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agnes_therese
Guest
More converts are a concern? I’m missing something.
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Eufrosnia
Guest
I don’t think the issue is with turning someone down here. The issue is with respect to what should people prefer. I think that the people should always prefer the celibate priest. The married one can be good, but the celibate priest can be great. Note I used the word “can be” because there can certainly be those who just don’t want to be.
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Melchior_1
Guest
All things being equal, the marital status has no impact. For every moment you say “they can invest more energy being single” one can respond “they have a helpmate to help handle some of the mundane tasks”,
In the process you are also stopping short of demeaning the Marriage covenant, but coming close.
M
maryjk
Guest
Of course a celibate priest isn’t an orphan.
But nor do they “have all the time to them self.”
That was my point.
A priest is chosen? Rather then a priest having a vocation or a call to serve? Different tradition than I have heard.
It isn’t a corner case. Our parish alone has had one priest move to another state to be with his elderly parents and one that was absent for a while because both of his parents died.
Yes, generally single people have more free time. Yes, there are many very good reasons for a celibate priesthood. And yes, I agree with them.
But yes, we should also be thrilled that pastors of other religions want to convert and bring their families with them.
T
Tarpeian_Rock
Guest
And I think that’s just it. We have an Anglican Ordinariate now. There is talk of a Lutheran Ordinariate. I, too, have no problem with married priests in the Latin Rite. The issue is that we appear to be open to a married Latin Rite priesthood only with respect to men joining from Protestant denominations. I’ll bet there are many thousand married deacons, to pick one example, already in Holy Orders, who would eagerly make the sacrifice of additional education in order to serve as priests - likely not as pastors perhaps - but with sufficient additional training to offer Mass, anoint the sick at 2 AM (relieving the burden from current priests) and whatever additional priestly functions Rome might see fit for this class of priesthood.
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maryjk
Guest
Me too.
I always thought that having more Catholics was a good thing. I guess that isn’t true if they are married.
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Elizium23
Guest
Untrue. Priests may not marry after ordination because of discipline. This is a much stricter discipline than the ordinary discipline of celibacy, because all the Eastern Churches observe it as well. But we have heard anecdotal evidence, for example, of a deacon with young children whose wife dies and he is permitted to marry again. If it were dogma then it would just be simply impossible for him to marry at all. Another fact is that priests make a promise (secular) or vow (religious) of celibacy, and so to permit a priest to marry after taking this promise/vow would mean needing to release him from it. Very unlikely to happen.
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JRKH
Guest
No it does not concern me at all.
While the Holy Father has reaffirmed the basic idea of the celibate priesthood in the Latin Rite, it remains a discipline, a practice, and not at doctrine and so can be modified or changed should the Church choose to do so.
Frankly - I think that it is a worthwhile “experiment” to see how well these men do…and if there really is a negative effect on their ability to pastor parishes (if and when they get the chance).
For myself - I have to say that it would not trouble me at all if the Latin Church pretty much did away with the celibacy rule and moved to something similar to what is done in some of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
In short - I’m fine with whatever Holy Mother Church decides on these matters.
Peace
James
I
Iron_Donkey
Guest
Because there’s more too it than a matter of mere numbers. The priesthood is more than a job, it’s not just something that we put up a sign in the window asking for more when we’re low. Which isn’t to say that those concerns are irrelevant, only that they aren’t the only concerns.
The celibate priesthood has several effects, only one “practical” that comes to mind:
- (The practical) A celibate priest does not have to provide for his family and can spend more time doing “priest stuff”.
- Celibacy shouts out “sex isn’t the only thing that matters,” which is a message that’s always been important and is especially important in these days.
- Celibacy demonstrates a commitment to the faith - “I am so certain that what I am doing is good that I will put aside the joys of having my own family in this life, good as they are, in order to serve God as His priest.”
- Celibacy follows the example of Christ, who was celibate, and in who’s person of priests act.
