bishops and among bishops and theologians on the issues themselves and the various ramifications involving various conclusions.

 

[ffg]

No, I’m talking about something that is the rule. It is common to say that married priests won’t work because of x, y, and z, when x, y, and z are dealt with every day by married priests all over the world.

So, if someone wants to recommend shadowing a priest for 24 hours to show just how it cannot possibly work, for example, to balance family and ministry, it seems only reasonable to equally study an entirely different model of ministry. If you’re going to look at a married priest, don’t look at a married Latin-rite priest who is struggling to fit his married life into a celibate model. Look at a priest who exercises his ministry in a world in which he is normal, surrounded by other priests who are married and dealing with the same issues.

It appears you didn’t read the whole post, if it was too much, read the last line.

 

[ffg]

I am somewhat fascinated…why do you say this? As a priest, I find the suggestion bizarre. Shadow my life for 24 hours? And that would tell someone what? To what end? I could point to various of my brother priests of my own presbyterate whose lives you would learn precious little about by stalking me. Let alone priests I have worked with in other countries and continents. So what would one learn from stalking me which would be useful in evaluating the life of a priest in Mexico? In Sierra Leone? In Belgium? In Kenya? In Poland? In Brazil? In Austria? In the United States? What you will hear from the priests and bishops in each of those places will have their own nuance.

More importantly, what difference does it make what “people” think on this issue? It is not the decision of “people”. The decision of this issue rests with the Pope acting unilaterally or, if he chooses, the decision rests with him and the College of Bishops.

When the decision was made to restore the permanent diaconate, and thereby re-establish a married clergy in the West, there were no mass consultations with the laity or, for that matter, with priests. The decision was announced and it was then implemented diocese by diocese and everyone was to comply with the decision made by his own bishop as to whether it would be immediately implemented or not.

I remember it well. The decision was made on its concrete implementation at the diocesan level. A process of formation was created at the curial level. Candidates were selected by the Bishop with the advice of a committee of priests. Formation occurred across the prescribed period of time according to the methodology decided. The first class of deacons were ordained. And the newly ordained deacons were assigned by the Bishop to the pastoral charges entrusted to them. To be sure, there was an adjustment for everyone in those early years.

As far as concerning changes relative to priests, the Bishops quite well understand their presbyterates; they know how they work and how priests’ lives are organised or could be organised given an alteration in the discipline…they certainly do not need to stalk us. They are part of our lives, they share our lives, they were once priests – just as we are – before they were elevated to the episcopate, whereby they became fathers to us. No one needs to explain to a bishop the life of being a priest or the implications for changing our lives.

Wow. Great fire! May it lead to great things!

I agree the issue doesn’t matter.

The fact it doesn’t matter, means it’s all just discussion. We know we aren’t solving or changing things here.

Perhaps it’s not practical, but shadowing is a great way for people to learn all kinds of jobs and activities. It’s the best way I teach new folks in my line of work. It’s not stalking. I’m sure you learned from peers as well as books.

What we get from a book is never the full story.

I see ‘a day in the life of a priest’ as a great opportunity to teach and learn.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

Wow. Great fire! May it lead to great things!

I agree the issue doesn’t matter.

The fact it doesn’t matter, means it’s all just discussion. We know we aren’t solving or changing things here.

Perhaps it’s not practical, but shadowing is a great way for people to learn all kinds of jobs and activities. It’s the best way I teach new folks in my line of work. It’s not stalking. I’m sure you learned from peers as well as books.

What we get from a book is never the full story.

I see ‘a day in the life of a priest’ as a great opportunity to teach and learn. Especially for young men considering priesthood.

Take care,

Mike

 

[babochka]

My understanding is that in the East (compared to the West) the parishes are smaller on average and there are more of them. Meaning the parishenor to priest ratio is lower. In the West, parish sizes are typically larger and newer parishes can be quite huge. For example, I attended a parish in FL while on vacation that had over 10,000 families.

Wow! 10,000 families is an extraordinarily large parish, by any standard. How many priests did the parish have?

