There is nothing doctrinal about a celibate priesthood. Married clergy existed a little over a thousand years in the Church. It probably was the issue of inheritance by heirs of married priests that had more to do with the imposition of celibacy than any of the disciplinary reasons now given.
The real doctrinal issue is the provision of the Eucharist to the faithful. If it is indeed regarded as the central act of worship and sacrament of the Catholic Church, then its denial and absence in many communities for long periods flies in the face of the real doctrinal issue, the necessity of the Eucharist in the faithful's lives. The disciplinary issue of celibacy is far less important that the provision of the Eucharist.
3
What does it matter what a sexist, corrupt organization that preys on children thinks or does? This also isn't news: There has always been a back door into ordination for converts. When the Vatican opens church offices to women, opens its books, becomes a more transparent organization and lives its own teachings THAT will be news.
2
Jesus never said you had to be single to be one of his priests. Enough with the celibacy thing: married priests, and female deacons should revolutionize the church back to its early days, and provide a path to the future.
3
An encouraging sign, Pope Francisco.
2
Admitting married men as candidates for the priesthood will also need that other bastion of clericalism, the seminary, to also change.
You can't expect a married man to leave his family and go into a seminary for 5 or 6 years (you have to wonder why present seminary training takes that long, anyway).
The whole seminary system needs to be overhauld or even abolished in favour of training clergy in mainstream university theological colleges, as non-Catholic clergy are. The peculiarly Catholic aspect of the priestood can be taught in minor seminary-cum-parish practicums via day attendance.
Incidentally, there is a precendent for priesthood candidates to attend as day students: Pope Pius XII did.
1
The shortage of priests has been a long time coming. I remember reading predictions about it 30 plus years ago (when the number of seminarians had been in decline for a while). We are now seeing first hand the fulfillment of those long ago predictions. For some time now many parishes have been getting by with one priest, instead of two or three. Now some priests have to cover two, or maybe three, parishes. The problem here in the US is not as severe as in the Amazon region, but in some rural areas it is pretty severe.
Is the answer to allow married men and women (and married women) to become priests? Personally, I have no objection to this. I expect some Catholics would be upset if this happened. Would they leave the church? Would others outside the church decide to join? I don’t think anyone really knows the answer (at least with any certainty). I suppose some would leave, but the real challenge facing the church in terms of maintaining membership is how to retain its’ traditions and theological foundation while adapting to the changes and challenges of the modern world.
Totally unfair! Just like allowing Episcopal priest that are married join the ranks of Catholic priest. It is no wonder that good priest like Jonathan Morris leave the clergy only to allow gay priest that abuse children to remain. Hope everyone realizes that up until the 12th Century, Catholic priest were allowed to be married. It was only because priest were making their wills out to their families rather than giving it to the church that they changed the rules. Again, all because of the money. There needs to be some drastic changes within the Church.Totally unfair! Just like allowing Episcopal priest that are married join the ranks of Catholic priest. It is no wonder that good priest like Jonathan Morris leave the clergy only to allow gay priest that abuse children to remain. Hope everyone realizes that up until the 12th Century, Catholic priest were allowed to be married. It was only because priest were making their wills out to their families rather than giving it to the church that they changed the rules. Again, all because of the money. There needs to be some drastic changes within the Church.
1
How about trying to make sexuality a gift from God and one to accept and celebrate for its calming and clarifying role in human emotions?
For hundreds of years feminine sexuality has been terrifying to the male dominated church for its power which must have threatened the church as a rival and worldly attention. Try to include both sexuality and the much neglected natural world in spirituality, which will free the church from distrust of the power of the feminine spirit and also strengthen the church.
2
The Pope authorized what is called an "ordinariate" to allow Anglican priests in the UK and Episcopal priests in the US to become Roman Catholic priests. This was not a "one time" event as this continues to happen, with occaisional married Lutheran pastors also becoming priests. Additionally, Eastern Rite Roman Catholic priests are allowed to marry, and have been for years. It is important to remember that clerical celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrinal requirement, and can be allowed- or not- at any point. Simply stated, it's a situation of demand and supply. Parts of Amazon are without any sacramental ministry, and this is an effort to reach out to them.