- Celibacy helps to weed out those who are not as fully committed. (The linked article says we lost 25,000 priests who got ordained thinking that the requirement would be lifted, but it wasn’t. But really, if the priesthood is not important enough to you to keep you from setting it aside because you’d rather do something else, you shouldn’t be ordained anyway.)
- Celibacy follows the teaching of Christ and later Paul who say, more or less, that though the teaching isn’t given to everyone that those who can be celibate for the Lord are doing a good thing.
But to simply get rid of the whole thing is not a good idea. Yes, there can be exceptions, and yes it makes more sense for protestants that are converting than for Catholics. Catholics grow up in the knowledge that marriage and priesthood very nearly exclude each other. Protestants do not. A protestant may feel the call, and act on it as a Protestant minister and also get married, and not think it a big deal. A Catholic can make the choice knowing they are exclusive, a protestant, while he is a protestant, has no such knowledge. That is why exceptions are made, and that is why they are exceptions.
Converts are great. Convert priests are great. Convert married priests are great. But priestly celibacy is great too, and it would be a grave mistake to throw it out because there are cases when it makes sense to set it aside for a handful of people. That is the nature of exceptions.
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JReducation
Guest
Not at all. It has nothing to do with ecumenism. Every Christian has a right to belong to the Catholic Church.
Where are we going to get the money to pay the salaries to these celibate priests whom we want to work for us 24/7?
If they are secular priests, they do get paid for working in a parish and for the extras. When these men reach retirement age, they don’t have a religious community to take them in. They have to find a home and provide for their needs, unless they come from wealthy families who can take them in or have left them money. Many of these men end up in nursing homes and alone, because no one cares for them once they can no longer put out what the faithful want. If we treat them like utilities, then we should pay that as we pay for other utilities.
If the priest belongs to a religious community, don’t expect to see more parish involvement than you see now. In any case, expect to see less. The Council of Major Superiors of Men Religious is very concerned about the amount of time that parishes consume in the life of these men and how much the parish takes from the religious life. Some of these men can’t eat with their brothers, pray or play with their brothers because they have a meeting, a CCD class, a festivity or carnival, a bible class, a sick call or someone who wants to talk at the same time that the priest is supposed to be playing bingo with his brothers.
The consensus is that this has to be curtailed in order to protect religious life.
We have two problems. We have to provide for our secular priests, if we want more of their time and we have to accept that our regular priests are just like married priests. They have a family that takes priority over the parish.
We went through a period of about 70 years in which the Church spoiled us. Those days are over. There has to be balance and justice toward our priests as well. It can’t all be for the parishioners. At the end of the day, a man is not ordained to be a parish priest. He’s ordained to be a priest. There is a big difference. If one wants to see the priesthood in its purest form, without the complexities of a parish, one should look at priests who are monks. The live the religious life and exercise the ministerial priesthood without the demands that we place on our parish priests. So they live it in a very pure and uncomplicated way. This is how it was before Vatican I.
I’d like to add one more thing that I remember from the good old days. My first assignment was to a city parish. We could not eat, pray, recreate, study or be alone together on Saturdays and Sundays. I wasn’t until the renewal was started by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and other Capuchins that superiors put their “feet” down and said, “no more”.
We had to cut back on the number of hours for confession on Saturdays or move them around so that they did not cut into community time. We had to hold back on the number of men that we assigned to help diocesan priests in their parishes, because they were away all weekend. We had to tell people that they had to stick to a rigid schedule. If they showed up 15 minutes late for an appointment, they had to reschedule, because the men at the parish also had a schedule to keep.
We had to negotiate with other parishes how to handle sick calls. Men were assigned to be on call on specific nights and holidays. This way, not everyone was on call 24/7. We coordinated with the diocesan clergy and other religious to distribute ministries. When there were two or three parishes within five miles of each other, they did not duplicate. This one had the Legion of Mary and the others did not. The other parish had cell groups. the third parish had Holy Name Society and so forth.
That’s not always possible in places where there is only one or two parishes. In those places, the priest can only do so much. He is not only a priest, he’s the accountant, the building inspector, the CEO, the director of the school, the arbitrator, the counselor etc.