In the US, it is definitely true that Eastern Catholic parishes are smaller, and this makes sense in an country in which we are relatively new and overwhelmed in numbers by the Latin rite. I am a member of the smallest parish in the smallest eparchy in the Byzantine Catholic Church (Ruthenian). We have about 20 families, and my bishop has the care of approximately 3,000 souls - fewer than many pastors in urban and suburban areas in the US. According to a 2010 survey, the average parish in the US has 1,168 registered households, with a median of 768. 15% of parishes have fewer than 200 families, and 33% have more than 1,200.

I don’t know if this is true worldwide, though. I searched a bit for statistics and wasn’t really able to find any good statistics that would allow me to compare apples to apples. I did discover that the average congregation size for a Catholic Church in England is 244. I just don’t think the situation in the US, for Eastern or Western Catholics, could be considered the norm.

This is off-topic, of course, though it might be worthy of its own thread some day.

 

[guanophore]

Hetrosexual of course…

What are your thoughts…

What would be the purpose?

As foreign as the concept may seem today, the first pope, St. Peter, was married.

Catholic priests were allowed to be married until the 12th century.

Yes, and by that time, we see married priests not observing either their vows to the Church or to their spouse. We saw children both in and out of wedlock that needed to be supported by communities that were sometimes too poor to support even one person.

We saw the problem of land, families of priests needing housing and farm land, etc. We also saw nepotism throughout the hierarchy of the Church.

None of these problems is unavoidable if there are married priests, but it became clear in the West that the Church was desperately in need of those with undivided interests. Since that time, the Latin Rite has chosen for priests from among those who are given the gift of celibacy.

It seems to me that the Western Church is more in need of this gift than ever, given the laxity of sexual morality. The gift of continence and consecration as a sign of contradiction in the world is desperate.

But the question remains: does the pope really want to change the church’s policy on priestly celibacy, and if he does, is that even within his power?

At least one of those questions is easy to answer: yes, Francis can change the church’s policy. Priestly celibacy is only canon law, or a man-made rule, and not church dogma or doctrine. Priestly celibacy didn’t even exist in early Christianity, with several early popes (including Jesus’ disciple Simon Peter), bishops, and priests marrying and fathering children during the church’s first three centuries. The tradition of clerical continence doesn’t show up until the Council of Elvira around 305-306 CE, and wasn’t even formally codified into canon law until 1917.

It is true that this discipline can change, and in fact, has been changed. Persons who are called to the priesthood from a Protestant background and are already married are recieved, and the Eastern Catholics follow the rule of the Orthodox.

It is not true, though that priestly celibacy did not exist in early Christianity. Jesus, our HIgh Priest, was celibate, and Paul clearly taught that celibacy was to be preferred for the clergy.

Continence was always the case for those who were consecrated to religious life, and there were no small number of priests ordained who were first monks. It was preferred from early days to have Bishops that were monks first, and lived a consecrated life.

The Canon laws were developed to address social, economic, and political problems that were exacerbated by married priests.

I agree that the celibacy requirement is one of the things killing the priesthood.  It certainly could be changed.

Can you explain what this means?

 

[ffg]

I see ‘a day in the life of a priest’ as a great opportunity to teach and learn.

I’d like to add to this point - We tend to pray for vocations all the time.

What we don’t see is an active role to personally invite for the consideration.

Perhaps passive does work, like a booth at the annual men’s conference. (I don’t know the stats)

But if a priest sought out the single men in a parish to consider signing up for a day with him.

That invite might do something very good for both men and for the Church.

Parishes (the Church) would at least know who might have interest to cultivate.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Gorgias]

where do you get this idea of "giveing up the discipline of a celibate presbyterate?

Giving it up as the norm, of course. Yes, there are Latin rite priests who are married – but these are the exception rather than the rule. You’re asking for this to become normative; and thus, the question is “why change the norm – what does it achieve?”

And it is not as if this is some strange idea out of left field, or from the back side of Mars. The Roman rite has been ordaining married men for several decades now. It is limited to married men, who have been ministers and have converted. The discussion is about extending that to include married men who were not converts.

Agreed: and still, the question is what positive effect will that have? The Church sees clerical celibacy as a good thing – what is it about that stance that you propose is wrong?

I will send the question back to you - what “problem” does ordaining convert ministers “solve”?

Absolutely nothing: but that’s not what’s in play here.

Okay, so you consider teaching, and science, and law, and medicine to be forms of ministry.

