Father Josh: A married Catholic priest in a celibate world

[Michie]

In a Catholic world where debates over clerical celibacy have flared from Brazil to the Vatican, Joshua Whitfield is the rarest of things: a married Catholic priest.

Father Josh: A married Catholic priest in a celibate world

 

[Gnarwhal]

Hm, I thought married priests were only allowed into the Roman Rite if they were within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate...

Surveys of Catholics show widespread backing for a married priesthood. A series of reports in recent years by the Pew Research Center showing 62 percent support among U.S. Catholics, 56 percent among Brazilians - the world’s most populous Catholic nation - and 63 percent in Central and Eastern Europe.

I'm glad my faith isn't in the average Catholic.

One reason behind that is a church facing an immense, and growing, shortage of priests. In the U.S., the number of priests has dropped by more than one-third since 1970, falling to fewer than 37,000 in 2018, even as America’s Catholic population has jumped from 54 million to 74 million, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Worldwide, the number of priests has remained fairly stable over the past 50 years - but the Catholic population has doubled to 1.3 billion.

Methinks the Church is due for a radical pruning, a separation of the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

I wish I could remember which video it was, but I remember seeing a little while ago a video of a couple of show hosts and two priests, one married one celibate, and they were discussing this issue. The married priest actually agreed that priests should be celibate because of how much the responsibility of a family cuts into his responsibility as a priest.

Fr. John Hollowell painted a word picture of everything he has to do as a priest of two parishes in Indiana, and it would just be utterly impossible for him to be a husband and father and be an adequate priest.

 

[Michie]

Well as the article mentions, married priests object to lifting celibacy as well.

But when I think of priests like Fr. Longnecker...it may not be the norm but I consider him an asset to the Church.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Hm, I thought married priests were only allowed into the Roman Rite if they were within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate...

Sort of. Even before the Ordinariates there were married former Anglican and Protestant ministers who were ordained Catholic priests. So not all married priests will be in the Ordinariate, but many will.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Sort of. Even before the Ordinariates there were married former Anglican and Protestant ministers who were ordained Catholic priests. So not all married priests will be in the Ordinariate, but many will.

So the Ordinariate is more of a pocket where it's more common because Episcopal/Anglican priests are often married, but it's been happening for a few decades.

 

[chevyontheriver]

So the Ordinariate is more of a pocket where it's more common because Episcopal/Anglican priests are often married, but it's been happening for a few decades.

Yes.

I think it happens when a Protestant minister who is married has his call examined and it appears that he has a true call to the priesthood even though it took a detour through Protestant ministry which allowed marriage.

Fr, Longenecker wasn't to my knowledge part of the ordinariate when he became a Catholic priest, even though he was a former Anglican priest. He has a right to associate with the Ordinariate but I don't think he has an obligation to do so.

 

[Rhamiel]

We had a married priest in my parish for a few years
Technically he was the assistant pastor but the pastor had multiple parishes so the married priest ran one parish and the other priest the bigger parish
He was an ok priest, helped me with a few things I was questioning about the Church, did an ok job.
He was a convert from the Methodist denomination