Even in parishes where there are deacons, brothers and sisters, people often don’t want to deal with us. They are still stuck in the 1950s thinking that only Father has the answers to their deepest spiritual questions or to their marital problems. When Father can’t see them, they go unattended. But that’s not always Father’s fault. Brother, Deacon or Sister is there for them.
I think it’s going to take time for people to get used to the idea of priests who have a schedule and a life of their own, be they married, celibate or regular.
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Luigi_Daniele
Guest
Father, who “ran” parishes before Vatican I, then?
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dixieagle
Guest
Why, in heaven’s name, would I be concerned that the Catholic Church is gaining priests, married or otherwise??? I am pleased and grateful.
J
JReducation
Guest
Before Vatican I, parishes were not large corporate institutions as they are now. There were a number of things that were different inside the Church and outside of the Church.Father, who “ran” parishes before Vatican I, then?
Outside of the Church
The State interfered less in the affairs of private institutions. You didn’t have to worry as much as you do now about things like codes, law suits, access to the disabled, employment laws and things like that. All of those things cost money in order to keep up with them. One simple example, you need fire insurance. That costs money. To get that insurance, you need to meet certain codes. That costs money. To get that money, you have to engage in all kinds of fundraisers and you have to spend a great deal of time in financial administration. You can’t hand over financial administration to the laity. Canon Law no longer allows that. That’s new of as of 1983. Before that, there were lay boards that ran all of the temporal matters of the parish. This took a lot of the work load off of Father. It gave him more time for pastoral matters.
Inside the Church
When they started to have conflicts between the boards and the clergy, the boards were abolished and the pastor took up that work.
Parishes before Vatican II were not as complicated. They didn’t have a school, convent, religious education program, and 25 different ministries. Basically, the parish was a church with a rectory or a religious house attached to it. The ministry consisted in visiting the sick and the shut-ins. You didn’t have youth group, Catholic Ladies Society, Knights of Columbus, adult religious education, etc. Father did not have to take care of those things or train people to cover those areas. Today he does.
The population was much smaller too. Most Catholics lived in ghettos. You did not have 2500 Catholic families in a 25 sq mi radius as you do in the suburbs. The lived in apartment houses. People were often within walking distance of the Church. There were not as many issues with time of an activity and how to get there. Father did not have to rearrange his schedule because people could only come when they could get a ride to get there.
There were no evening activities in parishes. One reason was the absence of electricity. The other was often the weather. In some places, it was too cold.
Also, there were not as many parishes. Many people, especially in Europe, never belonged to a parish. There was a local Church for an entire town or there was a religious house where people worshiped.
The Church’s vision of the parish was very different. To a certain extent the model that we have in the USA and Canada is very uniquely our own. It’s a very complicated one. Like I said, it’s a corporate model. The Protestants have done better than we have in that regard. Their parishes are still more like families. They have less activities than our typical parishes have and they are smaller in numbers. This is also the case with Catholic parishes in Europe.
The chapel concept started to disappear after Vatican I. It’s still alive in certain sectors, but gradually dying out. It was a wonderful concept. During the 1970s, I was a graduate theology student friar. I lived in a house with 11 other friars. There was a single parish for the entire county. It was next door to the friary. There were chapels all over the county. The friars would travel to them. Those friars who were priests would alternate, one week at one chapel and another at the second.
The friars were in teams of one ordained and one non-ordained. When the ordained went to one chapel to celebrate mass, the non ordained went to another chapel to lead a Liturgy of the Word and distribute Holy Communion. Everyone came to the main parish for business matters, which were few. During the week, the friars were not on site. The chapel was closed or they would have one evening mass once a week. It was a hardship on the friars, because they were always on the move. It was easier than today’s parish, because there were not 12 “corporations” running simultaneously.
