When priests get married

[YipYupYep]

Lets just say that today Rome made the decision to allow all there priests to marry.

Well, if they did marry, the wife better have her own money!

Just imagine if your parish had to support a few priest wives. Food, clothing, a place to live. Think about that. I sure would try to do my just share to support the parish. Would everyone? You tell me. Putting a dollar bill in the plate on Sunday is not going to cut it anymore.

If there were several priests in the parish, would you expect all six to live together, with there children. That’s three homes. All furnished. Health insurance. Maybe even a second car. There going to need some serious bucks to keep it going.

Don’t forget the kids. They need to be fed and clothed in a proper fashion. Books, toys, the whole nine yards. All the money will have to come out of the plate. That would turn the present financial situation upside down.

The spiritual reasons aside. How is that going to work? What’s your opinion.

 

[Cat]

Lets just say that today Rome made the decision to allow all there priests to marry.

Well, if they did marry, the wife better have her own money!

Just imagine if your parish had to support a few priest wives. Food, clothing, a place to live. Think about that. I sure would try to do my just share to support the parish. Would everyone? You tell me. Putting a dollar bill in the plate on Sunday is not going to cut it anymore.

If there were several priests in the parish, would you expect all six to live together, with there children. That’s three homes. All furnished. Health insurance. Maybe even a second car. There going to need some serious bucks to keep it going.

Don’t forget the kids. They need to be fed and clothed in a proper fashion. Books, toys, the whole nine yards. All the money will have to come out of the plate. That would turn the present financial situation upside down.

The spiritual reasons aside. How is that going to work? What’s your opinion.

It would work the way it does in Protestant churches–and it DOES work well. Most of the Protestant churches have married pastors, and everything works out financially.

But you’re right, the higher salary has to come out of the collection plate, and of course that means less money for other programs, missions, etc.

But as many have said on this board in the Family Section, kids don’t have to be that expensive. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of condemning large families financial situations.

And a pastor’s spouse actually “pays his/her own way”, either by staying at home and working to make the home, or by working outside the home, or both. A good husband/wife can be a tremendous help to her/his pastor husband/wife.

I personally am not in favor of priests marrying. (I am also very much against female pastors and left a church over this when I was Protestant!)

I was evangelical Protestant for over 40 years, and I saw a lot of unhappy pastor families, although I also saw a lot of very happy pastor families. It’s hard to be a pastor and be married with children, and it’s hard to be a pastor’s husband/wife or a PK (pastor’s kid). There is actually a joke or urban myth among evangelicals that usually the brattiest kids in the church are the PKs.

I also saw a situation where both husband and wife were pastors, but in DIFFERENT churches with DIFFERENT denominations! Ai yi yi!

I like that priests are married to the Church, and I like that they have the time and emotional energy to be a father to the parishioners. (Actually, they don’t have a lot of time or emotional energy, considering all their responsibilities! But if they had a wife and children, they would have even less time.)

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

OP- The flaw is your assumption that it is apriori that there are currently no legitimate priests who are married who are Catholic.

There are currently fully recognized priests in both the Western and Eastern Churches, fully Catholic, fully loyal to His Holiness, who are married with children. Some are lifelong Catholics of the Eastern Churches and some are Latin priests who were formerly of other ecclesial communities. Those who are of the Eastern married before they became deacons. The others brought their families with them when they were approved by their bishops and Rome to become priests. Though usually former Episcopalians when they come to the Church, there are a few who were Lutheran, Methodist, and even one Presbyterian of which I know. They not marry again if their wives predecease them.

How they handle the pay scale is up to the culture of their country, their bishop and diocese. In the United States, the families do not live in the rectory for the Western priests unless the family will be the only ones living there (I’ll let somebody else in those Churches address Eastern priests). Sometimes the diocese or parish in which they serve finds them housing, sometimes they find their own, sometimes they already own a home. Wives can and do work. Some of them saved money when they were pastors in the other ecclesial communities. Some of them even get to keep their pensions from their former ecclesial group, though not all of them. Either the diocese provides the family the same health insurance it provides lay employee families, or they get it through the wife’s work, or they find their own (buying health insurance on one’s own is not as hard as some would claim).

Diocesan priests, celibate or married, do not take vows of poverty. They take a vow of obedience to their bishop, but they are not order priests. I know one who owns a race car. I know another who has a nice stock portfolio. Another inherited a nice house from his parents. They are all celibate.

