Married clergy in Latin rite: Pros and Cons

[JanetM]

Considering as priestly celibacy is not a doctrine of the Catholic Church, and that there are married priests in the Eastern rite and even within the Latin rite in the case of previously non-Catholic Christian ministers who are already married, what are some points both in favour and against reverting back to a married clergy?

Also, which are you personally in favour of, and why?

[Kage_ar]

As the two married Latin Rite priests in my town are having coffee together this morning, maybe I can give some first-hand views?

I love and respect both of these priests. One of them was a friend prior to his Ordination, one was here long before I became Catholic.

Married priests are more expensive to a parish (at least in our Diocese). We are feeding two adult humans instead of one, so, grocery cost is doubled. In some small parishes, this would be a great burden. Things like paying for mowing on another lawn, etc.

Married priests HAVE to have time for their wives and families. They are not as "always here for everything" as a priest who lives over in the Rectory.

There are people who have questions, those returning to the faith, and practicing faithful who feel more comfortable talking about family issues with a married priest (one has even been through the Nullity process and that means a lot to folks).

[Deacon Arky]

I think we will see married clergy long before we see female priests, for what it's worth. I think we are slowly heading in that direction now. The acceptance of married Anglican priests is a good example....And as we continue to have a shortage of priests, the pressure will increase to allow married Catholic men to be ordained. Kage_ar's comments are very valid....I would also add, that a married priest, with 3 or 4 kids, also has to be prepared to pull up stakes every few years as he may be assigned to a new parish....and in our diocese, which encompasses the entire state, that can mean moving up to 5 hours away....completely away from families that have become part of your kids lives. It's not an easy thing to answer.

In the diaconate formation class before mine, there was a gentlemen who was a married, former Baptist minister who had converted to Catholicism, studying for the permanent diaconate. He was recognized as being already well developed in pastoral and human formation so he was invited to discern for the priesthood. He is now a very fine Catholic Priest in our diocese, who I greatly enjoy talking about ministry with when I get a chance....the only thing I have an issue with is this....what if there was another man, a married cradle Catholic, who also showed that same potential?? He basically is "penalized" for being Catholic (probably a poor choice of words, I know).

As i said...not a topic with any easy answers.

****opinions above are strictly my own and are not given as an example of church teaching....these opinions do not reflect the opinions of my diocese or The church in general and should not be taken as such...

[Kage_ar]

In my experience with married priests over in this corner of the Diocese, since Father A owned a home here in town he was never assigned to another town - just between the two parishes here in town. The other married priest in town has lived in the same home for all of his assignments, none more than 40 minutes from his house.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

We will never see female priests, period, end of story.

[Doom]

The simple statement "priestly celibacy is not a doctrine" is technically true but rather misleading.

It is a doctrine of the Church that a vow of celibacy is superior to marriage because it involves giving up something good for God. It is also true that both Jesus and St. Paul praised and recommended celibacy. Indeed, St Paul's position seems rather extreme, as he says that he thinks "everyone" should be like him, i.e. celibate, a rule which if taken literally would quickly lead to the extinction of the human race.

Celibacy for priests has always been regarded as the ideal, even in the Old Testament. Levitical priests were forbidden to have relations with their wives during their service in the temple. When David, while on a military campaign, was given the sacred Bread of the Presence from the temple by the high priest, he first asked David if he and his troops had been celibate before he gave the bread to them.

Yes, it is true that sometimes exceptions to this ideal have been made, and it hasn't always been strictly enforced even in the West and is enforced more loosely in the Eastern Churches. This is because the Church realizes that the ideal cannot always be upheld and practices prudence about when and how to make exceptions to the ideal. But the exceptions do not disprove the ideal. And even when the rule was less strictly enforced, and even in the Eastern Churches where it is more loosely enforced, celibacy was still considered better. Bishops are only chosen from among the celibate, and though married men can become priests, once a man is ordained as a priest, he can no longer be married. If a single man is ordained, he must remain celibate for life, or if he wishes to get married he will need his bishop's permission and ask to be laicized

So, contrary to what some wannabe "reformers" think, the Church cannot just discard the ideal completely and just declare "from now on no vow of celibacy will be required for anyone and all married men can become priests."

[peregrinator]

We will never see female priests, period, end of story.

Well, we may see some women who think they are priests, and manage to convince some of the faithful; but of course they will not really BE priests.