When one’s ordinary assigns a priest to that work? Absolutely. It’s a completely different case than when a person goes out on his own and finds a job.

For starters, if a married man is ordained, other than the general shortage of priests for parishes there is no particular reason that he would have to be assigned to a parish full time. The complaint is that there is “too much to do, taking him away from family”. I propose a model that does not assign married men full time to a parish.

Hmm… you seem to be proposing setting up a system that creates two “classes” of priests. That doesn’t sound beneficial to the unity of the presbyterate – the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ would be at odds with one another, it would seem…

perhaps it was a failure; or perhaps how it was done was a failure. Can you cite studies on it?

A Google search on ‘worker-priests’ will turn up a number of sources for you to read.

It failed because, quite naturally, priests became involved in various political and social movements of the day, given their positions in the secular workplace. In effect, they identified more strongly with their ‘day jobs’ than with their vocation to the priesthood. In that sense, then, the notion of having a cadre of priests with ‘day jobs’ was a dismal failure – not because of “how it was done”, but because of the way people are; we have likes and dislikes, preferences and affinities to various causes celebre. Inasmuch as these might be groups or issues that are inappropriate for a representative of the Church to support, this creates opportunities for scandal. That’s why it’s a bad idea.

 

[Gorgias]

Actually, I am at a loss to understand why others are invoking the issue of the Worker Priests at all.

Because, from a practical standpoint, that’s what’s being proposed here by some: that there should be a ‘class’ of priests who have ‘day jobs’ and only perform some priestly duties.

Those of us who actually knew that movement and what it was about would say that it is almost the diametric inverse of what is being discussed in this thread.

It’s different from the perspective of the rationale that gives rise to the movement – after all, the French worker-priest movement was initiated in order to evangelize an unchurched population on its own turf at work, whereas the proposal being discussed here is meant to shore up the numbers of priests by taking men (married or otherwise) into the presbyterate while leaving them in their ‘day jobs’. However, in terms of what it would look like, the two are similar in the way these priests would live their daily life (and, I contend, why it’s relevant to bring it up: the same pressures and drawbacks that were seen in France in the 50’s would seem to apply to the proposal being floated here).

 

[guanophore]

There should be a ‘shadow a priest for 24 hours’ program. People might see why the rules are what they are, outside of the marriage to the Church bit of Holy Orders.

This is part of the formation for the priesthood. Seminarians generally serve in a parish and/or stay at the priests’ residence sometimes for 3-6 months during their internship period which gives them a sense of parish life from the perspective of the priest.

 

[ffg]

This is part of the formation for the priesthood. Seminarians generally serve in a parish and/or stay at the priests’ residence sometimes for 3-6 months during their internship period which gives them a sense of parish life from the perspective of the priest.

Absolutely.

We have a good group in this diocese.

One thing that is kind of neat at our annual conference - at the end of Mass the Bishop asks the single men in an age bracket to consider.

I don’t know the stats, if it works.

But it’s neat to hear the invite made each year.

Thanks for sharing!

Take care,

Mike

 

[Abu]

8) Do we know anything about what Pope Francis thinks about celibacy?

Actually, yes. In the book *Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio *(an interview book done before he was pope), Cardinal Bergoglio said:
Let’s see . . . I’ll begin with the last question: whether or not the Church is ever going to change its position with regard to celibacy.
First, let me say I don’t like to play mind-reader. But assuming that the Church did change its position, I don’t believe it would be because of a lack of priests. Nor do I think celibacy would be a requirement for all who wanted to embrace priesthood.
If it did, hypothetically, do so, it would be for cultural reasons, as is the case in the East, where married men can be ordained. There, at a particular time and in that particular culture, it was so, and it continues to be so today.
I can’t stress enough that if the Church were to change its position at some point, it would be to confront a cultural problem in a particular place; it would not be a global issue or an issue of personal choice. That is my belief. . . .
Right now I stand by Benedict XVI, who said that celibacy should be maintained.
Now, what kind of effect will this have on the number of those called to the priesthood? I am not convinced that eliminating celibacy would cause such an increase in those called to the priesthood as to make up for the shortage.
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/is-pope-francis-about-to-eliminate-celibacy-9-things-to-know-and-share