Married Priests?

[mikeledes]

Can a Catholic born under the Latin Rite who wants to be married and a priest as well joun the eastern rite and be ordained a priest?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Cluny]

There’s no such thing as “the eastern rite”, so you can’t join “the eastern rite.”

There are about half-dozen Eastern rites, in the sense of liturgical families, and some 22 (depending on how you count them) Eastern Catholic Chuches sui juris.

I would suggest you FIRST attend for a while and then make a transfer of canonical enrollment into an Eastern Catholic Church, marry and get your household in order, and THEN talk about the priesthood.

I understand that the Melkites will not even think about sending a married man to seminary who has not been married at least 5 years first.

I’m sure the other Eastern Catholic Churches have similar rules.

Not all of them have married priests, btw.

 

[mikeledes]

There’s no such thing as “the eastern rite”, so you can’t join “the eastern rite.”

There are about half-dozen Eastern rites, in the sense of liturgical families, and some 22 (depending on how you count them) Eastern Catholic Chuches sui juris.

I would suggest you FIRST attend for a while and then make a transfer of canonical enrollment into an Eastern Catholic Church, marry and get your household in order, and THEN talk about the priesthood.

I understand that the Melkites will not even think about sending a married man to seminary who has not been married at least 5 years first.

I’m sure the other Eastern Catholic Churches have similar rules.

Not all of them have married priests, btw.

So if a Latin Rite Catholic feels that they have a calling to be married and be a priest, can they make a canonical transfer of enrollment, marry, and then be a priest.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Chatter163]

No, such an attempt to would not be looked upon favorably by the receiving church, to say nothing of the unfamiliar culture that any neophyte switching rites experiences.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

So if a Latin Rite Catholic feels that they have a calling to be married and be a priest, can they make a canonical transfer of enrollment, marry, and then be a priest.

Thanks,
Michael

Usually no. That is the way you have described the issue.

A man, who really has an interest in the eastern Church and canonically transfers to one of the eastern Churches and then feels called to marriage and then also to the priesthood may be considered but I doubt it.

This is because the eastern Churches do not wish to be a place for Latin Catholics who wish to avoid the discipline of their Church to run to.

 

[FrDavid96]

Can a Catholic born under the Latin Rite who wants to be married and a priest as well joun the eastern rite and be ordained a priest?

Thanks,
Michael

It can happen. I have known a few (very few) priests who were in just that situation. It is frowned-upon. A person should join any particular-Church because of the spirituality of that Church and not as a way to work around canon law. I don’t mean to imply that I know what their motivation was at the time. Yet I do know one in particular who was certainly attracted to the spirituality of the Eastern Church which he and his wife joined, and later discerned a vocation to the priesthood.

It is possible.

 

[Seatuck]

A man in such a situation would be expected to express an attraction or affinity to that particular Rite.

 

[Cluny]

So if a Latin Rite Catholic feels that they have a calling to be married and be a priest, can they make a canonical transfer of enrollment, marry, and then be a priest.

Wanting to be a priest is no guarantee you’ll ever be ordained.

Do understand that.

 

[jpjd]

To switch to the Eastern rite so that you can get married and then become a priest is to not understand the sacrificial nature of the priesthood. In the Latin rite, you are either called to marriage or called to the priesthood. If you so strongly desire to be married that you would change rites to do it, then maybe you need to consider that your calling is to marriage.