[peregrinator]

And as we continue to have a shortage of priests, the pressure will increase to allow married Catholic men to be ordained.

I agree that we will see increased pressure to admit married men to the priesthood under the guise of alleviating the priest shortage, but I don't think it will actually help, should it come to pass.

[gherkin]

...what if there was another man, a married cradle Catholic, who also showed that same potential?? He basically is "penalized" for being Catholic (probably a poor choice of words, I know).

Since he's married, that potential is best directed towards those for whom he has a special responsibility due to his vocation. Putting him into the priestly ministry puts two vocations into competition with one another.

Things are sometimes viewed differently for people who lacked the advantage of being baptized into the Faith as children: this takes into account the fact that such people didn't have the same opportunity to respond to a call to the priesthood before they felt called to marriage. The hypothetical married Catholic you're talking about had that opportunity and either ignored it, or correctly discerned that there was no call to the priesthood. It's not a penalty for that difference to be recognized.

Note that your question is in some ways analogous to a case where a Catholic married young and foolishly, eventually divorced, and now wants to remarry. You might say, the man has a great potential to be a good husband and father, and is being "penalized" (so to speak, using your term but of course taking into account the fact that you flagged you might not want to really use it) in not being allowed by the Church to exercise those gifts due to something that happened to him much earlier in life. Well, that first marriage is indeed a lifelong bond and there's nothing to be done about it. Someone who was not raised Catholic and entered into marriage with no intention of sticking with it, with a complete rejection of the idea of any children, etc, could easily get an annulment if he joined the Church, and then could freely marry. Is the Catholic being treated unfairly because no such annulment is available for him?

Again, this is only in some ways analogous--I'm not making a direct comparison, precisely because the discipline of not having married priests is different in kind from the truth about the sacrament of holy matrimony. But I still think the analogy helps illuminate.

[JanetM]

In my propensity to cling to the familiar, I think that I would personally feel uncomfortable if the Latin Church were to scrap priestly celibacy; and yet, on the other hand, I also almost feel that the rule of celibacy has proven a complete failure and mere hypocrisy.

A. W. Richard Sipe was a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest who spent a career counseling troubled priests, researching the Church's sex abuse, and ultimately testifying on behalf of hundreds of Church sex abuse victims.

Sipe writes in his new book, "I estimate that at any one time 50 percent of priests are practicing celibacy". He makes these shocking estimates: "Thirty percent of priests are involved in heterosexual relationships, associations, experimentation or patterns of behavior. Fifteen percent of priests are involved with homosexual relationships...Six percent of priests involve themselves with minors."
https://www.royalgazette.com/religion/l ... -celibacy/

If "at any one time" only 50% of priests are celibate, then even fewer, a minority, are actually celibate throughout their career as priests. Celibacy then becomes only a charade, and in the end, it might actually be better for the overall health of the Church to admit married men into the priesthood than allow such falsehood to run amok underground.

I am also so deeply disappointed in the absolute indifference of the Church towards their victims of sexual abuse, and I can't help but wonder if there is any correlation between this attitude and priestly "celibacy." Even priests who don't engage in abuse don't seem to take the sex abuse victims seriously. They seem more preoccupied with the "scandal" than the actual victims. I don't know, maybe it's because they've never had their own families, they don't have their own children so they don't feel it as personally as an actual parent would.

Sipe also wrote:

“When men in authority — cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors — are having or have had an unacknowledged-secret-active-sex life under the guise of celibacy, an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviors within the system is made operative.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/nyre ... at-85.html

That makes clear sense to me.

And though a "rogue" priest, I think Richard McBrien also had a perfectly fair point when he wrote:

There are some healthy people who practice celibacy. But that requirement of the priesthood will attract a disproportionately high percentage of men who are sexually dysfunctional, sexually immature, or whose orientation will raise the question - are they attracted to the priesthood because of the ministry, or because it is a profession that forbids one to be married?
https://www.royalgazette.com/religion/l ... -celibacy/

[JanetM]

I agree that we will see increased pressure to admit married men to the priesthood under the guise of alleviating the priest shortage, but I don't think it will actually help, should it come to pass.

I'm curious to know why you don't believe that would help much if at all?

[gherkin]

A. W. Richard Sipe was a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest who spent a career counseling troubled priests, researching the Church's sex abuse, and ultimately testifying on behalf of hundreds of Church sex abuse victims....