I thought that the church finally made a small step in the right direction. I kept reading the article until this:
"But he has also made clear that the church’s broader commitment to celibacy for priests remains intact."
What hypocrites those church leaders are. And that's from the pope on down.
Maybe, just maybe, if married men and women were able to take the vows, minus celibacy there wouldn't be so much child molesting by "priests."
4
Kerala state in India exports more Catholic priests than any other locality. If some of them choose South America instead of exclusively concentrating on Europe and North America, the shortage of priests in Amazon area can be minimized.
This sounds like a SNL sketch but instead it’s just so stupid.
14
I wish that this "reform" does not go through, and that the victims of this church are totally free of its depradations.
The catholic church is an evil institution at core. While it may have acquired a 20th century veneer, its fundamental character is the same as it was in the time of the inquisition, the hounding of Galileo, the burning of Bruno Giordano. It still believes in ridiculous miracles, and in mumbo jumbo excorcism of demons. Most of all, it continues to terrorize children with the idea of hell.
The whole thing deserves to burn down to the ground -- the Vatican, Notre Dame, everything. The art and architecture lost will be a small price to pay for the elimination of all the vileness.
4
@whaddoino
NO! That would be a huge price to pay.
The art and architecture must be preserved. You may not appreciate it but millions and millions of people do.
When looking at art, it's like looking into the soul of the person who was responsible for the art.
Have you been to Italy? I have. Several times and each time I marvel at the wonderful art on display. Including painting, sculptures and weavings.
Have you seen Michaelangelo's "Slaves?"
How about "David?"
I have and it is mind blowing. How about the "Pieta" in St. Peters? You can feel the grief of the mother of Jesus. Whether you believe or not.
No, I am not a practicing Catholic, I am a recovering Catholic. It's been decades since I've been to church and I don't miss it at all.
So say what you feel like saying but do NOT say the art and architecture must be lost.
If that happens we will lose whatever humanity we might have had.
2
Instead of investigating how they can get more priests to keep the indigenous people under the thumb of the RC church, they should allow them to practice the religion which was stolen from them by the Spanish Catholics. The Church is lamenting that Protestants are stealing Catholic souls, but they stole the souls of the native peoples by forced conversion. Leave them alone and let them practice their own religions.
10
@S.L. Looks like Catholicism was a step up, to be honest:
The forms sacrifice might take vary considerably. In contemporary sacrificial rites, there is an overall emphasis on the sprinkling of blood, especially that of turkeys. In the pre-Spanish past, sacrifice usually consisted of animals such as deer, dog, quail, turkey, and fish, but on exceptional occasions (such as accession to the throne, severe illness of the ruler, royal burial, or drought and famine) also came to include human beings, adults as well as children.[8] The sacrificed child may have served as a 'substitute', a concept known from curing ritual.[9] Partaking of the sacrifice was common, but ritual cannibalism appears to have been exceedingly rare. A characteristic feature of ancient Mayan ritual (though not exclusive to the Mayas) were the "bloodletting" sessions held by high officials and members of the royal families, during which the earlobes, tongues, and foreskins were cut with razor-sharp small knives and stingray spines;[10] the blood fell on paper strips that were possibly burnt afterwards.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_religion
1
@S.L.
Fat chance of that happening.
This is not 'new'.
When I was living up in Vancouver there was a married man, who was Protestant, Anglican, who became a Roman Catholic priest.
That would have been about 15 years ago.
And, as for members of the RC church going for "months" without seeing a priest, please take a history class of the Catholic Church, pre-Enlightenment. There were priests who couldn't speak or read a word of Latin, confused the saints with Jesus, and thought the 3 Wise Men were the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Also, syncretism, the combining of local religions with Catholicism, has been around since the Roman Empire, that is, since the beginning of the Christian Church. In fact, there were well over 200 "Christian sects" by 300 CE, all determined to kill each other off.
Yes, the Church in South America is a mess. Nor was it helped last Friday when the Pope accepted the resignation of the Chilean Bishop after he was drummed out for telling Chileans that the reason that there were no women at the Last Supper was maybe because "women like to be in the back room."
Another misogynist gone.
