Married Catholic Men: Can They Become Priests?

[mrterryc]

A celibate priesthood is the law and norm of the Roman Rite (with exceptions, such as Lutheran and Anglican converts).

Given the natural and common progression of married love, it is probable that most married couples, including very happy ones, grow in their love but away from certain physical expressions of it due to, well, age and maturity of their love.

Our culture seems to insist that one of life’s goals and expectations is that happiness consists in a vigorous, active, genital sexual life “until death do us part.” (See Viagra, Levitra and Cialis) Might this not be due to a lack of example and imagination concerning ways to love one’s spouse?

I suspect that a significant number of people who just don’t talk about it grow into, practically, a “celibate married state,” and this is not due to some failing in the marriage but, perhaps, simple consequence of old age (maturity). They learn to love more deeply and in different ways, with no lessening of commitment.

Why can’t a married couple make a specific “vow” or “promise” to lead celibate lives and, if they do, why can’t the husband be considered eligible (all other qualifications also considered) a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood?

Our diocese only ordained ONE priest this year, and he was a 72 year old widower. Why can’t a younger, but old enough to be past child bearing possibilities and support, married man, with the consent and support of his wife, be eligible for priesthood? And why can’t they make a public “vow” of celibacy within their marriage in conjunction with ordination to the priesthood?

I’ve never seen this question raised or answered, since the assumption is that married folks are seldom or ever celibate intentionally or circumstantially except for bad reasons. But is this necessarily so? What if a couple is able and willing to make a commitment to celibacy? Why couldn’t the husband become a priest? Don’t we need all the vocations we can get, and would this necessarily be a problem if the commitment to celibacy is public and maintained?

Terry Carroll

 

[MEP]

mrterryc:

Why can’t a married couple make a specific “vow” or “promise” to lead celibate lives and, if they do, why can’t the husband be considered eligible (all other qualifications also considered) a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood?

Technically, the purpose of marriage is to create families, meaning children. A marriage that is never consummated is not really a pro-Christian notion.

That being said, there are married Catholic priests. They are rare and it is allowed to happen only in special circumstances (the most commonly cited one being that a married minister or priest from another faith that allows marriage converts to Catholicism and wishes to continue serving a clerical role in the Catholic church). But it does happen, there are married priests (and married priests with children).

 

[Orogeny]

MEP:

Technically, the purpose of marriage is to create families, meaning children. A marriage that is never consummated is not really a pro-Christian notion.

That being said, there are married Catholic priests. They are rare and it is allowed to happen only in special circumstances (the most commonly cited one being that a married minister or priest from another faith that allows marriage converts to Catholicism and wishes to continue serving a clerical role in the Catholic church). But it does happen, there are married priests (and married priests with children).

A man in the parish I grew up in became a priest later in life after his wife had died and his children had grown up and moved out.

Peace

Tim

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The way I understood it, married men cannot become priests if they are Catholic and still married, but they can if they are converts and still married.

Maybe that’s just custom. I’ve known some married converts who made great priests.

The priest who ran the “Lamb’s of Christ” organization, as I recall, spoke at our parish a few years ago during the “Summer of Mercy” demonstrations at the clinic of Tiller the Killer. I think he was widowed and had children but kept their identities secret because he had so many enemies.

Alan

 

[MEP]

Additionally, aren’t married men allowed to be ordained as priests in the Byzantine tradition? That’s not Roman Catholic, but it’s still technically Catholic.

 

[Brendan]

MEP:

Additionally, aren’t married men allowed to be ordained as priests in the Byzantine tradition? That’s not Roman Catholic, but it’s still technically Catholic.

Yes,the Eastern Churches regularly Ordain married men to the priesthood.

And Yes, the Eastern Churches are every bit as Catholic as we are (and not just ‘technically’ )

 

[Timidity]

mrterryc:

Why can’t a married couple make a specific “vow” or “promise” to lead celibate lives and, if they do, why can’t the husband be considered eligible (all other qualifications also considered) a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood?

It is impossible, by definition, for a married couple to be celibate. The original definition (and the intended definition in vows) of celibacy is “a state of being unmarried.” It has nothing to do with sex.

