Folks, almost 5 years ago - wow, has it been that long? - I wrote a blog post entitled Is it time to ordain married men to the Catholic priesthood? in which I gave a very cautious "maybe" to the idea. Today, I'm distancing myself from my own suggestion.
Five years of continuing reflection on the issue and in the light of increased pressure to ordain married men to the priesthood have led me to the following provisional conclusion: NO. Forces outside of, or inimical to the Church, are pushing for married priests now more than ever for their own purposes. I don't think we should vow to the pressure. Like I've said, I believe in Catholic solutions to Catholic problems and so far the masses of those who advocate married priests are not offering any Catholic solutions. The mere fact that they agitate and propagandize in favor of their viewpoint show me that as long as those dissonant voices prevail in the Church's discourse, any wholesale changes in the discipline of the celibate chastity requirements of most priests of the Latin Rite must wait until that time in which we are sure that it is the voice of the Spirit, and not the screams of the agitpropers, the one that guides the Church on this grave matter. Unseeming outside pressure of so-called Catholics and of non-Catholics should have no bearing on this issue.
Now is not the time to ordain worthy married men to the Latin-rite priesthood outside of the Anglican Provision.
WDTPRS: Pro seipso sacerdote – For the priest himself (1962MR)
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Since this is a time of year when new priests are being ordained, and many
priests are observing their own anniversaries, let’s have a WDTPRS look at
the p...
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4 comments:
If you think we have problems with celibate priests, wait until we have married ones.
I find it sardonic that when our growing pederasty problem in the US public school system outpaces Catholic Priestly problems by something nearing 4000:1, no one suggests we make our male teachers celibate.
But when 1/4000th of problem, the priests, in the time of 1960's sexual corruption, commit the same or lesser crimes, everyone says we should allow married priests.
Celibacy is a sign of maturity in a culture and always has been. I have heard it said that Christ came when he did because Judaism had achieved (by the grace of God, as in all things) a significant movement and growth of membership of celibate and consecrated religious individuals (such as Mary, the Mother of God).
The Church has what Grace it has in these times due to our celibate, consecrated individuals. To diminish that whatsoever is to reject the growth of spirituality and grace within our community.
Easy for me to say as a married lay, but I admire those individuals and their freedom to pursue God unhindered by trappings of human relationships. Marriage is officially a Good Thing(TM), don't get me wrong, but celibacy has been a saint-making machine for over 2,000 years. No reason to stop it now.
Never let our enemies push you in either direction. They will howl regardless of what the Church does.
What if restoring this tradition is a key step, and Satan manages to keep us from doing it by making his drones shout at us? He would not be above a little reverse psychology.
Whether the timing is right for such a thing is rightly to be considered; at the same time, don't you agree that timing is not the only thing? For if a thing is right in the fullness of time, then at some point is good to be realized. The Church in the East has always had celibates - monks and nuns - along side married clergy and laity. The West developed its own tradition, albeit rather quite late relative to the more developed East. Also, to Chad's point, the Church has always recognized sanctity among celibates and non-celibates; to say that what Grace exists is just from one group is Gnostic in its core, at a minimum.
Thank you for this post. I agree with you 100%.
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