Married men may be considered for the priesthood?

  • Thread starter Thread starter YourNameHere
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
GodSpawned said:
Looks like they are considering the possibility of having a synod to discuss it in some areas where there is a shortage of priests.
Click to expand...
I think I remember posting something about this here at CAF a few years back, when Erwin Kräutler was still the bishop of the prelature of Xingu in Brazil. He campaigned strenuously, for years on end, both for women and for married men to be ordained priests, to meet the need for bringing the Eucharist to the scattered communities in his vast, sparsely populated prelature. Under Benedict XVI he realized he was getting nowhere, but when Francis was elected he renewed his campaign, believing he might now get a sympathetic hearing in Rome. His fellow Brazilian bishops advised him to drop his call for women priests and to concentrate on married men, telling him it would improve his chances of success.

At the end of 2015, however, when Kräutler was 76, the Pope accepted his resignation. The new bishop, João Muniz Alves, doesn’t seem to have kept up the pressure for the ordination of married men, at least in public. Alves is a low-key bishop, but he is believed to be talking to the CNBB, the national bishops’ conference, about the proposal and it’s too early to say the idea has gone away. My hunch is that we may very well be hearing much more about it between now and the end of next year.
 
Last edited:
stpurl said:
Not exactly. The entire history and experience of Eastern Catholics is extremely different from Latin-rite, starting with first and foremost the size of the congregation. If you have a centuries’ old tradition of small parishes, ethnically based, with an engrained tradition of married priests with families, where the expectations and the examples are there going back for generations, in a very SMALL group of people served, that is a far cry from the Latin-rite groups involving very very large congregations, very diverse, with no traditions, no examples of married priests/families, where priests are seen less as the 'father/guide of a ‘tribal’ like group and more as the CEO of a ‘hierarchy’ where things kind of run ‘by the seat of the pants’ and rules get made up as they go along.
Click to expand...
I realize that the Roman rite will never have married priests. I find the phrase “'father/guide of a ‘tribal’ like group” quite offensive, frankly.
 
Last edited:
No offense was meant. Obviously no analogy would be perfect (personally, the idea of a priest being a CEO seems just as problematic to me). I would welcome ideas that would express things more accurately because, again, no offense was meant.
 
the Roman rite already has married priests. they were married before they converted to the Catholic faith and were ordained Catholic priests after study.
 
How about “father of an extended nuclear family”? While tribal apparently was used decades ago as opposed to civilized, the fact is, early civilization’s nucleus was tribal–a group of more or less related people, say several families, working together. I start to get ‘senior moments’ lately where I can remember a word like Tribal and not remember a word which is used more currently and means the same thing but is more politically correct. It gets to be a pain sometimes. . .I think older people will understand when I say it’s like trying to remember what to call a laundry hamper and you start out with ‘clothes thingy, um, that big basket, you know, the thing up in the bathroom, where you put in the dirty clothes, hanger, no, hamper, yeah laundry hamper!’
 
7_Sorrows said:
the Roman rite already has married priests. they were married before they converted to the Catholic faith and were ordained Catholic priests after study.
Click to expand...
Yes, I realize that. I should’ve been more clear.
 
I really don’t have an issue with married Latin Rite Priests. As people have pointed out, there already are some (exceptions, but they still exist) and Eastern Rite Churches allow for it, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem for them. As long as the Priest is able to provide for his family and do his duties in the Church, I see no reason why the Church couldn’t at least try it, particularly in areas where the clergy are stretched thin.
 
We Catholics believe that Jesus intended to establish a Church before he ascended into heaven.
When He said, “Peter, On this Rock, you will build my Church and the fires of hell will never prevail.” That Church, by virtue, that it was founded by Christ is Holy. And we believe that that Church is a family of Christians, where God is the Father, Jesus is the Son, and Mary is the Mother. All Christians on earth are part of this family called the Holy Kingship of Christ.
The Pope GUIDES and LEADS this family here on earth that is part of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. This is also called The Mystical Body of Christ. The Mystical Body of Christ includes all Christians on Earth, Christians in purgatory and Christians in Heaven. We are ONE Mystical Body in Christ. The mission of the Catholic Church, here on earth, is to save souls. That’s the 1 and only mission. SAVE SOULS. Not govern countries, not take over banks, not sell stocks on Wall Street.

The Pope guides and leads the Christain Family here on earth, that is part of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ so by virtue of that we call him Holy Father.
And not CEO.
 