Clueless.
These men are absolutely clueless when they are not being criminal.
11
The Catholic Church is back--and better than ever!
2
Yeah !!!!
St. Peter and St. Philip will be thrilled that balanced family men are able to follow the path of the original Apostles.
1
Women should be permitted to be priests. It would improve the quality of the priesthood dramatically.
9
Amen! So-called celibacy has been no gift to the thousands of women and boys who've endured sexual assault by priests.
4
All Protestant religions are in membership decline. The Catholic Church has been able to continue its growth around the world with close to 1.3 billion members. No small feat but there is obviously an attraction that other religions have not been able to obtain. I guess making these faiths more progressive has had little impact. The Catholic Church has purpose and meaning to offer and is still relevant to many folks. They need its existence in their everyday lives. There would be a tremendous void and loss without it.
5
The priest acts in persona Christi, thus male.
3
A small step, but history tells us it will be years, decades, or maybe a century before the church wakes up enough to expand this potential program. Limited to older men — I read that to mean men who will be unlikely to father more children.
I saw the tiny steps to Anglican priest converts while living in Texas a long time ago. It seemed to work well.
The answer is....well, I may not be smart enough to know the answer. Maybe no one is smart enough to know the answer. Let’s try a wider married priest program — all dioceses in all countries. Let’s try women priests. It’s worked well for the Episcopalians so far.
In the Trenton NJ diocese, the plan seems to be to bring in foreign priests. They appear to be conscientious men with solid church education — perfectly suited for 1958. Most, but not all, American priests have moved beyond 1958. For some reason, the foreign priests seem to be rooted in pre-Vatican II theology. Again, nice enough guys, but not really speaking to 21st century Americans.
The weekly summary of donations to the parish we attend speaks volumes — less than fifteen percent of registered families give by using envelopes or by using the electronic donation program. There is cash in the basket as it passes us by, but not a lot.
2
Celibacy was initiated within the Catholic Church only in the 12th century. For a thousand years, priests could be married.
There is nothing theological or Biblical, except lawyers' arguments, about celibacy. It was introduced to prevent priests from having heirs, and competing with the hierarchy: a move in, so to speak, a class struggle within the Church.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the parish clergy are married, and as a result, the Orthodox priests who became Catholic, centuries ago when Catholic powers conquered part of the western Orthodox region, were allowed to marry as before.
In both these cases, and in the Amazonia exception of this article, the reason for celibacy or its absence is convenience. While it is a foundation of the modern church, not to mention a fundamental threat to it, theologically it is, so to speak, no big deal.
Perhaps Francis will announce something like: there is no doctrinal reason for celibacy; it is the basis for immense hypocrisy among us; I suspect it underlies much if not most of the sexual abuse crisis that has haunted and distracted us from our real work. Accordingly, I am ending it.
8
@alyosha The argument that celibacy is a twelfth century innovation ignores St. Paul's advocacy of this choice. It also skips over celibacy as a lived practice in (all? I think so) religious orders from the beginning. The twelfth century Church only had to look to the Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians and others for an example they could apply to the secular priesthood. Then there are the mendicants, Franciscans and Dominicans, formed in the same century, who would also have taken the vow of celibacy, likely in imitation of religious orders previously existing (i.e. not because the Pope unreasonably ordered them to do so). That's not to say that the Vatican can't make revisions now to the formation plan of the secular priesthood, but it's hardly a matter of simple pragmatism. Christianity has provided worthy examples of purposeful celibacy from the beginning starting with Christ himself.
2
Nothing new here. Celibacy is not a doctrinal, moral, or theological matter, as priests were married up until about the 1100. In fact it was customary before the Great Schism of 1054 and it is still practice in the Christian Orthodox church. It is a matter of discipline.
In the Catholic Church, only the Latin rite church has the celibacy requirement. The Eastern rite (Catholic) church, in communion with Rome allows married diocesan deacons and priests, but not members of the episcopate (bishops, etc) or of religious orders (monks etc).
And in the Latin rite church, you have the ex Anglicans who are welcomed into the Catholic priesthood and are allowed to keep their status.
So it is a matter of time until celibacy will be optional for diocesan priests. Bet you that will happen before you have women priests.
