Controversial poll

[Gnarwhal]

There's a thread on r/Catholicism on Reddit right now asking people to share their controversial Catholic opinions. Anyway, one guy had some really interesting thoughts on how, in his experience, the Eastern Catholics/Orthodox got the priesthood and episcopate right by allowing priests to marry. It made me want to post this poll question here, which may not be nearly as controversial as I'm thinking, but for spice...why not eh?

Obviously there's already precedent for one in the Church but not the other, nevertheless what do you think would be a better solution for addressing the sharp decline in vocations?

 

[Michie]

I’d be alright with married priests. We already have a few. I’m not all that enamored with the idea of a female priesthood.

 

[Erose]

Well considering that having priestesses in the Catholic Church is theologically impossible, the only answer is allowing married men to become priests.

But there is a problem with that one as well IMO. Right now the Western church is not built to support a married clergy. It just doesn't have the money for a large number of fulltime married priest. The Western church would have to figure out what to do to pay them, because a married man supporting a family has to have more than a single man living at a rectory.

Tithing would definitely have to become a greater emphasis, and I'm not sure the Church has the tradition of being a good tithing church compared to Protestant and I would imagine Eastern Churches. There is a very large percentage that gives 1, 5, 10 dollars a Mass, instead of lets say 10% of their earnings.

My point having a married priesthood may sound nice, but it does bring some heavy financial challenges if married priests becomes the norm versus the exception. You might have to shut down small parishes just for the reason that they cannot support enough Catholics to support the pay and utilities of a more expensive clergy.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

From the EO perspective, there are a number of married priests who have a secular job. One of my friends is a software developer full-time and is the priest for a small congregation in Texas.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Bishop Barron explained it best.
He said that the feminist today demanding ordination of women, see the priesthood
as a position of power and they want that power.

The fact is, the priesthood is a vocation of service in which only a man can serve. It's
becoming Christ en persona on the altar at Mass. It's Christ en persona hearing confessions
or ministering the sacraments to the sick and dying.

CCC
1577 "Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination." The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ's return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.

875 "How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?"390 No one - no individual and no community - can proclaim the Gospel to himself: "Faith comes from what is heard."391 No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. The one sent by the Lord does not speak and act on his own authority, but by virtue of Christ's authority; not as a member of the community, but speaking to it in the name of Christ. No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ. From him, bishops and priests receive the mission and faculty ("the sacred power") to act in persona Christi Capitis; deacons receive the strength to serve the people of God in the diaconia of liturgy, word and charity, in communion with the bishop and his presbyterate. The ministry in which Christ's emissaries do and give by God's grace what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a "sacrament" by the Church's tradition. Indeed, the ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

There's a thread on r/Catholicism on Reddit right now asking people to share their controversial Catholic opinions. Anyway, one guy had some really interesting thoughts on how, in his experience, the Eastern Catholics/Orthodox got the priesthood and episcopate right by allowing priests to marry. It made me want to post this poll question here, which may not be nearly as controversial as I'm thinking, but for spice...why not eh?

Obviously there's already precedent for one in the Church but not the other, nevertheless what do you think would be a better solution for addressing the sharp decline in vocations?

Just a correction, in the EO and Eastern Catholic rites, married men can be ordained, but priests are not permitted to marry.

So a sizable number of Orthodox priests are second career. In my seminary class, I think 10 or so of us were second career guys, ranging from late 20s to mid 40s.

 

[zippy2006]

From the EO perspective, there are a number of married priests who have a secular job. One of my friends is a software developer full-time and is the priest for a small congregation in Texas.

This would be contrary to Canon Law (CIC 286) and longstanding Catholic practice. This gets directly into the divided loyalties that Paul wished to avoid in 1 Corinthians 7.

Well considering that having priestesses in the Catholic Church is theologically impossible, the only answer is allowing married men to become priests.

Yes, the poll presupposes a false equivalence. It presupposes that "woman priests" are a true possibility. In this sense the poll itself is doctrinally problematic, as it encourages Catholics to adopt the false belief that women could be priests.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

This would be contrary to Canon Law (CIC 286) and longstanding Catholic practice. This gets directly into the divided loyalties that Paul wished to avoid in 1 Corinthians 7.

I didnt realize that there was a canon on that. But it does appear that exceptions can be made "except with the permission of legitimate ecclesiastical authority."

From what I know, even Orthodox prefer that priests can be supported by the parish or if it is a mission, some salary can be funded at the diocese level. The few priests that do have secular jobs are generally located in areas with just enough people to have a parish but not enough to be full-time.

One thing that is a bit in our favor is that Orthodox have tended to have only a handful of parishes even in major cities, although our jurisdictional issues did bring their own problems. So we generally don't have the proliferation of small parishes that Catholics have. I grew up in Cincinnati and you knew what part of town someone was from by what parish they attended as every single neighborhood has a Catholic church. These five churches are all within a 10-15 drive of each other.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

We already have married priests. Episcopals who converted. It seems to work fine.