If you want more information, simply Google:
pastoral provision catholic episcopal priest married

Here are a couple of links to get you started:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MARPRIE.htm

http://blogs.jsonline.com/faith/arc...-getting-ready-for-move-to-pewaukee-area.aspx

When you Google, be careful of the priests who took vows of celibacy and then renegged. They want to do weddings and the like. They are also known as rent-a-priests. What they do is NOT in line with what Rome expects.

 

[rwoehmke]

With a few exceptions, most priests of my acquaintance, would chose not to marry. That being said, for those who might have married before ordination if they had a choice, why would anyone want to deny them the blessings that married life can bring? I am not implying that celibacy doesn’t have many blessings. Wouldn’t it be rather selfish for a parish to deny this gift to a priest of being married because it would cost them a few more of their hard earned bucks? As it is written, the worker is worth his wage.

 

[bilop]

Priests can not marry. Full stop.

Holy orders is an impediment to marriage, unless the priest/deacon has been laicized.

The issue is the ordination of married men, which has always happened in the East, and is permitted for converts in the West.

God Bless

 

[redrosetea]

I am not in favor of married priest nor woman being ordained

I saw a video clip of a bunch of feminists that were illicitly ordained…Their liturgy was ugly and the singing sounded like screeches…It reminded me of a coven of witches…

 

[FCEGM]

Priests can not marry. Full stop.

Holy orders is an impediment to marriage, unless the priest/deacon has been laicized.

The issue is the ordination of married men, which has always happened in the East, and is permitted for converts in the West.

God Bless

That needs to be repeated.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

Priests can not marry. Full stop.

Holy orders is an impediment to marriage, unless the priest/deacon has been laicized.

The issue is the ordination of married men, which has always happened in the East, and is permitted for converts in the West.

God Bless

Exactly. It is not the other way around. If you’re already a priest and plan on staying apriest, you’re not getting married.

 

[Podo2005]

Priests can not marry. Full stop.

Holy orders is an impediment to marriage, unless the priest/deacon has been laicized.

The issue is the ordination of married men, which has always happened in the East, and is permitted for converts in the West.

God Bless

Please explain how Holy Orders is an impediment to marriage because I don’t understand.

Thanks,
Your brother in Christ,
Zachary

 

[Phemie]

Please explain how Holy Orders is an impediment to marriage because I don’t understand.

Thanks,
Your brother in Christ,
Zachary

It’s one of the impediments to marriage according to Canon Law. One who has been ordained can not get married – unless he is first laicized and then permitted to marry.

 

[adamsapple]

You know one aspect of this conversation that is missing is that priests who take vows UNDERSTAND that they are required to celibacy.
Would the priesthood be better off if they were allowed to marry? Who knows?
When you join a club, you obey the rules. Otherwise, move to another club.
The priesthood and celibacy are sacrosanct in Catholicism. Leave it that thay.

 

[YipYupYep]

Would the priesthood be better off if they were allowed to marry? Who knows?
When you join a club, you obey the rules. Otherwise, move to another club.
The priesthood and celibacy are sacrosanct in Catholicism. Leave it that thay.

Come on now. Be fair. Its easy for us to be safe up in the cheap seats while the Priest is slugging it out in frustration and loneliness down on the field. Attraction to the opposite sex is not something we learn. Its hard wired in our DNA. Maybe not every single humen being, but like 99.9%. The Catholic Priest lives an unnatural existence and young men out there understand this and say no the Priesthood.

 

[EasterJoy]

Lets just say that today Rome made the decision to allow all there priests to marry.

Well, if they did marry, the wife better have her own money!

Just imagine if your parish had to support a few priest wives. Food, clothing, a place to live. Think about that. I sure would try to do my just share to support the parish. Would everyone? You tell me. Putting a dollar bill in the plate on Sunday is not going to cut it anymore.

If there were several priests in the parish, would you expect all six to live together, with there children. That’s three homes. All furnished. Health insurance. Maybe even a second car. There going to need some serious bucks to keep it going.

Don’t forget the kids. They need to be fed and clothed in a proper fashion. Books, toys, the whole nine yards. All the money will have to come out of the plate. That would turn the present financial situation upside down.

The spiritual reasons aside. How is that going to work? What’s your opinion.

This sounds like the kind of argument we would have heard about why laypeople could never take the place of the nuns and priests in Catholic education.