8
How many priests are there in the United States? What is their average age? How many priest retire each year? How many are ordained? How many are under the age of 50?
Seems like this cracked door is going to open wide when these numbers fall.
3
@Kristine
Numbers have been falling for years.
So God is apparently quite practical and not dogmatic at all, unlike his most ardent followers. "He" is open to the notion of married priests, so long as there are no good alternatives.
I missed that part in the Bible where men were given the power to insert themselves as gratuitous power brokers between the faithful and their god. Maybe that's because, at least in the Western world, religion has always been about political control, with lip service to spirituality provided only as a convenient stalking horse.
5
The Franciscans claim to only ask for vows of chastity, as if that is different from celibacy. What their site then goes on to say is truly puzzling, as they seem to claim an erotic connection between their friars and the services they lead, and their congregations? That strikes me as far more dangerous than allowing them their freedom. They should simply have the same requirements of any professionals and not mix business with pleasure.
2
@Grittenhouse I haven't looked at the Franciscan website, but celibacy is understood in most religious orders as having its positive aspect in chastity. Chastity, in turn, is understood as a preparation for charity in which self-discipline purifies one's self-donation to others and to Christ. Married people are not celibate, but they ought still to be chaste insofar as they are sexually self-disciplined about the inviolability of their union. Chastity then expresses itself as a form of loving loyalty between two people. In marriage, such loyalty creates a secure and loving environment for children and for those aided by the couple and their family. As regards religious order priests, chastity should also create this secure and loving environment to those under their care. This is the ideal as it is generally communicated to those in religious formation programs.
1
This is a no brainer and should be permitted throughout the world. There is no downside - women work - the church will not be supporting families. In many denominations the priests also work at outside jobs in addition to ministry. If it's worked in the Eastern Rite and Orthodox churches for centuries then what is the issue? If they allow it in the US it will revitalize the church. Women ordination needs to be next!
5
The Church has been in progressive decline for the past 40 years. Decline in active parishioners, decline in priests, nuns and brothers. Decline in effective participation in religious and academic education.
The Church's preoccupation with sex and celibacy and fancy dress has hastened that decline.
If the Church is to recover from its present inadequate state, it will only be when the celibacy requirement is dropped, married clergy (of all adult ages) are permitted, women are recognized as being at least equally qualified for the priesthood and the hierarchy, and the Sermon on the Mount becomes the active core of teaching and conduct by the Church.
19
@HJB No it hasn’t. Number of religious has stayed the same, number of members has doubled. It’s really easy to find this information; why not do it?
3
@Thomas
Please provide a link to the figures you claim.
As far as I can see, the churches have had substantial decline in attendance, the number of churches has declined, and the number of priests assigned to existing parishes has declined. in all countries that have been the historic bedrock of Catholicism.
Increase in the number of active Catholics in developing areas of the world is not a meaningful offset for what I have described. Moreover, in many ways, the Catholicism that is growing in developing countries is, in many ways, dissimilar from what most have been used to in the USA or Europe, and has yet to stand the test of time.
4
@HJB
The Episcopal Church does not have celibacy and has married clergy -- and is experiencing a similar decline in the US. So too other mainline Protestant denominations. I don't think liberalizing the church will actually reverse decline.
5
Please... enough with controlling people through controlling religions.
Any and all compassionate “religions” would ENCOURAGE single, married, male, female, gay, transgender, etc to dedicate their LIFE to leadership roles.
Peace, love, and encouragement is what we need more of.
4
Time for the Pope to allow artificial contraception. All the Catholics I know have 2 kids (not 12) so let's stop kidding ourselves about whether any Catholic woman in America actually follows the Catholic Church's prohibition on contraception. How does it strengthen the credibility of the Church to have literally all its parishioners ignore one of the fundamental rules?
Do something for the women.
29
@Madeline Conant Catholic women use birth control regardless of what the Church says.
6
"Critics of the proposal for the bishops meeting, titled 'Amazonia: New paths for the church and for an integral ecology,' worry that it will erode the importance of celibacy in the priesthood."
You'd think maybe that importance may have been eroded by the priests' enormous sex scandals.
