The Church has long been a boy’s club. Over the last few years it has also been revealed to be an organized crime syndicate.
Corrupt to the core.
Send criminal priests, bishops and cardinals to jail. Let God have mercy on them. In the meantime they can wait in jail.
33
Everything was turned inside out during the Sixties. The RC Church was not immune.
5
"Most Americans, perhaps most American Catholics, do not know that the church allows married priests. But there have always been married priests in the non-Latin rites, like Ukrainian Catholicism or Maronite Catholicism. These churches are fully Catholic, obedient to the pope, but they ordain married men, although they do not allow unmarried priests to get married"
from NYTimes article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/us/married-roman-catholic-priests-are-testing-a-tradition.html
12
During the Apostolic times, the Roman Empire, and the Medieval period, the Church tried to join with and influence the known world. By the time most of the European cathedrals were built and Thomas Aquinas was finished with the Summa Theologica, the Church stopped being part of the modern world. The top leadership thought they had created a perfect society with no need to ever change again. That's pretty much what we have now, a 13th century institution.
If a 13th century Christian were to be resurrected, he/she would feel pretty much at home with the ways of the current Church: a selected few electing a pope, instead of the people of Rome doing the electing like in the earlier centuries; a pope electing bishops, instead of the local lay people electing their bishops and clergy. In addition, they would recognize the same unmarried clergy, an innovation imposed well into the 11th century.
The Church developed its institutions and moved with the times for well over the first millennium, and then stopped. That's where things are today, uninfluenced by Galileo, the French Revolution, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, etc. It serves those stuck in the Medieval period very well. This is where priestly celibacy began and where it remains.
24
Vows of poverty and celibacy - the ultimate sacrifice. Perhaps priests and nuns were held to a higher standard the rest of us mere mortals. I understand that these vows require nothing else comes before them. Obviously not an easy path for most - yet, some have persevered. Those making the choice to become a nun or priest know what is ahead and that it is not a decision to be made lightly, rightfully so.
Marriage would not eliminate abuse - the latter is a completely different issue.
10
Female priesthood, same sex marriage for priests, nuns and members of the Catholic Church. Now that's doctrinal change I can support!
18
When you get older, like I am, you begin to realize that your life is finite. (That's OK.) And you begin looking around at the world you and your co-travelers on life's journey constructed, which of course is based on the world you were all born into. And you begin to see how, many times, the bad parts, the dumb parts, don't need to be that way; that the only reason those parts survive is due to some kind of "tradition" that doesn't make any sense now (if it ever did). Priestly celibacy is one of those dumb traditions. As is the Church's general misogyny.
59
Great story! Congratulations to your parents on their fifty years! Up until the twelfth century priests and bishops, etc., were able to marry. Some didn’t. The Vatican talking points on the reason for celibacy is a lie. They forced celibacy on the clergy because of the financial drain the clergy with large families had on the wealth and therefore the ...power of the Vatican! I doubt most are celibate, as a cradle Catholic I have known many nuns and priests, both Gay and heterosexual. Many have left their orders to marry or to BE their authentic selves! There’s no secret about the fact that the RCC has a serious vocations crisis, and has had one for decades. Some of the conservatives in the church think that going backwards to pre-Vatican days is the answer. They are completely delusional.
God created us, sexual beings, and we can see clearly the effects of the Catholic hierarchy’s influences on our world, sexuality, etc.! The Vatican is rotten at its core, with its preverse secrets and lies. Time for them to come out of the closets!
19
Paul was one who thought of pleasure seeking and worldly obligations to family and community to be obstacles to spiritual enlightenment and devotion to God. He did more to shape the Christian Church than Jesus. With a presumption of the Church being infallible, no priest or theologian is going to reform it just by offering a reasonable case for any change.
4
I'm 64 and went to Catholic grammar and high schools. Back then, we lost some of the best teaching priests and nuns to marriage. I thought, like Peter Manseau's parents, that it would only be a matter of time before the Catholic Church would "catch on" and allow clergy to marry. It's so sad that they didn't. I've never understood how a person who was celibate was somehow supposed to be holier or a fundamentally better person than one who wasn't. For the first 1000 years or so Catholic priests married just like the rabbis that they emulated. After the ban on marriage that came from Augustine, many clergy simply lived hypocritical lives, including Augustine. Some famously so, such as Pope Alexander VI. Maybe they simply prefer a hypocritical standard that few can actually manage to attain rather than to admit that the standard is simply not possible, nor has it ever been?