Last edited:
The best way that a married man is going to have any chance of being a priest in the Latin Rite is by the church making a rule that if a married man were to become a priest, his children have to be grown and able to take care of themselves or younger siblings. that means having a job.
 
Last edited:
DeniseNY said:
Eastern Catholics seem to manaage.
Click to expand...
True. But the number of parishioners an Eastern Catholic Priest is responsible for is FAR LESS, esp in the diaspora.

Here in the United States, Eastern Catholic Parishes are really more like Personal Parishes. The Priest only is responsible for souls who come to his parish.

But the Roman Rite territorial parish priests are responsible for every single person living in their parish. When a person who hasn’t been to Church in 50 years is dying in a hospital and wants to see a Catholic priest, the parish priest where that dying person lives needs to come see them (unless it’s too far and then the priest who is responsible for the hospital will go instead).

A Roman Rite priest in the US might have a parish with 2500 registered families in his parish, but another 10,000 families in his parish boundaries. If any of those 12,500 want to see a Catholic priest… it’s his responsibility.

So it’s not fair to compare Eastern Catholic Priests in diaspora to the Roman Rite priests.

And even in the eastern countries, where the Eastern Catholics are the local diocesan priests, their parishes still tend to be smaller than Latin parishes.

So it’s very different.

NOTE: I would NOT be against the idea of tested Perm Deacons becoming priests, in select areas. But I fear a slippery slope. As someone said before, we have always had mission territories in the Church. Some remote parishes in the United States back in the 1800s would only see a priest once a month or less.

Japanese Catholics in the 1600s went years without seeing priests.

Would it be ideal to have a priest accessible to every single person on the planet every Sunday? Totally! However, has that ever existed? No.

We don’t need to introduce married priests in areas where they have low vocation numbers because the current priests are not practicing the faith.

However, as I’ve said before, I would be OK with “tested Deacons” becoming priests; as long as it always remains the exception and doesn’t become the norm, because I know many Deacons who already struggle to find time each week for their ministry.

God Bless
 
Last edited:
the married Episcopal priest i know who became a Catholic priest was a father of 6 - all under the age of 11!
 
Last edited:
Funny you should say that, because during the great persecution in Japan, the Church in Japan had neither priest nor Bible. For 250 years, they had to transmit the Faith orally, possessing only Baptism and Matrimony as Sacraments available to them. When missionaries returned to find a faithful remnant in Japan, the Pope called it a miracle.
 
YourNameHere said:
With the current immigration political climate in this country, I doubt a priest from Africa would be welcome.
Click to expand...
Are you nuts? There are African priests all over the place these days. My hometown parish, which is pretty much lily white and working class, has had one for years, and they love him. He is an awesome priest and greatly responsible for influencing my own spiritual life.
 
I simply don’t understand some of the arguments for priest celibacy. For example…
  1. They don’t have the money for married priests.
  2. There is no real priest shortage.
  3. A married priest won’t “always” be available.
When I visit my family where I grow up, I go to the church there. It is in the Midwest and serves students in a college. This church is basically a brand new church that is really state of the art. It cost well over $1,000,000. It comfortably seats about 300 and usually 200 attend. It was completely paid off with relative ease partly using donations in about 10 years. Money has never been an issue. The parish is, in fact, loaded.

The issue is finding a priest for this little church. Right now they have a priest who is there about 1/2 of the time. He also helps manage vocations in the state. He usually looks tired…I like his homilies…they are deep and sincere. Often retired priests fill in when he is gone, and occasionally he prepares Eucharist so a deacon can fill in when he is away. So he is not “always” available, his time is split with other tasks in the state, and this little parish is loaded.
 
Last edited:
Yes. Even in my neck of the woods in NE OH, there are some African and Latin American priests at a few of the Latin Rite parishes. YNH’s statement is completely false.
 
Yes. In my diocese we have more preist from other countries than our own I think. Anyway we have one from Africa, couple from India, Columbia and various other non European countries. I actually think the diversity is pretty cool 😊
 
Rather, it is time for the traditional single men to step up! There are married priests - quite a few of them - but they are not normative. Most are married converts.

But, what of the Eastern Church? They have always had married priests. Same with the geographically similar Orthodox.

Celibacy is a discipline, and is well and fully supported by the writings of Saint Paul.

Lowering disciplinary standards during a crisis is a disaster in the making. Always has been and always will be.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top