20
In five years married women and men will have to be Priests or you will have churches with no Priests or Parishioners. What are they missing? Five churches in my town, they are largely empty. The ones going are very old. The few Priests are old. Am I missing something? $3,000 a week in collections is not going to cut it.
5
Presumably — indeed, hopefully! — the Archdiocese of Hartford is in the process of merging those five parishes into one, which is more appropriate for a city the size of Middletown. The days of smaller parishes founded by ethnic groups are over; one large parish with less real estate to manage means there is more money to serve the poor and the community.
3
A precedent does exist for married Catholic priests. The article doesn't mention that over 200 married Catholic priests have been accepted as converts from the Anglican Church.
6
Actually, the article does mention that important fact:
"In recent years, the Vatican has ordained some married Anglican priests as Catholic priests, and eastern Catholic churches that are in communion with Rome, like the Melkites and Maronites, allow married men to become priests."
I was specifically looking for that fact in the article because a lot of folks don't know about these exceptions.
3
The old patriarchy to continue. For the sake of moral people, its demise cannot come soon enough.
7
This is news indeed, however small the step. It should be noted, though, that the Roman Catholic Church already has been ordaining married men into the priesthood. The existing "loophole" (for want of a better term) applies to men who are ordained priests in closely related denominations that do allow marriage (notably the Anglican communion), who convert to Catholicism, and who wish to return to their priestly duties. They are eligible for a "fast track" to (re)ordination, and the bonds of marriage are not dissolved in the process.
3
I do look forward to women priests someday. I’m all for it. However many of these posts seem to indicate that ordaining women will somehow change everything. And then people like Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Tomi Laren, and Ann Coulter remind me that willful ignorance is not limited to men. If you think women like this could not be ordained, think again. Gender equity is essential, but it will not fix the church. Power is power, whomever yields it. Imagine a pope like Michelle Bachmann. I say it again: let women be priests. But don’t assume the church’s troubles would be left behind.
7
@Liberty I also look forward to women priests, although the move will be decades too late. The challenge I see is which women will take the church up on an offer? Presumably, most women, as most married men, would have to go through the seminary, so that's four years right there. Newly ordained priests usually serve at least several years in a subordinate role -- not unreasonable -- as they learn not only to share their new found expertise, but also learn to administer a parish. So, if the Pope were to change the rules today, most of the first women priests would be in the pipeline for 10 - 12 years before they could be in charge of a parish. With many parishes having only one priest today, that long learning curve will not solve the immediate priest shortage, unfortunately.
Women currently serving as nuns in religious orders would presumably need less time for education -- maybe a year or so of training in homiletics and church administration, although many nuns are already administering parishes, working as CEOs of non-profits, and as principals in schools. In that light, many would already have executive experience. However -- there is almost always a however -- the pool of skilled, well educated nuns is aging as well.
Permanent male deacons -- usually already married and having gone through a training program similar to the seminary -- could be a relatively instant source of new priests. Will these men, most of them already working, take the resulting pay cut?
“Cracked open the door.” In Vatican terms that means about two-hundred years till it creaks wide open.
This should be a no-brainer since the church already recognizes married priest who convert from other faiths. Gotta wonder what they have against Catholics.
3
Exclusion of married priests and ordained women under the fallacy of divine proclamation, executed under the cloak of Papal infallibility has led to the Church's current cancer and rott, centuries in the making. Opening the door even a crack will likely lead to eventual change as slow as it might be. Allowing a breath of fresh air in an institution full of putrid stench would only expose the Church to greater scrutiny and eventual change for the better.
3
This is one “slippery slope” which I, a practicing and often frustrated Catholic, wholeheartedly endorse. Celibate priests are a dying species, if they ever effectively existed at all.
11
The Church is so afraid of s-e-x this will never happen. Since Francis is stipulating "elderly" married men for the priesthood, I'll bet he thinks they would be too old to engage in sex with their wives anymore, so that makes the priesthood for them okay. They would probably be examined for ED first, not unlike the tests of virginity that young girls had to have verified before they were allowed to enter a convent. The Church has very sick attitudes toward the human nature that God created.