186
Raised Roman Catholic, I nearly entered a seminary at 15. But I realized I had no faith, and the history of the Catholic Church repelled me. I went the other way, being a pretty hard core atheist for 55 years, but always looking--into Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, even Islam--for something larger than the secular life I was leading. I ended up vaguely liking Zen Buddhism, with a copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius on my nightstand.
A year ago, our youngest daughter told us she wanted her son (she was then pregnant) baptized Greek Orthodox. My Greek Orthodox wife had not attended services during our marriage out of respect for my atheism, and never once suggested I consider converting.
Researching what my daughter would need to do for the baptism, I read a few Orthodox texts. Then more. I
attended a service to see how it all worked. I was very moved. I ventured my first prayer since the day after RFK was murdered, and for the first time felt a real response.
I was Christmated Greek Orthodox this year, to the great shock of my wife more than anyone, along with two of our daughters. We define tradition. Our priests have always been free to marry; we have no Purgatory or Pope. We don't categorize sin. We stress Scripture, the first 7 ecumenical councils, the early church fathers, life in Christ. I have found hope and joy after despairing of humanity, like so many of our converts. I commend a look at Orthodoxy to all Christians. You might be very pleasantly surprised.
29
Thanks for sharing! Amazing story. When the Roman and Greek churches splintered one reason was forced celibacy. We, my husband and I left the RCC just a few years ago. We couldn’t stand the lies, cover ups and hypocrisy of the hierarchy!
13
This story underscores how utterly anachronistic and absurd the Catholic church is. This religion and all religions servea only to keep our world locked in the past. The collective delusion of belief in an omnipotent god defies reality and yet its continued existence continues to push our species and our planet in the wrong direction.
12
I notice that nobody dares to suggest that Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Hindus, etc, change their rules concerning clergy.
I congratulate your parents on their anniversary. They embraced their true vocation and have lived it well.
Please stop criticizing the rest of us priests who are trying to do the same.
11
In Orange County, CA, the diocese has spent around $125M on sexual abuse cases. They have also spent about the same amount on acquiring and renovating a new cathedral. That’s a quarter of a billion dollars. Very nearby the cathedral, but not viewable from it, is a very large homeless population. I think very little money has been spent on them. Something seems amiss with the RC church, don’t you think?
43
Why is celibacy for priests deemed a biblical mandate for Roman Catholics but not other Catholic rites, e.g. Greek Catholics, , who are considered in union with the Pope by RCs? This is hypocrisy that only serves the interests of the RC clerical establishment, not the Body of Christ.
17
Joe, because celibacy is not biblical! Look it up.
3
All of the Abrahamic faiths have taken the meaning of the “bible” to be the divine will that women be subservient to men. It was likely the influence of “Paul” the “Greek” that gave the “Jewish” rebellion celibacy, abstinence, hell and eternal damnation, which were foreign to Judaism. (In Paul’s defense was his absolute belief that the “second coming” would occur tomorrow.)”Roman” Catholicism was that. Roman.
Rules that carry eternal damnation and excommunication were once enough to keep things quiet. But, human nature always prevails, among humans. Marrying and sexually active clergy have always been the case throughout history. The efforts of the Vatican to preserve the myth that the clergy is celibate have resulted in scandals that will persist until sexuality ends. Perhaps the Vatican’s plan is to castrate clergy. We will find out soon enough. Is an asexual clergy essential to Catholicism? Or are women going to save us from our strange fantasies about sex? Women must be listened to, since women are the gender that gives us life. Men have us continually at the edge of annihilation and will conflate any occasion to justify our “god given” role as the “head” of the family and every enterprise, except birth. That should explain the fanatic necessity demanded by “religious” Americans to control every woman’s uterus. Without control of a woman’s uterus and her sexuality what will become of the Churches and our government?