As I said, this is a Pre Vatican I model that has died out. One reason was that Vatican I was so poorly implemented that we had an explosion of priests. That sounds nice, but it was not. That was the population of priests that also got into a lot of trouble during the 60s and 70s. Those who didn’t get into legal or moral trouble often made life impossible for those around them. They didn’t belong in the priesthood anymore than you or I belong in a fish tank.
Bishops and superiors were caught by surprise when the problems erupted. They truly believed that the large numbers were a blessing, because it allowed parishes to do more things and have more activities.
As difficult as the workload may be, we have a much kinder, gentler generation of priests today. One of the things that we’re starting to see more of is that even diocesan priests are spending more time together and developing closer bonds with each other. They may not be as available to the parish, but when they are, the parish has a more wholesome person who does not exist in isolation.
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Luigi_Daniele
Guest
Grazie, amico mio 
Italy (at least in the country) still seems to have a billion parishes, each with one or several priests. The towns near where my family is seem to be served by parishes at every corner (and not by religious priests, mostly, but secular ones).
What’s the difference?
I promise that I will eventually shut up.
Italy (at least in the country) still seems to have a billion parishes, each with one or several priests. The towns near where my family is seem to be served by parishes at every corner (and not by religious priests, mostly, but secular ones).
What’s the difference?
I promise that I will eventually shut up.
J
JReducation
Guest
We should all take a step back and laugh at ourselves on this one. I’ll tell you why.
First: This sounds like the argument between Peter and Paul about the Gentiles. It’s OK for them to convert to Catholicism, but it’s not OK for them to have the same rights as we have.
Second: The Catholic Church is a Church of converts. Mary and the Apostles were converts. They were born Jews. The first generation of Church Fathers were converts. They were born Roman and Greek pagans.
Through the centuries, we have had many priests and religious who were converts. I’m a Hebrew Catholic. Not all converts ask to be ordained. I’m trying to remember the name of the popular apologist who was an Anglican priest, converted to Catholicism but did not become a Catholic priest. He wrote the book, The Crucified Rabbi.
Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi are former Protestant ministers. Hahn is now a lay theologian and Grodi a lay evangelist.
As for the wife and kids, it’s been my experience that the wife and kids take up no more time than does a religious community. I was the Director of Pastoral Care for a ministry in a large diocese. I had many priests under me. About 60% were diocesan and 40% were regular. Among the diocesan there were three married priests who had come in from the Episcopal Church. The regular priests were less available than the married priests.
A married priest can tell his wife that he’s late for dinner because he had to spend an extra 15 minutes in the confessional. She may be upset, because supper gets cold, but she gets over it. When a regular priest tells his religious superior that he had to stay 15 minutes later in the confessional and asks to be excused for being late for dinner, he gets an “OK” the first time. The second time, he gets “Again?” The third time, he may get order, “You will leave that confessional and report for diner on time.”
I could send my married priests across the country without a problem. I could not send my regular priests without their superior’s permission. The permission was not always granted, even for the sake of the ministry. If the superior felt that there was not a good enough reason to travel away from the community, that man did not go. Even though the ministry paid the religious community a stipend for that man’s services. The contract made it clear that the superior had the last word and go the check. That’s not the usual case with married clergy.
Finally, we just have to learn from the Eastern Catholics. They have lived with married clergy for ccenturies. Many of those priests are former Orthodox priests who convert to Catholicism. It’s the same thing.
When we lose the sense of human dignity, we begin to evaluate people by what they do and not by what they are. Their value becomes proportionate to the benefit that we derive from them. That’s very dangerous. That’s how the culture of death stays alive. Doing is more important than being.
First: This sounds like the argument between Peter and Paul about the Gentiles. It’s OK for them to convert to Catholicism, but it’s not OK for them to have the same rights as we have.
Second: The Catholic Church is a Church of converts. Mary and the Apostles were converts. They were born Jews. The first generation of Church Fathers were converts. They were born Roman and Greek pagans.
Through the centuries, we have had many priests and religious who were converts. I’m a Hebrew Catholic. Not all converts ask to be ordained. I’m trying to remember the name of the popular apologist who was an Anglican priest, converted to Catholicism but did not become a Catholic priest. He wrote the book, The Crucified Rabbi.
Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi are former Protestant ministers. Hahn is now a lay theologian and Grodi a lay evangelist.
As for the wife and kids, it’s been my experience that the wife and kids take up no more time than does a religious community. I was the Director of Pastoral Care for a ministry in a large diocese. I had many priests under me. About 60% were diocesan and 40% were regular. Among the diocesan there were three married priests who had come in from the Episcopal Church. The regular priests were less available than the married priests.
A married priest can tell his wife that he’s late for dinner because he had to spend an extra 15 minutes in the confessional. She may be upset, because supper gets cold, but she gets over it. When a regular priest tells his religious superior that he had to stay 15 minutes later in the confessional and asks to be excused for being late for dinner, he gets an “OK” the first time. The second time, he gets “Again?” The third time, he may get order, “You will leave that confessional and report for diner on time.”
I could send my married priests across the country without a problem. I could not send my regular priests without their superior’s permission. The permission was not always granted, even for the sake of the ministry. If the superior felt that there was not a good enough reason to travel away from the community, that man did not go. Even though the ministry paid the religious community a stipend for that man’s services. The contract made it clear that the superior had the last word and go the check. That’s not the usual case with married clergy.
Finally, we just have to learn from the Eastern Catholics. They have lived with married clergy for ccenturies. Many of those priests are former Orthodox priests who convert to Catholicism. It’s the same thing.
When we lose the sense of human dignity, we begin to evaluate people by what they do and not by what they are. Their value becomes proportionate to the benefit that we derive from them. That’s very dangerous. That’s how the culture of death stays alive. Doing is more important than being.
J
JReducation
Guest
What’s the difference between what?Grazie, amico mio
Italy (at least in the country) still seems to have a billion parishes, each with one or several priests. The towns near where my family is seem to be served by parishes at every corner (and not by religious priests, mostly, but secular ones).
What’s the difference?
I promise that I will eventually shut up.
When I lived in Italy, I noticed that there are pockets that seem to have a lot of little churches with one to three priests. Is that what you’re talking about?
However, I also noticed that the parishes were not as institutional as are our parishes in the USA. The flavor was different. I can’t explain it other than to say that it felt like a family. You don’t get that feeling in too many American parishes. I think it’s the size.
L
Luigi_Daniele
Guest
Agree completely. I’m just wondering why you think that they have more priestly vocations? Maybe it’s a Latin thing (as in Latin peoples vs Anglo-Saxon)?
M
Megan7
Guest
Thanks
M
Mrs_Sally
Guest
Interesting to apply that thought to this situation. I am very saddened by the expectation I sometimes hear that the parish priest (secular, regular, married, or whatever) basically be a sacrament dispensing machine. Father leaves the confessional for dinner? Appalling! He should be like John Vianney and spend 18 hours in the confessional and then eat a cold boiled potato for dinner!
That expectation does not match with human dignity, but turns Father into a robot or a slave. It is different if the priest himself willingly forgoes his dinner to stay, but the idea that he should be *expected *to do that is what I object to.
My husband and I have been close friends with Lutheran and Methodist ministers and their wives. They talk about how some couples offer (and some protestant denominations encourage) a “twofer”. The husband is the pastor and the wife is always at church too - running a women’s Bible study, preschool program, etc. The couples we know did not encourage that. It bound up the marriage and the church in too close a way.
I do not know how Eastern priests (or those converts who are ordained) handle the times when home life and church needs might compete. But most of those times will happen with any priest. Everyone needs time for proper meals, rest from work, time set apart for relaxation.
If a married priest needs a bit more time apart for family, that will hopefully be balanced out by the increased number of priests. Or by the experienced help of brothers, deacons, and sisters.
L
Luigi_Daniele
Guest
If they are well catechized, nope. The early Church, and the Church at most points in history, has had a huge number of converts. I’d rather have a convert RC priest who is faithful to the Magisterium than a cradle RC priest who is not.
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