Would you tell your priest he had a hole in his pants?

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chanterhanson said:
We do agree here. You just paraphased the scriptures.



Wrong! The tradition in the Church is for married men to become priests, not for ordained men to become married. You've got it reversed.



We agree here also My confessor is a married priest and he is great. He understands my husband, myself and my child. He is very patient and kind also.

I am in favor of a married priesthood, but the candidate for the priesthood should be either a married man or a monastic. Both should remain stable and faithful to their commitment: either remaining a faithful husband or remaining chaste until death.

Hope this helps.
Elizabeth

Chanter I'm glad we both agree! :)
 
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MariaRegina

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Just thought I'd bump this down again to see if anyone else wanted to vote before the poll closes. It's been enjoyable reading the responses. Of course the purpose was to educate since many people think that the Eastern Catholic Priests can marry after they become Priests, which is false.

Those people who advocate that Priests be allowed to marry have got it backwards. Once a married man becomes a priest, he cannot remarry if his wife dies. Do you want the priests to be looking for wives in the congregation? It would be a disaster waiting to happen. It would surely distract him from the ministry. Don't you agree?

Hope this helps.
 
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Metanoia02

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Avila said:
I do believe that we should have married clergy - but only if they were married before accepting orders. :) I think it might help with the lack of vocations we seem to be having...

The miniscule number of priests this might attract will pale in comaprison to the number that will leave or never seek this vocation if this happened. I do not expect to see ordinary married clergy in my lifetime.

Lack of vocations has little or nothing to do with celebacy.
 
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MariaRegina

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Dear Met:

With the scandals going on in the Episcopal Church you can bet that you will see many married priests entering Catholicism, and soon.

Just some thoughts ...

Why the discrimination here? Faithful Catholic married men cannot enter the priesthood, but Protestant married men can? We have married priests from the Episcopalian converts and from the Eastern Catholic Churches (from the old countries). Why can't the Church open the priesthood to saintly married men and give the option to be celibate as the Eastern Catholic Churches do in the Middle East and Russia?
 
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Metanoia02

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chanter said:
Dear Met:

With the scandals going on in the Episcopal Church you can bet that you will see many married priests entering Catholicism, and soon.

Just some thoughts ...

Why the discrimination here? Faithful Catholic married men cannot enter the priesthood, but Protestant married men can? We have married priests from the Episcopalian converts and from the Eastern Catholic Churches (from the old countries). Why can't the Church open the priesthood to saintly married men and give the option to be celibate as the Eastern Catholic Churches do in the Middle East and Russia?

The only reason why married Episcopal priests are allowed to become Catholic priests is the adherence to the episcopacy that can be trace back to the beginning of the Church of England. Same goes for the Eastern Churches.

If married men are allowed to become Catholic Priests, we will have a vocations crisis that will be catastrophic.

Why not let married women become nuns? The whole concept of self sacrafice becomes meaningless if married men become priests and go home to thier wives at night while the dutiful celebate priest remains separate and alone.

I suggest you read "Goodbye , Good Men" to get a better appreciation of the vocations crisis and what brought it about. But don't get me started.
 
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Caedmon

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Metanoia02 said:
If married men are allowed to become Catholic Priests, we will have a vocations crisis that will be catastrophic.

Why not let married women become nuns? The whole concept of self sacrafice becomes meaningless if married men become priests and go home to thier wives at night while the dutiful celebate priest remains separate and alone.
I don't see what the big deal is. I think it's just resistance to change and speculation.
 
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MariaRegina

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Dear Met:

Re: Married women and monasticism

Married women can live a modified monastic life in their homes as the home is to be a school of sanctity, a little domestic church. If this were the case, and I pray that more women will be aware of their lofty calling to motherhood, we'd have more saintly priests and bishops.

Re: Homeschooling and increasing vocations to the priesthood.

There was a study done which was published by Seton Home School which showed an increase in priestly and monastic vocations among homeschoolers. Vocations are born in the family. A family that prays and studies together becomes a saintly family. A family that is divided by public schools and their diversions is handicapped.

Allowing priests to marry would cause problems I agree. Allowing married men to become priests is good. Again if Episcopalian priests (without valid orders) are allowed to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood, why can't a few good Catholic married men be ordained into the priesthood?

Are the Catholics recognizing Anglican orders now? This is news to me.

The Orthodox Church in many jurisdictions does recognize the Catholic Priesthood, but not the Anglican orders.

Yours truly,
Elizabeth
 
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Why not let married women become nuns? The whole concept of self sacrafice becomes meaningless if married men become priests and go home to thier wives at night while the dutiful celebate priest remains separate and alone.

I am not familiar with Catholic monasticism, but in the Orthodox faith the monastics job is to pray without ceasing for the faithful so it would not make sense for them to be married. The job of a priest is to shepherd the parish and having a spouse does not necessarily contradict that pastoral vocation.
 
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MariaRegina

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Dear Met:

I remember talking with an elderly Maronite Catholic priest and his wife, who had a parish in Atlanta, Georgia. She was the little mother for the parish. She was in charge of the choir, she looked out for the widows and their children, and she baked the prosphora, the bread which would become the Lamb of God at the Divine Liturgy.