So he spends his time talking to fallen priests, and then comes up with an estimate about the percentage of priests who fail at celibacy. I wonder if his estimate is reliable? Do you see the problem? It's just like Freud spending all his time talking to crazy people and then teaching that basically we're all crazy. Or Kinsey dealing with perverts and then declaring that we're all perverted.

There are some healthy people who practice celibacy. But that requirement of the priesthood will attract a disproportionately high percentage of men who are sexually dysfunctional, sexually immature, or whose orientation will raise the question - are they attracted to the priesthood because of the ministry, or because it is a profession that forbids one to be married?

This is not a good point. The fact is that seminaries have for a couple of generations now forced out the devout young men who accept Church teaching on sexuality, and allowing in people who dissent, and particularly people who are homosexual. And then we get sexual abuse from priests--who could have predicted--that to a very large extent involves homosexual abuse. The problem is not celibacy.

[JanetM]

The problem is not celibacy

The problem is not celibacy itself, but I feel that the rule of celibacy compounds the issue by excluding married men who might otherwise discern.

Married men would: 1) dilute the population of and more importantly, the culture of homosexuals in the priesthood; and 2) as actual fathers to children, take sex abuse more seriously and so be more likely to act as whistleblowers when they recognise a sex offender among the clergy.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Here's a shocker:

Either (1) celibacy doesn't cause abuse or (2) an astonishing proportion of public school teachers are celibate. Which do you think is the case?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google for cases of abuse of children by their teachers. For some odd reason, it doesn't get the attention that priest abuse does. Perhaps it's because it's a lot more difficult to sue a school district, or perhaps it's because teachers unions bankroll a lot of causes that the media like. Or maybe I'm just cynical.

But whether or not I'm cynical, the claim that celibacy causes abuse is nonsensical when investigated.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

as actual fathers to children, take sex abuse more seriously and so be more likely to act as whistleblowers when they recognise a sex offender among the clergy.

I suspect few, if any, priests ordained in the last 25 years or so are at all interested in covering up.

Here's another fact you might not know: There are very few new cases of priestly abuse. Not because of coverups, but candidates for the priesthood are under a microscope. A few slip by--only by admitting no one could perfect success come about--but not many.

[JanetM]

the claim that celibacy causes abuse is nonsensical when investigated.

Absolutely, and I'm not making that case. If priests were celibate, this abuse wouldn't be happening.

What I'm suggesting (and my mind isn't remotely made up on priestly celibacy) is that the ostensible rule of celibacy unfortunately attracts, or did attract, a lot of homosexual predators who: 1) wouldn't be judged by society for not marrying and 2) could easy place themselves in positions of power and absolute trust, whereby they could abuse seminarians and children with near immunity.

Men entering the priesthood, who weren't morally disordered in the first place, even if they were to break celibacy, they would more likely be in a consensual relationship than abusing the vulnerable. So, if you get what I mean, I'm not saying that celibacy causes abuse, but that having the rule there tends to attract the wrong kinds of people so that we have a disproportionate number of them circulating around our parishes.

[JanetM]

For some odd reason, it doesn't get the attention that priest abuse does.

In my opinion, for the amount of absolute suffering they have wrecked on their victims, priest abuse still doesn't get enough attention, especially among Catholics.

Priests supposedly answered a higher calling to dedicate themselves to God. They received an incredibly holy and indelible mark when they took up their vows, so yes, they ought to be held to a far higher standard than public school teachers. For my part, these priests' breach of care and duty goes far beyond the ordinary.

[JanetM]

I suspect few, if any, priests ordained in the last 25 years or so are at all interested in covering up.

Here's another fact you might not know: There are very few new cases of priestly abuse. Not because of coverups, but candidates for the priesthood are under a microscope.

I'm not that optimistic.

If there are fewer new cases (or more importantly, fewer instances) of abuse, I attribute it more to the fact that due to media coverage, people are more on their guard against priests and are more likely to report an abuse today, making it harder for predator priests to find victims.

That said, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you either that candidates aren't scrutinised more today as they should be, but again I'm not optimistic and it's a (good) fact that priests aren't trusted as much anymore.

[zeno]

Just a friendly note since you are new here: Obi-Wan's rank indicates he is a Catholic priest.

[JanetM]

Just a friendly note since you are new here: Obi-Wan's rank indicates he is a Catholic priest.

Ahh, I see! But that just means we both feel strongly about protecting the Church.

Thank you!