10
Catholic priests were able to marry until around the 12th century, when it became apparent to the hierarchy that a married clergy would keep them from being fabulously wealthy! They ...the hierarchy...have their centuries old “talking points “ on why celibacy became the rule but there’s evidence that priests with large families were a drain on the Vatican wealth!
12
We are sexual beings. We evolved as sexual beings. The Catholic Church ignores this. it's hard or next to impossible to tamper with Nature. Let the priests and nuns marry. You will be a better church for it.
19
If anyone needs marriage to a woman, it is Catholic priests. They pretend to counsel on subjects they have little knowledge of, such as marriage and relationships. Given the catholic church has been losing members for decades, their smartest move is to allow marriage and modernize the church. I say that as a former Catholic practically raised in the church through the Sisters of Mercy (grade school) and Jesuits (High school and college).
24
At times the Catholic Church makes reference to "natural law," by which it means that nature has its' own requirements that must be followed. This is also an implicit recognition that "nature" and "natural law" were created by God. Sex and sexuality are part of that natural law, and denying it, prohibiting their natural expression, is contrary to natural law and indeed God's will. As a Catholic I can't help but be convinced that the Church's arbitrary, man-made rules that prevent priests to marry are contrary to natural law and therefore contrary to God's will. As long as this persists, the Church is "living in sin."
12
Amen! Truth!
5
Celibacy is rooted in the Christian belief that there is a better world to come, this world being sinful and broken. Those who marry have to commit themselves fully to a life in this fallen world. Leading a celibate life means the freedom to focus on the hope for a better, redeemed future.
This is the traditional justification for celibacy. Celibacy has been lived successfully by millions of people--priests, monks, and nuns since the early Church. Needless to say, it has been lived unsuccessfully as well.
The point of this post is simply this: why not try to understand what one criticizes and rejects, before criticizing and rejecting it? Is it so difficult to imagine human beings who do not define themselves through physically expressed sexuality?
8
Oh please! You’re parroting the hierarchy’s talking points! Truth is that celibacy came into play not voluntarily but as an edict! The Vatican figured out that priests and bishops with large families to support were a drain on Vatican wealth! That’s the truth! Sure some of the clergy has been celibate but not most!
13
I grew up Catholic and at my parish a priest fell in love with a nun and they left their respective orders and got married. I was in the 7th grade at the time and all the young people in the parish knew these 2 people had become enamored with each other. When this news got out most of us young folks just shrugged our shoulders. Our parents however were absolutely shocked and hurt. During this time my best friend was the daughter of a Baptist reverend who was the pastor of a very large and influential church and of course he was married very happily with a house full of kids. His home was a magnet for all the neighborhood children as it was a safe and welcoming place to hang out. He and his wife set the example of a loving and committed Christian home and family. The Catholic church has everything to gain by allowing priests to marry.This is the piece of the puzzle that is missing from the Catholic church if the goal is survival and serving communities. Allowing priests to be married would enable them to set that very much needed positive example for families particularly in struggling and marginalized communities.
18
As a young seminarian I know Bill Manseau as a wonderful dedicated young priest, and would have considered myself as a follower of his vision of Church, which was impossible to think of at the time. We had a little store front Catholic presence in an all black desperate neighborhood.
Bill was the kind of priest I wanted to be. I hope I still am. I was devastated when he married Mary. Disappointed and sad.
In all these 50 years I have often been thrilled to hear of them through Peter's writing.
Within the so-called institutional church is the real Catholic church, and the outside of the bucket will always be a mess, as it's called humanity.
7
A priest is the messenger of the Almighty and must therefore remain pure to him in celibacy, just like God and his Son who are celibate! Read the Good Book and believe...Look at what happened to Adam when he took of “ the forbidden fruit”, and be fearful of Gods wrath!
This narrative that Christ as human being was meant to be celibate , is the ultimate insult of Christianity and religion as a whole .Ask those who respect Mary Magdalene as one of Christ’s beloved companions .
Abuse of children by these so called self appointed soldiers in form of priests & nuns for centuries since the invention of catholic theology is what make catholic religion a steadily dying faith . If God wanted this , there would be no Eve to start with . There would be no human race based on such fundamentally erroneous beliefs.