She was the glue which held the parish together. We honor the priest's wives by calling them "matuscha" little mother in Russian; or "presbytera" (Greek for wife of a priest); or "khouria" (Arabic for wife of a priest).

Some feminists point to tombstones with the word "presbytera" and say that is proof for women priests - wrong.

Hope this helps,
Elizabeth
 
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Metanoia02

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Oblio said:
I am not familiar with Catholic monasticism, but in the Orthodox faith the monastics job is to pray without ceasing for the faithful so it would not make sense for them to be married. The job of a priest is to shepherd the parish and having a spouse does not necessarily contradict that pastoral vocation.

When an married Orthodox priest has to chose between his wife or his parish, which takes priority?
 
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Metanoia02

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chanter said:
Dear Met:

Re: Married women and monasticism

Married women can live a modified monastic life in their homes as the home is to be a school of sanctity, a little domestic church. If this were the case, and I pray that more women will be aware of their lofty calling to motherhood, we'd have more saintly priests and bishops.

Re: Homeschooling and increasing vocations to the priesthood.

There was a study done which was published by Seton Home School which showed an increase in priestly and monastic vocations among homeschoolers. Vocations are born in the family. A family that prays and studies together becomes a saintly family. A family that is divided by public schools and their diversions is handicapped.

Allowing priests to marry would cause problems I agree. Allowing married men to become priests is good. Again if Episcopalian priests (without valid orders) are allowed to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood, why can't a few good Catholic married men be ordained into the priesthood?

Are the Catholics recognizing Anglican orders now? This is news to me.

The Orthodox Church in many jurisdictions does recognize the Catholic Priesthood, but not the Anglican orders.

Yours truly,
Elizabeth

I believe I was in error on the Anglican orders issue.

They are not recognized. The priest in question still has some wortk to do before becoming a Catholic priest. On occassion that Episcopal priests become Catholic priests they come from High Church background. In some instances the entire congregation converts along with thier priest. This happened in Texas a number of years ago.

Nevertheless, this is extremely rare.
 
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And FTR, we have a Hieromonk pastor in our parish, so I understand some of the advantages of a single priest. I have also seen where being married could be helpful to a priest. I have also seen firsthand where a married pastor has had pastoral problems because of his wife, however in that case (as I would suspect in most), if Biblical principals were held to, there would not have been a problem.
 
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Metanoia02

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Oblio said:
I don't think it has to be an either or. His wife is part of the parish. And what is a commandment of a husband towards his wife ? How would this conflict with the parish needs ?

I appreciate your sentiments about the priests wife being a part of the parish, but this is an idealized version of reality. Many Protestants feel this way about thier ministers wife. The expectation is for the wife to be part of the local church. But the reality is that the pressure on the marriage is enormous.

Being married adds to a persons responisibilities, especially if they have children.

Scenario:

Priests wife is ill or in distress. Unfortuantely the priest has two weddings and a funeral to preside over this weekend. No replacements are available.

Who gets his time? Wife or the sacraments?

This happens over and over year after year. What is to become of this marriage? The priest is a husband first, no. But guess where he is expected to be. His Parish.
 
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MariaRegina

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Ideally, in an Orthodox Parish, the priest has good relations with other nearby priests who can fill in whenever an emergency occurs.

This occurs in the Eastern Catholic Churches, too. I remember that the Melkite Priest would serve Divine Liturgy in the Chaldean Catholic Church if that priest had family obligations: childbirth, or deaths in his family. Sometimes there are retired priests who also fill in.

Roman Catholic Priests will go and attend to their sick and dying parents also. They always have a backup priest whom they can call.
 
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Metanoia02 said:
I appreciate your sentiments about the priests wife being a part of the parish, but this is an idealized version of reality. Many Protestants feel this way about thier ministers wife. The expectation is for the wife to be part of the local church. But the reality is that the pressure on the marriage is enormous.

Being married adds to a persons responisibilities, especially if they have children.

Scenario:

Priests wife is ill or in distress. Unfortuantely the priest has two weddings and a funeral to preside over this weekend. No replacements are available.

Who gets his time? Wife or the sacraments?

This happens over and over year after year. What is to become of this marriage? The priest is a husband first, no. But guess where he is expected to be. His Parish.



You are so right.

The wife and family of a married priest are often lower on his list of daily priorities because he has so very much to fit in to his day. Often the care of the children falls almost solely upon the shoulders of the wife and mother - goodness, if she works also, it can be a an absolute nightmare! Not to mention the effects that this can have upon the children of course.

To be born in mind also are the consequences of such strain, on the family and on the church. Sadly, the priests wife is often rather an unsung hero in my opinion. The Church congregation have high expectations of the priests wife, as do the priest himself, the children of the marriage and the clergy in general.

Not only might she have almost all responsibility for meeting the needs of her children, but also she is expected to be a staunch support to her husband, a never failing hostess to all visiting clergy, members of the church congregation, feed the vagrants that plead poverty on the doorstep, hold down a job of her own, organise summer fayres, autmn fayres, bingo evenings, day trips, fund raising activities.......etc... and all with little thanks.

Many of the married priests that i know or know of are overstretched, and their marriages can become strained as a result. I have even heard of the result in one such situation leading to an affair, between the wife of a priest and a family friend.


And we think the priests got problems with a hole in his trousers ! :p
 
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