- Oct 31, 2008
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There was an interesting conversation about it on Reddit the other day. Essentially people seemed to be more or less in agreement that ordaining married men may be alright since that's essentially what the practice looks like in the Eastern Churches and the Anglican Ordinariate, but it was a "hard no" on marrying already-ordained priests (which is also the practice in those respective parts of the Church).
I started thinking about what that would mean for the families of married men who entered the priesthood. Would it be like the diaconate where most dioceses prefer to ordain men whose kids are grown and therefore he has fewer personal and financial responsibilities or would it be like Anglican and Orthodox priests where men who are married and still raising children would be ordained too?
If it were the latter case I wonder whether the Church would consider some kind of middle ground where the married priests perhaps have a smaller range of responsibilities than their celibate counterparts just because they may need to also have a day job to support their families (like deacons). So they're almost like halfway between a deacon and a celibate priest.
I had been thinking about it a lot lately and I would be interested in considering the priesthood if it were opened up to married men if my responsibilities mostly focused on sharing the Mass and Confession schedule with the pastor of the parish. But when it came to things like going to hospitals and prisons and homeless shelters perhaps that still be left to the celibate priests.
I know, it sounds kind of preposterous to put it that way because laymen can't dictate the terms of the priesthood but I wonder whether the Church can and would make a prudential judgment in the interest of addressing the vocation shortage and giving existing priests a bit of relief by having more priests to say Mass and hear Confessions? It seems like if things were applied to married priests the same way as they are for celibate priests, you may still not get too many takers because the life of a celibate priest isn't really conducive to family life.
It's such a complex issue though. It seems like there's no way the Church would do that, but then I often think about the odd priest who seems to be allowed a different set of responsibilities because maybe they're an instructor at a university or a prolific author or they have a social media presence that they curate as a ministry and it at least seems like they're allowed those pursuits in lieu of a more traditional ministry.
Does that make sense?
I started thinking about what that would mean for the families of married men who entered the priesthood. Would it be like the diaconate where most dioceses prefer to ordain men whose kids are grown and therefore he has fewer personal and financial responsibilities or would it be like Anglican and Orthodox priests where men who are married and still raising children would be ordained too?
If it were the latter case I wonder whether the Church would consider some kind of middle ground where the married priests perhaps have a smaller range of responsibilities than their celibate counterparts just because they may need to also have a day job to support their families (like deacons). So they're almost like halfway between a deacon and a celibate priest.
I had been thinking about it a lot lately and I would be interested in considering the priesthood if it were opened up to married men if my responsibilities mostly focused on sharing the Mass and Confession schedule with the pastor of the parish. But when it came to things like going to hospitals and prisons and homeless shelters perhaps that still be left to the celibate priests.
I know, it sounds kind of preposterous to put it that way because laymen can't dictate the terms of the priesthood but I wonder whether the Church can and would make a prudential judgment in the interest of addressing the vocation shortage and giving existing priests a bit of relief by having more priests to say Mass and hear Confessions? It seems like if things were applied to married priests the same way as they are for celibate priests, you may still not get too many takers because the life of a celibate priest isn't really conducive to family life.
It's such a complex issue though. It seems like there's no way the Church would do that, but then I often think about the odd priest who seems to be allowed a different set of responsibilities because maybe they're an instructor at a university or a prolific author or they have a social media presence that they curate as a ministry and it at least seems like they're allowed those pursuits in lieu of a more traditional ministry.
Does that make sense?