11
I have read “the good book” Moe! Jesus never, ever preached celibacy! But if you read the Gospel of Matthew he says a whole lot about “men in high places who lord over people”! The Pharisees that Jesus ranted about in the Gospels are alone and well in the ivory tower of the Vatican!
8
Many of the Ukrainian Catholic priests are and were married during my catholic childhood. I got over my religion phase decades ago and the church should get free of it's control pathology and bear responsibility for the harm that the rules have done to generations of people who were sold one set of rules while the hierarchy followed another path. Admit the fiction it's all based on and let it wither away.
15
I turn 80 before this year closes and I have hearing difficulties. I long for the day when we once again have a native born Priest whose accent I can understand. The churches ills are clearly made evident when we need to import priests to meet the local need.
9
Let's be serious. The R. C. Church is a business.
Rome's strictures against priests' marrying generally have ever had to do with avoiding strain on its coffers. Such strain would be inevitable if it had to support priests' wives and children.
17
It is right in the Bible that Gd wants man to Wed a mate. There is nothing however in the Bible telling servants of Gd to be celibate and alone quite the opposite.
9
The Episcopal Church is full of many happy marriages by former Catholic Ordinals.
17
We might also hope that someday, the Vatican will stop sending missionaries to the most AIDS-infested corners of the world to discourage condom use. We might also hope they will someday end formal employment discrimination against women, or stop blaming homosexuals for their own child rape scandals.
But it seems we cannot hope that this imperial organization, with its apparent monopoly on moral wisdom, will ever catch up to secular standards of decency.
27
My parents were staunch Catholics. I look back and think they were brainwashed. They tithed 10 percent - sometimes more - of their income every week, even as their 10 children went without. They thought they'd go to hell if they didn't tithe or if they practiced birth control. I have no use for the Catholic Church, with or without married priests. Too much damage has been done.
39
Your story, is the story of millions and millions of us.
10
Allowing priests to marry would be a good first step. Seeing very orthodox rabbis with their spouses and children helps to spotlight how out of touch the Catholic church is. However, women are second class citizens with church rules about how to manage their own bodies such as, no birth control, no sexual contact until the marriage bed. This is 2019, not 1800. I feel the Catholic Church is on the same path once traveled by the Shakers ...until the Shakers were no more ( everyone was celibate - and how did that work out for them?).
15
I would hope that women, as well, will one day have the opportunity to serve in the same capacity. I don't think the Catholic church, much less humanity, can further afford gender versus ability-based leadership.
14
A very good article by Fr. Peter Daly makes the point that celibacy has fostered a culture of secrecy and this made many priests less likely to speak out about child sexual abuse because they had violated celibacy themselves by engaging in relationships with adults. The history of how celibacy was brought in is also explained.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/priestly-diary/celibacy-advances-priesthoods-culture-compromised-truths
11
God is good and wise. Everyone has the power to say yes or no to God. There is a Heaven for those who follow the word of God. Those that fail to follow the goodness of God live in a state of confusion. There is darkness for those who wish to do as they wish. Atheists say they do not believe in the existence of God nor in the existence of Satan. Atheists are asked how they are able to discern between decent and indecent, between moral and immoral, and between right and wrong when raising a family and little children. Atheists are asked if they depend on the supreme court jesters and man’s laws to provide those answers. Atheists are asked if their parents and families taught them right from wrong. Atheists are asked if their past generations of family histories were founded in Christianity, the Bible, church and God. Their answer is I believe in no one, I am who I am, I answer to no one, and I do what I want to do.
Blessed are those who do not see yet believe. To those who believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
In the end as Jesus was crucified Jesus said, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” And among believers He lives forever. These words will only have meaning to Christians, but not to atheists and agnostics.
1
@manoflamancha
Atheists are not as you describe. The most upright and moral people I know are non-believers. The concept of right and wrong is something we can all discern when we seek what is in the best interests of all humanity and not in what a set of myths impose. I am fairly religious, but understand that good and evil, moral behavior and immoral actions are not hidden from those who do not believe. And, all too often, people hide behind the supposed teachings of their particular religion to engage in hateful, harmful and loathsome behavior and beliefs.
