Married Priests

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SenorSalsa

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In your opinion, should the Church allow Priests to marry? I am aware that Women Priests are never going to exist, but marriage is still a changeble position. What is your opinon?

as far as pros and cons all i can come up with off the top of my head is
  • not enough time to serve family and community
  • what would the wife get if Priest died?(house belongs to church, not a whole lot in the way of money)
  • would increase number of priests
  • would prevent another sex scandal
the one that stands out as me as a bad reason is the increase in vocatons. If marriage is what is stopping you from being a Priest, then you probably don’t feel the call enough to be a good devout Priest. To me this is a sign that you are going to put your family above your Vocation. I could see it increasing numbers but decreasing quality.

That being said, i will agree that if the Pope were to say that Priests could get married, it would make me a lot more confident about entering the Priesthood. But, i plan on doing so even without such a statement, so it isnt like its the dealbreaker, it just would make the decision easier. It really is probably the sacrifice that most people would think about when considering the Priesthood
 
NB: There is a difference between the hypothetical allowing priests to marry, which (to my knowledge) has never been a routine practice; and allowing married men to be ordained, an ancient and ongoing practice of the Church.

tee
 
tee_eff_em said:
NB: There is a difference between the hypothetical allowing priests to marry, which (to my knowledge) has never been a routine practice; and allowing married men to be ordained, an ancient and ongoing practice of the Church.

tee
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As far as I know, the allowing married men to be ordained to Priesthood, it is kind of a case by case situation. What I am talking about is The allowence of current Priests to get married, and allowing any married person to become a Priest. Disregard that explanation if my assumption is wrong
 
I don’t see how allowing priests to be married would prevent another sex scandel. These men who were abusing those kids were sick individuals. Being married doesn’t prevent a person from being a pedophile.

Allowing priests to be married would probably boost the numbers but I bet the divorce rate would be high. Our pastor puts in several hours and I really don’t see how he does it, but I guess if you had more priests, that could reduce the amount of time that each priest would have to put in.
 
The Church has never allowed ordained men to be married, She does permit some married men to be ordained.

At the end of the day, God is way smarter than these things than I, so, I rest in the wisdom of Holy Mother Church. 👍
 
SenorSalsa said:
In your opinion, should the Church allow Priests to marry? I am aware that Women Priests are never going to exist, but marriage is still a changeble position. What is your opinon?
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I love the celibate priesthood. I love knowing that when I am meeting with my pastor, he isn’t thinking about his wife or kids. I love knowing that as his parishioner, I don’t get pushed aside for someone else. I also know I wouldn’t like being a preacher’s kid- that includes priests.
SenorSalsa said:
  • not enough time to serve family and community
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One reason I am totally for the celibate priesthood.
SenorSalsa said:
  • what would the wife get if Priest died?(house belongs to church, not a whole lot in the way of money)
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Another good point
SenorSalsa said:
  • would increase number of priests
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I don’t think that’s a good reason. The priesthood is a sacrifice, and I don’t think people who understand that would want to be married priests. I’m not sure how it works in the Eastern Churches, but somehow they make it work and have for as long as I know of.
SenorSalsa said:
  • would prevent another sex scandal
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I don’t think that has anything to do with the sex scandal. I believe it has more to do with poor selection of candidates for the priesthood (and poor selection of bishops, perhaps), poor seminary formation, lack of support for priests, and lack of fidelity to their promise of celibacy and to the Faith itself on the part of those priests who molested children.
SenorSalsa said:
the one that stands out as me as a bad reason is the increase in vocatons. If marriage is what is stopping you from being a Priest, then you probably don’t feel the call enough to be a good devout Priest.
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Exactly
SenorSalsa said:
To me this is a sign that you are going to put your family above your Vocation. I could see it increasing numbers but decreasing quality.
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Exactly, and we don’t just need priests- we need GOOD priests.
SenorSalsa said:
That being said, i will agree that if the Pope were to say that Priests could get married, it would make me a lot more confident about entering the Priesthood. But, i plan on doing so even without such a statement, so it isnt like its the dealbreaker, it just would make the decision easier. It really is probably the sacrifice that most people would think about when considering the Priesthood
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I suggest you talk to a seminarian or a priest about this. Ask them how they deal with it. A firsthand account from someone you know is often the most helpful.
 
m134e5 said:
I suggest you talk to a seminarian or a priest about this. Ask them how they deal with it. A firsthand account from someone you know is often the most helpful.
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Yeah, i have met with a bunch of different people, deacons, priests, and one former priest.