Those willing to take on the evangelical counsels are a blessing to us, but the worker is worth his labor. It is unjust to be unwilling to pay him for it. Finances are the worst possible reason to deny someone the opportunity to marry.

As for the parish that has to foot the bill, they should be ashamed to be so tight-fisted as to deny their pastor a compensation that would, based on other denominations, still be a fraction of what their dentists, their doctors, their mechanics, and their electricians make.

Having said that, the wives of deacons I have talked to were not keen on the idea of married priests! I know that the Eastern Orthodox do it, but considering the state of marriage in our society right now, returning to a discipline that allows any but the older married men to be ordained to the priesthood seems unwise, for the sake of their marriages and families.

Come on now. Be fair. Its easy for us to be safe up in the cheap seats while the Priest is slugging it out in frustration and loneliness down on the field. Attraction to the opposite sex is not something we learn. Its hard wired in our DNA. Maybe not every single humen being, but like 99.9%. The Catholic Priest lives an unnatural existence and young men out there understand this and say no the Priesthood.

Self-control and self-sacrifice are difficult, but these are not unnatural. It is enslavement to the passions that is both difficult and, because it belongs to the fallen state, unnatural. That is why both celibacy and unmitigated monogamy are preferable to what secular society is trying to pass off as “natural.”

 

[Blade_and_Blood]

Well, with the economy of today, a buck *barely *cuts it. If priests had the opportunity to marry, I think that would defeat the whole purpose of being “married to the Church”… you know, the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

And yeah, I see where you’re going with this. Financially speaking, it would be a problem. Unfortunately, because of the whole abstinent deal, we’re in a bit of a clergy shortage.

Ironically Yours, Blade and Blood

 

[LilyM]

Put it this way - to the best of my knowledge priests have never been allowed to marry AFTER their ordination, although men who married *before *ordination were allowed to be priests.

Often with restrictions - in the Eastern churches today they cannot become bishops, for example. It would appear even our Eastern brothers realise the truth of St Paul’s observation that it is, in many ways, much more difficult for a married man to be a priest.

 

[bpbasilphx]

I know several married Catholic priests. One is the pastor where I attend.

While it’s an Eastern parish, I personally think that ALL the sui juris churches (including the Latin one) would benefit by ordaining married men.

Both married priests and celibate priests have different and compementary gifts which the Church can put to good use.

 

[YipYupYep]

As for the parish that has to foot the bill, they should be ashamed to be so tight-fisted as to deny their pastor a compensation that would, based on other denominations, still be a fraction of what their dentists, their doctors, their mechanics, and their electricians make…"

I am ready to step up to the plate.

That is why both celibacy and unmitigated monogamy are preferable to what secular society is trying to pass off as “natural.”

Okay, I get it now. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and pro creation are just being passed off by our sick society as normal. The marriage bed is a place of lust and impurity. That house full of kids are the fruits of this ungodliness. I wonder if your mother knows this?

 

[bilop]

You know one aspect of this conversation that is missing is that priests who take vows UNDERSTAND that they are required to celibacy.
Would the priesthood be better off if they were allowed to marry? Who knows?
When you join a club, you obey the rules. Otherwise, move to another club.
The priesthood and celibacy are sacrosanct in Catholicism. Leave it that thay.

Actually, there are plenty of non-celibate Catholic priests, both Eastern Catholics and Latin’s who are converts. They just need to be married before ordination, and then are called to marital chastity, like all other married Catholics.

Celibacy is not a doctrine, it is a discipline of the Latin Church, that can be waived by the Pope in individual cases.

God Bless

 

[He_Man]

The question that always needs to be asked in this case is “to what end?”

Who is making the call that we need to allow this? I don’t hear too many good Priests saying it is a problem. it is always lay people and exPriests taking up the charge. And no one ever provides ANY proof that abstinence is an impediment to vocations, or that changing things would to anything.

As I always point out, the Decaonate allows for people to be married (prior to), and they are not exactly busting at the seams with an overflow of Deacons…

 

[bilop]

As I always point out, the Decaonate allows for people to be married (prior to), and they are not exactly busting at the seams with an overflow of Deacons…

Actually, that’s not true. The U.S. has over 15,000 permanent Deacons, and the number keeps rising.

Even with the decline in the number of priest, there are now more clergy in the U.S. than ever, because of all the Deacons.

God Bless