21
@manoflamancha
You are right. As an atheist , I do not answer to an imaginary figure in the sky dictating my behavior. I am however, ethical, moral and a lover of nature.
Not without fault, no one is.
But it is very possible to be a spiritual person committed to helping one"s fellow man without ridiculous dogma .
People are free to worship as they please but that does not make them better humans .
10
Archaic, dogmatic, narrow minded, intolerant, corrupt, irrelevant... are just a few words that come to mind while discussing the current affairs of Catholic Church and what it represents to people in light of humanities’ current needs. There are always exceptions to rules and there will be a part of society who will cling onto this broken down institution and its grasp on faith. So the question is how much longer the church can delay its evolution? Hopefully not too long.. soon it will be clear to the overwhelming majority that the middle men between god and people need to go..
4
How about in Buddhist religions? Do priests, monks and nuns take celibacy vows? Comparing sects that do so and do not, how has the prohibition affected the robustness of the religion among lay people? Is this a central issue in those Asian religions as well?
2
Why is the obvious solution to both regenerate the church and avert abuse scandal not considered? Allow women to be priests, bishops, cardinals, and pope. A female pope would immediately change the Catholic culture of abuse.
9
Would be great...but would not “immediately “ change the culture of abuse sexual or otherwise. The hierarchy is collusion with abuse is deeply rooted in secrecy and has been for centuries.
2
I have known many devote Catholics who walk the talk of Jesus’s message. And there have been many throughout history that have given their lives for the sake of that message.
However, on the whole the Catholic Church has done more harm than good in this world. Ever since Constantine , the Roman Emperor, made it a state religion in 313, money and power have corrupted the church and left it an empty shell of a religion.
It is positively inexplicable that Pope Francis, despite his dedication to the poor, would not lead the charge for marriage of priests in the light of the current pedophile crisis. Would it cause a schism between conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics? Probably. But a person of true faith should have the courage to do this. Jesus challenged the corruption of the power elite in the Judaism of his day. Catholics must do the same in our day.
11
The schism between conservative and liberal Catholics is already here, there’s a fierce battle going on. Example, the archbishop of New Mexico is now celebrating Mass with his back to the people as during pre-Vatican II. Conservative Catholics succeeded in changing the wording of the Mass, to more closely reflect Latin. All the while, we, liberals are leaving the church in disgust! The Vatican is rotted to its core.
2
As a non-priest professor at a Catholic church, I can confidently say that if allowed to marry, half the priests would marry men and the other half would drive their women wives crazy with all of their relentless holier-than-thou talk. The former would have such fabulous lives in places like LA, SF, and NY, they'll inevitably drift away from their religious duties. The latter would have so many children with their slightly annoyed wives who would rather procreate than listen to all that God-talk (remember, no contraception), they would have to get jobs in sales, finance, or other more lucrative jobs that value selling things that people frankly do not absolutely need (God, Lexus, index funds, life insurance, you get the idea). God works in mysterious ways--after so many centuries of celebate priests--Catholic priesthood has become a sanctuary for men who can't diligently serve God and be happily married. However, if we are willing to put up with revolving door of distracted priests, by all means, let them tie the knot.
5
Here in So. Cal we have "American Catholic" in which the priests marry.
Otherwise everything exactly the same as Roman Catholic.
6
The Catholic church, as ever, maintains its hypocrisy on acceptance of married priests (and on so many other topics).
Married Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism and wish to continue as priests are accepted, marriage and all.
Mr. Manseau does not mention this but it seems a small step to go from acceptance of Anglican converts to acceptance of Catholic priests who marry.
And recall Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels. But he had broken with Rome in 1517.
5
This issue pales next to other ‘inconsistencies’ in religious belief. Eternal torture for some unrepentant dietary ‘sin’ or any type of personal sexual activity, all this from a creator who ‘loves you beyond imagination’.