I think the mixing of all of thier view points has really helped me. As the former Priest said, he realized that he had gotten into it more for the Social Justice reasons moreso than for God, and that partly led to why he insert some fancy word he used for unbecoming a Priest

It pretty much speaks a lot. If God isnt the reason youre getting into the Priesthood, you arent going to have the drive to keep going
 
your comment about married priests preventing a sex scandal does not fly in the face of the facts. Most of the abuse was on boys suggesting that the priests were homosexuals, therefore allowing married priests would not make much of a difference.

From a practical view, a Catholic married man who follows the teaching of the Church in regards to being open to life is going to find himself torn between 2 families. The demands of a parish are great and the demands of a growing family are great. I really don’t see how one person could do justice to both families.

You, also, stated that we would have more priests if married men were allowed. I really don’t see that happening. Not many in our society are going to jump into the priesthood just because of being able to be married. After all, the priesthood is a calling from God and he will equip those he calls with the desire and ability to remain celibate. Celibacy is a gift that He has given to priests, not a hindrance.
 
As a family friend (and wife of former Protestant minister) pointed out:
“Would young men flock to the priesthood so they can support their families in near-poverty?”
 
SenorSalsa said:
In your opinion, should the Church allow Priests to marry? I
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not until Catholics tithe to the extent their Protestant brothers and sisters do so that a priest could support a wife and family on his pay. since the overwhelming majority of sex offenders against children are married or sexually active men, this issue has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not priests should be allowed to marry.
 
Of the Apostles, at least Peter and Philip were married but, during Jesus’ time, this was exceptionally difficult for their wives since the Aposles were constantly on the move and the wives were more or less left at home looking after the home/children. I cannot see why priests could not be married these days, BUT, they would both, to a degree, share the same cross and know that there would always be a “third party” in their marriage, but then, I suppose, this is true of all Christian marriages. However think of the wealth of relational experience that the married priest bring to his ministry, that is, if the couple are able to truly share and grow in that relationship rather than becoming, what is know as, a “gruesome twosome”, where they feed on each other’s “game playing” !!!
 
a married man, it is true, brings intimate knowledge of ONE married relationship to his ministry. a celibate priest brings dispassionate knowledge of relationships in general, and church teaching on marriage in particular to his ministry, without the bias of what is good (or) bad about his own marriage.
 
As far as the argument that having married priests would increase their number, it would do well to remember that the Orthodox, who DO allow married priests, continue to have a priest shortage as well…
 
Rolltide said:
As far as the argument that having married priests would increase their number, it would do well to remember that the Orthodox, who DO allow married priests, continue to have a priest shortage as well…
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So do many mainline Protestant denominations that actually require a halfway serious formation for their ministers.
 
If my husband (a permanent deacon) was to be made a priest while I am still alive, I would have no husband. I would never know when he’s going to get a call to go to a hospital, accident site, etc. I would never be able to schedule anything around the holidays for our family, and even day-to-day things would always be iffy.

The few cases of married pastors are converts (usually Episcopalian priests) who have proven themselves up for the challenge.

The Church, in her wisdom through the Holy Spirit, has provided roles for specific vocations.
 
Lee_M said:
I don’t see how allowing priests to be married would prevent another sex scandel. These men who were abusing those kids were sick individuals. Being married doesn’t prevent a person from being a pedophile.
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Just looking in the current news, that Protestant pastor (Barron) who got nabbed in a underaged sex sting was married (he used his wife’s car to drive to the supposed meeting with the girl). And then there’s the madman in Austria who locked up and raped his daughter for 24 years while his wife lived in the house.

So let’s put to rest the “married men don’t cause sex scandals” assumption.
 
Our dearest friend is the priest who married us in 1978. He married his DW civilly a year or so after we were married and lived in our neighborhood before DW and I had our first child and moved out to the country.

In 1986 he showed up at my job as a co-worker. A more Christ-like man I have never known. It took until 1988 for him to work through the Vatican bureaucracy to become laicized. DW and I served as witnesses when he got his marriage regularized (is that the right term?) after his laicization.

HMC allowed married priests up until the 11th century. It is a discipline of the church and is not engraved in stone. Our own Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox permit married priests. My friend is an active (but stealthy) member of his parish. He is not supposed to engage in any kind of ministry. How silly is that?

We can accept married ex-Episcopalian priests into our parishes but we can’t accept our own? Married priests don’t bother me in the slightest. The abuses of the 11th century are not the abuses of the 21st.
 
tee_eff_em said:
Because the Episcopalian converts were married men before they were ordained as Catholic priests?

tee
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It was a hypothetical Tee pointing out the absurdity that we have married deacons who are barred from the priesthood not to mention (at least in my diocese) the abundance of married laicized priests - and there are well over 25 here.

One of my favorite confessors over the last few years was a widowed late-life priest. He had such an insight into the married life and offered such great consul.

It’s not set in stone, Tee. It is a discipline of HMC. Gosh! Brotherhrolf as a radical! It boggles the mind!
 
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