Historically, celibate means only “unmarried”; its use to mean “abstaining from sexual intercourse” is a 20th-century development. But the new sense of the word seems to have displaced the old, and the use of celibate to mean “unmarried” is now almost sure to invite misinterpretation in other than narrowly ecclesiastical contexts. Sixty-eight percent of the Usage Panel rejected the older use in the sentence *He remained celibate [unmarried], although he engaged in sexual intercourse.
*

*“celibate.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 11 Aug. 2005. answers.com/topic/celibate
*

 

[OhioBob]

Brendan:

Yes,the Eastern Churches regularly Ordain married men to the priesthood.

And Yes, the Eastern Churches are every bit as Catholic as we are (and not just ‘technically’ )

I understand that in the eastern rites married men may be ordained, however, unmarried men, once ordained, cannot marry. Also only unmarried, celibate priests can become bishops in the eastern churches.

In the latin church, married men have become priests, but they were already ordained clergy from another faith (I think it is usually if not always ex-anglican or eastern rite priests).

 

[NetNuncio]

What are the other circumstances where a married man may be ordained? Other than being a minister in another ecclesial community and converting to Catholicism?

Adam

 

[mrterryc]

Timidity:

It is impossible, by definition, for a married couple to be celibate. The original definition (and the intended definition in vows) of celibacy is “a state of being unmarried.” It has nothing to do with sex.

Thank you. Very informative answer.

Being a “20th century man,” I confess to understanding celibacy in its “new” meaning.

There seem to be lots of words that have “evolved” to be confusing and, often, contradictory. I’m sure you must have heard the “be chaste until marriage” as if “chaste” = “abstinence” and, therefore, after marriage, you no longer have to be “chaste”!

“Don we now our gay apparel” also means something different today than it once did!

In ordinary usage, today, to be “celibate” means “to abstain from sexual relations.” It never occurred to me that it had ever meant “not married.” That would make the “single state in life” celibate by definition but, again, in ordinary usage, we say that single people should abstain from sexual relations until marriage.

Chastity is a virtue for both the married and unmarried, just practiced differently.

The Catechism (1579-1580) seems to strongly suggest that the Church’s understanding of celibacy is NOT from the 20th century!

I know there have been people who have married and chosen, together, to abstain from sexual relations to devote themselves to God (Mary and Joseph?). Is there an adjective that would describe such marriages?

Thanks for your answer. Some times the obvious is what most evades me!

Terry Carroll

 

[flamingsword]

Like has been said, the man cannot become a priest if his wife is living. There are still occasions when a married couple who have raised their family go and live in seperate monestaries, for the rest of their lives, even taking vows.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

flamingsword:

Like has been said, the man cannot become a priest if his wife is living. There are still occasions when a married couple who have raised their family go and live in seperate monestaries, for the rest of their lives, even taking vows.

We had an associate priest once whose wife attended Mass with him occasionally. I say “occasionally” because she kept a low profile while he was working except once when they sat together at his going away party when he left the parish. Was I just imagining all that?

Alan

 

[Olympia]

Many medieval saintly couples, after their children were grown, “retired” to separate convents. I don’t think the husbands became ordained as priests, though.

Of course, both parties had to agree to this, and I believe a church dispensation is and was necessary to live publicly like this. I believe Dorothy Day and her husband Peter (?) had this arrangement by permission of the Church, but I don’t know if they lived in the same house or separately. So you see, the church DID highly respect Marriage vows and obligations to each other!

In my day, it was called “living as brother and sister.” Many older couples just moved into separate rooms.

 

[puzzleannie]

Olympia:

Many medieval saintly couples, after their children were grown, “retired” to separate convents. I don’t think the husbands became ordained as priests, though.

Of course, both parties had to agree to this, and I believe a church dispensation is and was necessary to live publicly like this. I believe Dorothy Day and her husband Peter (?) had this arrangement by permission of the Church, but I don’t know if they lived in the same house or separately. So you see, the church DID highly respect Marriage vows and obligations to each other!

In my day, it was called “living as brother and sister.” Many older couples just moved into separate rooms.

Dorothy Day never married. She had a child by her lover, and separated from him when she converted because he refused to give up his “ideal” of free love. Peter Maurin was her associate and mentor in her ministry but in no sense a lover and certainly not a spouse. He lived a radical poverty and while he was welcome in the Catholic Worker house, often remained on the street with his beloved poor.