3
What if you are an Amazonian married priest and get sent to Africa or Canada or the US? Can you stay married? Divorce is not allowed in RCC.
1
Potentially groundbreaking? How preposterous! It merely shines the light on how hung up the Catholic Church is about sex and gender as well as it's cavalier and condescending regard for "indigenous people." It needs to do more to get to the roots of the sexual exploitation of women and kids. Ordaining women as priests would be "potentially groundbreaking."
5
This practice already exists in the Catholic Dioceses of the Pacific Northwest and is not new by any means. PJPII was a supporter of it: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19961222&slug=2366279.
3
How about "opening the door" to WOMEN?!?
13
It's funny to think that as a child growing up Catholic, all I wanted to do was be ordained a cardinal because I loved the bright red zucchetto. Well, that would never happen because I was a girl.
I'll echo the sentiments of some of the previous commenters. There is a foundation for female clergy which has gone unheeded. Married male clergy is all well and good but to think, some of us may have missed our vocation because we were born the wrong gender for the organization.
9
I was sad to leave the church almost 20 years ago, but as a woman and a mother I could not abide the horrors that were covered up for so long. Not to mention the treatment of women as second class citizens and the exclusion of LGBT, etc individuals. I joined a well known inclusive Episcopal Church in NYC and I am very happy with that decision. I walked and took my energy (I am an active volunteer) and money with me. Maybe someday Rome will wake up, but I am not holding my breath.
15
All or none, Pope Francis.
I suggest All.
16
Do it globally, do it now, and start considering women for the priesthood too. Married couples in the Catholic clergy would have probably been a strong correcting influence on a men's club that actively accommodated predators for decades.
Imagine if there had been bishops or cardinals with their own spouses and their own children and grandchildren to worry about. The treatment of the pedophilia would have been different.
26
I’m not entirely sure why having married men as priests is such a big deal when the Catholic Church and other religions are still fighting transparency and accountability of its priests sexual abuses against children. To me it feels like we’re watching a convenience store clerk shoot a customer for no reason but the headline reads, “convenience store clerk allows cat into store.”
Yeah, they say celibacy is a gift to the church, but what is child molestation to the church? If that isn’t enough to expel a priest from the church, why is marriage?
14
"While affirming that “celibacy is a gift for the Church,”
I actually laughed out loud at the black humor of this line,
I hope the Roman Catholic Church becomes accustomed to having a dearth of men willing to undertake their priesthood: they are like the dinosaurs after the comet hit, still twitching, but essentially moribund.
23
Better late than never, I guess. But I'd never say that to the victims of sexual abuse by priests.
10
Perhaps Vatican officials have read Fr Vincent Donovan’s book, Christianity Rediscovered. Donovan was a Spiritan missionary who evangelized the Masai in the late 1960s. Inspired by St. Paul’s method of evangelization, he left the order’s “compound” – hospital, school, rectory – to reach the people with the message of Christ. In good Catholic fashion, he adapted the biblical narrative to the reality of the Masai.
Donovan learned that among the Masai the priest had to approach whole communities through the authority of elders. He made entrance into the faith a communal affair through his reversal of the traditional missionary tactic, “baptize first, catechize later.”
Pertinent to this article, Donovan identified that certain Masai were spiritually qualified to be priests. He regretted that they would never attain the priesthood because it was unnatural to leave family and village for many years to attend a seminary. He therefore advocated for an abbreviated path that would lead to ordination in a straightforward and organic fashion. Such an abbreviation would include much of what is natural to the host culture – e.g. marriage.
As to women, Jesuit methods in the seventeenth century, in both Japan and South America, reveal their presence in quasi-priestly roles. In Japan a small number functioned as catechists to women of the upper class. They possessed the power to baptize the women they also catechized. In South America they functioned as interpreters for confession.
2
Seems like the thin edge of the wedge to me and a move in the right direction.
I'm also wondering if ordaining “viri probati,” or men of proven character is a new policy. In light of this church's sorry history, it seems like a good idea.
11
Perhaps some of the apparent excess of priests and other clergy swishing around Rome in gorgeous robes could be sent to actually minister in less cosmopolitan areas.