UNICEF reports that an worldly average of 15,000 children die EVERY DAY from nutrition related horrors, many brought about by ‘acts of god’ (drought, floods, quakes, hurricanes, tsunami’’s, pestilence ect.) yet our faith asks to rely on personal issues, from health, promotions and even our favorite foot ball team so as to avoid the obvious glaring hypocrisies. Try asking a priest ‘if we all double our prayers, can we get the numbers down to 7,500 dead kids a day’?
2
Through Ancestry.com. I found out my birth father was a Franciscan Priest. He never left the priesthood, nor acknowledged my presence. My birth mother was still alive and confirmed the relationship. Genealogists helped me with his identity and we found his obituary.
There, he was given praise for a life of religious dedication. At the time around the notification of my conception, it shows he was sent as a missionary to Brazil. Incredibly, it looks like the church sent him out of the country as a consequence of my appearance.
His current relatives do not want any contact with me it seems. His reputation would be on the line. I have no intention of disrupting families who have probably celebrated his life all these years. The college where he taught would also be subject to shame and dishonor.
I am 70 years old now, he was 35, mother 20 at the time. It was an "affair", I was given to believe, not coerced.
Quite a story about Catholic priest and how many people he affected.
34
So much for celibacy! I worked with a young woman whose father was a priest in the Archdiocese of Seattle, he had five children with her mother. He never married her but the hierarchy supported her family, including free Catholic schools tuition! This is not unique, it’s happened millions of times throughout history! Celibacy is the rule, not the norm!
5
I found it a little naive that the author states that his parents would probably still want to be a priest or a nun although as married people. Then why be a priest or a nun? Being a priest or a nun is a vocation, not a job or a career. As part of that calling and in response to it, priests and nuns take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Many ,over the years and at present , have and are using their God-given gifts in the service of others as doctors, nurses, educators, social workers, artists, attorneys and other callings all the while observant of the fact that their state of life is a vocation -- a calling they believe from God to dedicate their lives to Him in the service of His people. as celibates. Have many strayed from what has been asked of them and to what they had committed ? Yes, and the abuse scandal and coverup even by the current Pope clearly shows that. It is the role of the hierarchy and the spirit of clericalism which was prevalent in the church which needs condemnation. A married clergy may or may not make a difference in today's Catholic church as there are still many Catholic and non-Catholic who do not agree with the church's position on life issues, divorce, etc. A married clergy may be a quick fix for some who have grievances with the church . However, even with that, I believe that there are those who would always find something wrong with the RC Church and all religions.
4
Rejecting the immemorial teachings and discipline of your church is pretty much never about the church. It's about you and what you feel and want. The last 50+ years have not been a new springtime for Catholicism. It has marked the onset of a long and bitter winter characterized by staggering declines in Mass attendance and religious vocations along with an anything goes approach to church doctrine, worship and discipline. This has accelerated dramatically with the election of the current Pope who has made it abundantly clear that he welcomes radical dissent while publicly ridiculing Catholics who are trying to stay true to the faith of their fathers. The operative word for what has been going on is not "change" or "reform."
It's apostasy.
3
In 1971 I was working as a social worker in Ottawa, Ontario. One of the woman social workers was a nun and was supervised by my supervisor who was married. One Monday when I arrived for supervision I was informed that would not be any that day. My supervisor who was married had run off with the community nun he was supervising. I never did hear how the rest of the story played out. I went to Catholic school Sisters of Charity in Elizabeth, NJ who showed us kids no charity. Used to beat my left hand with a ruler to make me stop using it. Did not work. Also knew an ex priest who was the director of a facility in Arizona I believe that did treatment for priests who were problem drinkers and had drug problems. It seemed I may be wrong but like everything else in the 60's many priests questioned and left and there were orders of nuns that with the War on Poverty dressed in regular clothes and lived in the community this happened often. I could never understand why the Catholic Church did not allow marriage since it was and is a well known fact that with the shortage of priests certain things happened. The Church recruits then and now in various other religious groups like the Anglian Church that is so close, but allows marriage and other Eastern Orthodox religions that allow their priests to marry. With shortages they recruit and these men are married with children and so the Catholic Church brings them in. So marriage is allowed and just another myth. Jim Trautman
6
Since Rabbi's marry and Jesus was Jewish it is likely that he married (or was gay--if the "Apostle that Jesus loved" was the Apostle John). More likely he loved Mary Magdalene and married her. The gospels were all written long after Jesus died. The stories told about him are interesting, but not necessarily true.
