Barbara Rice:
I have tried searching this site for an existing thread, but can’t seem to find one.
In my home diocese we have a Catholic convert who is married with two children and has become a priest and is now pastor of one of our churches. I believe he may have been Lutheran.
Please explain how this can be done? Thank you.
I bet your from minnesota. His name is Larry Blake. There was an article about him in the paper a few weeks ago.
startribune.com/stories/389/5461053.html
A DOUBLE BLESSING
Larry Blake
Larry Blake’s son brought friends home from college to meet his dad, “because they didn’t believe what I was telling them.” What the young man was telling them was that his father is a Roman Catholic priest who is also married with three children.
Blake is one of only about 100 married Catholic priests in the country. He was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1978, then converted to Catholicism in 1993, hoping to eventually be accepted as a priest. In 1999, when his youngest child was a toddler, he was the first married man to be ordained a priest in the then-149-year history of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. His ordination was based on a special “pastoral provision” by the Vatican.
Blake works as business administrator and does some pastoral work for St. Hubert Catholic Church in Chanhassen, which has almost 9,000 members.
At home in Victoria, the 53-year-old priest takes off his clerical collar, puts on a T-shirt, cuts the lawn, helps with the dishes and tries to be a good spouse to his wife, Diane, and dad to his kids: John, 20; Sarah, 16, and Joseph, 6.
Because he has worked at St. Hubert for six years and because many of his flock attended his ordination, most know he’s a family man. Yet, sometimes new people or visitors say to him, “I notice you’re wearing a wedding ring.” One time he mentioned his family in his homily and a shocked visitor from Chicago said afterward, “I didn’t think I was hearing you right.”
Occasionally, though, his marital status comes in handy, such as when someone seeking help mentions that they know he, too, wrestles with problems of parenthood.
Blake calls it a “double blessing” that he can be a priest and have a family: “Priests need to develop healthy relations with people. Isolation is not a good thing. … We all need people who care about us. We all need people we’re accountable to and who hold us accountable. I’m grateful to my family. If I’m out of line, they let me know.”
Peg Meier
I can’t recall the name of the other. Also a former Lutheran.
Celibacy is a discipline. They can get a waiver on it from the vatican for certain cases such as a convert pastor who wants to be a preist. There were about 500 Anglican priests/bishops in the mid 90’s who became Catholic and got such a waiver when the Anglicans started ordaining women. It should also be noted that Eastern Rite Catholic priests can be married. The discipline is not required of them.
blessings