 

[OhioBob]

AlanFromWichita:

We had an associate priest once whose wife attended Mass with him occasionally. I say “occasionally” because she kept a low profile while he was working except once when they sat together at his going away party when he left the parish. Was I just imagining all that?

Alan

Unless he was a married priest from another faith who converted and was ordained, or illicitly married, I guess you were.

 

[Olympia]

puzzleannie:

Dorothy Day never married. She had a child by her lover, and separated from him when she converted because he refused to give up his “ideal” of free love. Peter Maurin was her associate and mentor in her ministry but in no sense a lover and certainly not a spouse. He lived a radical poverty and while he was welcome in the Catholic Worker house, often remained on the street with his beloved poor.

Thank you Puzzleannie! I stand corrected. Don’t know where I got the idea they were husband and wife, maybe from some sanitized literature for Catholic High School girls of the 1950’s. OR, they may have just mentioned something like “they were living in upstate New York”, or some such statement, and I naively assumed they were married? NOBODY ever lived together in those days.

(PS, keep up the good work, I always enjoy your posts! Thank you.)

 

[Geremia]

A celibate priesthood is the law and norm of the Roman Rite (with exceptions, such as Lutheran and Anglican converts).

Continence, however, applies to all clerics. This has been the case for the entire Church’s history, although there have been unfortunate deviations from this law. It is codified most recently in the 1893 Code:

Can. 277 §1. Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity.

Why can’t a married couple make a specific “vow” or “promise” to lead celibate lives and, if they do, why can’t the husband be considered eligible (all other qualifications also considered) a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood?

I believe he can, but it probably requires a dispensation of some sort. Usually we hear about the converse, that an already ordained man wants to be married, but this has always been forbidden. Historically—as Card. Stickler discusses in his excellent, short book The Case for Clerical Celibacy—any married Catholic man can be ordained provided he:

1. 
   *]obtain his wife’s consent,
   *]separate from his wife (this has always been the requirement in the West), and
   *]renounce the marriage privileges (remain completely continent).
   
   On pg. 13, Card. Stickler writes (with my comments in [brackets]):
   

   To complete this initial understanding of celibacy, which from the very beginning was correctly termed “continence” [because “celibate” means “unmarried”], we must immediately note that married candidates could approach sacred orders and renounce the use of marriage only with the consent of their wife. The reason for this lies in the fact that, on the basis of the sacrament that had already been received, the wife had an inalienable right to the use of the valid (and consummated) marriage, which in itself was indissoluble. We will consider the complex problems that resulted from this renunciation in the second half of this work.

   Definitely read Card. Stickler’s book; it is only about a hundred pages and is very edifying. Read the first pages of it here.
   

   I’ve never seen this question raised or answered, since the assumption is that married folks are seldom or ever celibate intentionally or circumstantially except for bad reasons.

   Yes, the assumption that “sex makes a marriage” (and not the consent; cf. “Is the consent the efficient cause of Matrimony?”) or that coition is essential to it (cf. “Does carnal intercourse belong to the integrity of Matrimony?”) is erroneous. St. Joseph was truly married to Our Lady, yet he was completely continent; they both remained virgins, and their marriage was consummated by the birth of Our Lord. (Cf. Fulton Sheen’s “The World’s Happiest Marriage”.)

 

[Geremia]

It is impossible, by definition, for a married couple to be celibate.

Yes, that would be a contradiction, but it is not impossible for a married couple to be continent (refrain from marital relations).

 

[Geremia]

Many medieval saintly couples, after their children were grown, “retired” to separate convents. I don’t think the husbands became ordained as priests, though.

That was probably because they were too old to be ordained. St. Rita, e.g., became a nun after she was widowed, even in her old age.

In my day, it was called “living as brother and sister.”

Actually, this is what is has been traditionally called for a long time.

 

[jimrob]

The rule in the Latin Rite is that married men cannot become priests. This is an administrative rule rather than dogma. That’s why it can be dispensed in certain circumstances. Priests receive a living from the priesthood and have no dependants. Married men are expected to support their families. Those parts of the Catholic Church that have married priests have to pay them a salary.

It did occur to me that if I wanted to become a Catholic priest, I could do so by joining one of the Uniate Rites - although I’d have to brush up my Koine Greek or Serbic. However, my wife has put her foot down and said I can only become a Catholic priest if she can (and she’s a Baptist)