Another conundrum for the Church is that the Bible orders us to be fruitful and multiply. The Church is against birth control and Catholic families that adhere to Church teaching are often large. But the clergy disobey God by obeying the Church and not marrying and having children. A celebrate Catholic clergy is a custom and seems to me to be against the teachings of the Bible and the tradition out of which Jesus came.
5
I have to wonder if economic complications are responsible for the celibacy laws of the church clergy. It is one thing to have the church support a priest and a nun. It is another thing to have to support priests and nuns and their families.
I personally could not fathom taking a vow of celibacy.
A beautiful story and you are the miracle result.
To kindness, sense and humanity.
5
This isn’t just about sexuality or competing loyalties between family and church; it is also deeply rooted in misogyny. Same reason there are no woman priests in the mainstream Roman church. A problem some of the Catholic spin-offs have remedied.
My sisters and I were reared in post-WW II Catholicism by an open-minded “convert” mom and Ursuline nuns, whose mission since the 17th century was the education of girls and women. Had our moral compasses set to social justice by Vatican II and a liberated coterie of priests and nuns. None of my sisters are church members. However, all of us, independent of one another, reared our kids to make their own critical choices.
So now my 40+ year old son has decided to become a Catholic, along with his whole family, and is getting some surprises. Like his catechism instructor is a married former Baptist minister, but he himself in his 30-year committed relationship with his wife does not have that option.
In a particularly revelatory interchange, my son proposed the ideal solution: Maybe I should just quit today and join a church with liturgy and history, get ordained, then come back later - with my wife.
Beyond the misogyny, the other part of the Church’s soul that is lost is the ideal of social justice. The American church in particular was tied into the labor and civil rights movements. Now their time and money are spent on denying women’s rights and dismantling the leveling effects of Vatican II ecumenism.
17
This article is as sympathetic as it should be to the issue of celibacy in the RCC. It should be extended to the legitimacy of the hierarchy and the clergy themselves. Catholicism has been a two-tier religion with the laity occupying the lower tier. Over the millennia, a system of bishops, popes, in fact the occupation of priest, and an married class developed with no basis from Jesus Christ. How insulting is it to see the congregated hierarchy decked out in their finest in front of St. Peter's below a huge figure of Jesus hanging on the cross. I am thankful after spending over 70 years as an orthodox Catholic that my prayers to know the truth have been answered.
2
“No longer a practicing Catholic” says it all. As someone who is actually in the inside ever so slightly, the only real change I am seeing is more to the right, Pope Francis notwithstanding. Just wait until the bishop cover up scandal reaches its peak.
The people left in the pews are largely not the cafeteria Catholics but the “Benedict Option” crowd.
Young Catholic parents are angry that Catholic schools aren’t “Catholic enough” for them.
This is anecdotal, but the two married priests I know have two families: secular and religious. The demands put on Catholic priests make their ministry at best challenging.
Seminarians and all the many young priests I know are, by and large, ultra-conservatives.
When “smells and bells” Masses are available they are crowded. The more modern liturgies I prefer? Not so much.
Just like politics, I for one don’t want the ultra-right or ultra-left to prevail. I just want to be able to worship.
The Church thinks in centuries. You and your children and your children’s children will see no discernible changes other than, at least in the west, shrinking congregations, which some loathe and some astonishingly desire.
11
Reading "When God Was A Woman" by Merlin Stone, published in 1976, was transforming for me. Raised Roman Catholic, the chief honcho of the trinity was always referred to as He & I had never really questioned that until the book was recommended in an Intro to Anth class.
I remember a conversation with a priest educator back then. I asked him if god was male, was god a white male? Blue eyes or brown? Blond or brunette? Maybe a redhead?
He became apoplectic in his attempt to override the direction of the conversation before I could ask: boxers or briefs?
I then realized that full equality for women was nearly impossible as long as the belief that god was a male, or any gender or race for that matter, was held throughout society.