Or would that solution also not appeal to the traditionalists got up in their gorgeous finery?
Then again, do such men (always men!) qualify as viri probati?
19
@Felix Qui Only 1000 people inhabit Vatican City, and every one of them is much needed to perform the work of administering what is the only truly global institution in the world, one that serves the needs of over 1 billion people.
5
@Thomas
Does that 1000 cited include Pope Benedict?
There are many places where purposeful change can begin. Married priests seems like a safe, easy, "low hanging fruit" solution, many more including expanding inclusiveness and acceptance, should follow.
1
@Networthy There are over 400,000 priests alone, posted all over the world. FIFA and Coca Cola have about 40,000 and 60,000 employees, and are much more tightly clustered.
The requirement of celibacy in employment by the church is a violation of basic human rights and should be prosecuted under labor laws.
12
@Kathy Polkinghorn Wow. I find that statement extreme to the extreme. Celibacy has been a fundamental ideal from the earliest centuries of the church, the early desert fathers, hermits, both men and women. People gave their lives as martyrs rather than deny such a vocation. This phenomenon goes way way back, far before the enlightenment, before the renaissance, and even very many centuries before the middle ages. To denigrate such a deep tradition with such venom is really to display an ignorance of history and the depth of cultural values that may not be your own. Values that may be foreign to you and that you clearly don't understand should be an opportunity to open one's self to learning and discovery rather than glibly dismissing and condemning them. Think.
6
Men of proven character?
So a higher standard for the married priests?
54
@BobbyBlue Funny.
7
AMAZING!!!
Is that the sound of one hand clapping I hear, or was it mother nature's way of necessitating a secular tremor in the earth?
A dress rehearsal for Boston perhaps?
1
This makes sense. The Church moves slowly...and that is for good reason. I believe this IS the stirrings of the Holy Spirit at work within the Church...and the beginning of a RETURN to married clergy...AMEN!
20
Hey Pope Francis -
My city that has lost more than half of its Catholic parishes in the last two decades. There were 5 parochial schools, now down to 2, and one of them lost its high school.
Maybe we should give married priests a try here before it is too late.
Then again, maybe folks should just join the Episcopal Church, which welcomes everyone.
57
@Cousy
OR......how about just looking ahead to the end where we shed participating in the humbug all together and just sleep in on Sunday?
25
Cousy,
The Episcopal Church has been losing members faster than the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has close to 1.3 billion members worldwide whereas the Episcopal Church just has a fraction of that number worldwide. I wonder why that is? I guess there is something still appealing to those who remain in our religion.
1
Cousy,
The Episcopal Church's membership numbers are down even greater than the Catholic Church's numbers. The Catholic Church has closed to 1.3 billion members worldwide. The Episcopal Church has a fraction of that number. Why is that I wonder?
2
The Catholic Church has already allowed married clergy in the form of married Anglican priests who left their denomination to become Catholics. These priests are allowed to stay married, but may not remarry if widowed, and I believe they are limited in their ability to take certain leadership roles. Curiously this appears not to have destroyed the church.....
39
We have a few married priests in the region we live. By all accounts they are nice enough men and can perform the sacraments, but they have an almost impossible task: serving a parish family while being good husbands and fathers.
In an Episcopal congregation where the average size of a parish is around 50 people (according to its statistics), that can work. But in a parish of, say,1000 Catholic families (considered small by the standards of where I live), it‘s much harder.
3
@SD, if more married men become priests the burden on those already in the ministry should diminish, no?
10
@Glen: Honestly - and you may find this counterintuitive- no. The Catholic Church couldn’t afford the salaries and additional family housing in any event.
There’s a place for married male clergy: the permanent diaconate.
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Perhaps the Church can encourage some unemployed evangelical Trumpites to move to that region to help out. I'll donate 5$ for every evangelical who leaves the Divided States to go help "save" that part of the world.
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Women priests.
And I really don't have anything else to add. The discussion is ongoing and all of the key points have been made by theologians, church historians, and Biblical scholars.
So I'll say it again. Women priests.
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The Catholic Church remains the definition of patriarchy, married priests or not.
In my opinion, until women are recognized as priests, nothing about the Church will fundamentally change.
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