 

[Michie]

We already have married priests. Episcopals who converted. It seems to work fine.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is one.

 

[Erose]

I'm not saying that it cannot work. What I am saying is that given the current state of the finances of a lot of dioceses, some of which are filing bankruptcy; full-time married priests are going to cost a parish/diocese two to three times more to employee than a single priest, and you have to take that into account. Many parishes (like mine) cannot afford to hire a fulltime youth director or catechesis director or anything outside of maybe a parish secretary. Catholics have not been conditioned like a lot of Protestant congregations to pay 10% of their earnings to the parish, so you have to think about where that money will come from.

Large dioceses/parishes, probably will not have that issue, and can handle such a change easily; but the poorer ones, well that is a different story.

 

[chevyontheriver]

There's a thread on r/Catholicism on Reddit right now asking people to share their controversial Catholic opinions. Anyway, one guy had some really interesting thoughts on how, in his experience, the Eastern Catholics/Orthodox got the priesthood and episcopate right by allowing priests to marry. It made me want to post this poll question here, which may not be nearly as controversial as I'm thinking, but for spice...why not eh?

Obviously there's already precedent for one in the Church but not the other, nevertheless what do you think would be a better solution for addressing the sharp decline in vocations?

Married priests are possible. I have met two of them. Female priests just aren’t possible.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

full-time married priests are going to cost a parish/diocese two to three times more to employee than a single priest, and you have to take that into account.

Not really. Do we pay anyone more because they have family and children.

 

[Erose]

Not really. Do we pay anyone more because they have family and children.

I'm sorry you will have to if you are trying to attract married men to join the priesthood; because whether a priest or not, a husband's primary duty is to his family and taking care of them; and if you have ever asked a priest how much money he makes...well it will be extremely difficult even in the areas with the lowest standard of living for him to support his family.

So it would be like hey we want you married men to become priests, but your family will have to live in deep poverty with you for you to do so. It is one thing for a single man/woman to choose to live in poverty; it is quite another for a single man to choose for their children and wife live in poverty.

Anyway it sounds great on paper, but it is a much more difficult option than one would on the outside think. Remember our Church has been surviving off of dirt cheap labor for centuries.

A good example is how the Catholic school system has changed because of the loss of ample religious working those schools. Everything went up drastically, to the point, most poor Catholics truly cannot even think about sending their kids to a CS. That was not a case, what over 50 years ago? Now you will say yeah, but they figured it out, and I would say I agree, but even today a Catholic school teacher is sacrificing a lot financially to teach there, and in many cases could double, if not triple, their salaries by getting certified to teach in public school. But even though Private school teachers don't make anywhere near as much as public school teachers; Catholic school tuition is not cheap.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

I'm sorry you will have to if you are trying to attract married men to join the priesthood; because whether a priest or not, a husband's primary duty is to his family and taking care of them; and if you have ever asked a priest how much money he makes...well it will be extremely difficult even in the areas with the lowest standard of living for him to support his family.

So it would be like hey we want you married men to become priests, but your family will have to live in deep poverty with you for you to do so. It is one thing for a single man/woman to choose to live in poverty; it is quite another for a single man to choose for their children and wife live in poverty.

The parish council prayer when looking for a new minister:

Lord, send us a man,
Humble and poor.
You keep him humble
and we'll keep him poor.

 

[Lady Bug]

The thing that people don't get about married priests is that they can only be married if they were married before ordination. If the men were single at the time of ordination, they're still bound by the celibacy rule just like in the Latin Rite. I think some people romanticize the Eastern Rite without realizing that it's not "have your cake and eat it too."

 

[Paidiske]

Erose is right that the financial picture does change when the bulk of your clergy are married. Their spouses might work, but they also might not, and what a single man can live simply but comfortably on, won't meet a growing family's needs. That doesn't mean it can't work - Anglicans made that shift some centuries ago and it would be worth looking at what works in different places - but there would be an adjustment period and a need for being open to some creative solutions.

 

[Bob Crowley]

As an ex-Protestant I'm mindful of the fact the Protestants have very successfully run their churches with married pastors for 500 years.

If the Catholic Church is really fair dinkum about wanting to reunify with the Protestants, that's one compromise they are going to have to make. Full stop.

 

[Sword of the Lord]

There is no world in which a female can be a priest, but married priests were once a thing (and still are in the East) and it is simply a discipline to not be married now. There's no debate here.

 

[chevyontheriver]

As an ex-Protestant I'm mindful of the fact the Protestants have very successfully run their churches with married pastors for 500 years.

If the Catholic Church is really fair dinkum about wanting to reunify with the Protestants, that's one compromise they are going to have to make. Full stop.

To a degree they already have. Married Orthodox and married Anglican priests who become Catholic are often ordained as Catholic priests with their wives in tow. I have met two such critters and know of others. So it's already happened. We maintain for now a general discipline of celibacy but with exceptions. Not sure whether the exceptions would cover Lutheran or Methodist or Pentecostal or Baptist or non-denominational pastors.