14
An academic who no longer practices the faith he grew up in is an old story. But the lesson, that it is the fault and shortcomings of the faith, is far from the whole story. Many faiths require adherents to follow God selflessly, something many of them do not want to do. And so they leave, rationalizing it in a hundred different ways. But the truth in many cases is much simpler—they want to be the god that runs their life and don’t want to submit to a God and the practices of their one-time faith.
2
I am a Catholic but very unhappy with our church . From the priests sexual abuse through the years and hostile sermons on Sunday all about wars ,death and persecution’s now wonder why the church is a mess these days. I am disabled now but if the church told the priests keep quiet and play more music i think the congregations would be happier. Priests should be married the Israeli ministers are but women now need to be priests in the churches to keep an eye on the bad men.
If marriage were a requirement for the priesthood as opposed to celibacy (AKA 'institutional perversion'), the Catholic Church's legal fees would be cut by 95%.
12
“I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.” Henry David Thoreau.
These rules on celibacy and the underlying religion itself are silly human constructs born from Bronze Age fears of the unknown. It’s still unbelievable to me that these lines of thinking still have “subscribers”.
11
This is another pointless piece trying to pick at the periphery of organized religion and, at the same time justifying and praising its existence, while ignoring the intrinsic dogmatic nature of the whole institution.
9
So long as Bishops like Dolan and Chaput are in power, such will never happen. They spend most of their efforts hiding Church money from Victims of abuse and fighting Pope Francis whom they believe too liberal. Don't let the Dolan smile deceive you....he is a tyrant.
17
Any religion demanding absolute submission and relinquishing of what most people need, romance and sexuality--leads to abuse. In my case, that abuse was psychoanalysis, in the 1970s a cult on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
3
The consistent theme, by the NY Times, by "actors", et. al., is the best thing for the Catholic Church to do is "lower the bar". After all, "God is all merciful", so everyone should get in. Right? Most forget the second part, "God is all just." It is just my opinion, but I think the Good Lord tends to set a high bar. We all should begin to learn how to jump.
6
One thing that is rarely mentioned is that no one has to be a Catholic or remain in the Church. You are free to leave at any time and you can either give up religion or join another faith. Everyone has free will in life.
The Catholic Church will always be with us and they will not change their tenets to suit public opinion. They do not need to. There are many people who love the faith just as it is and will continue its practice which they find an important part of their lives. The Catholic Church will live on until the end of the world. Hopefully that means a very long time.
4
It was not an "act of protest" or a "nudge" to the Church : it was two people who reneged on what they promised and then "promised" new "vows" (which is why vows have lost their meaning as vows and become suggestions, in part because of the infidelity of people like priests and nuns that didn't understand who they were).
2
@JOHN actually, I see it as two people who woke up and smelled the proverbial coffee; as two brave people who realized that their lives and future fulfillment and happiness were worth more than ridiculous vows to a religion created to control people's minds and actions. Apparently they made the right decision, since their marriage has lasted 50 years.
12
Thank you for this article. I despair of the Church ever regaining its footings, and I'm furious at its self-annihilating hubris. Christ never said a thing about celibacy. That was invented for - surprise! - financial reasons. Growing up Catholic I wanted to be a nun, but soon I began to see the Church as a bonsai plant, its roots twisted and stunted by calculating, ambitious men more interested in appearances than health.
19
Two of my closest friends, married for 45 years, could be the subject of this article. They met at an educational conference, left their respective religious orders and married.
I was a nun for some years. What drove my decision to leave the order was the realization that the Church valued only my labor, not my intelligence and my spirit. I chose to leave an institution that denied me the opportunity to participate in the decision-making that shaped my life.
43
I married the eldest of 7 in a 'good Irish Catholic' family. Six married. Only two stayed married. One, a lesbian, finally had the opportunity to marry, did so, divorced and then remarried, having a child with her spouse via a sperm donor. Needless to say, she has multiple objections to Catholic teachings.
My wife, one of only three that considers themselves Catholic, and perhaps the most seriously so, has had serious conflicts with the Church. Our children were baptized and confirmed Catholic. I, raised Protestant agreed to that as a condition for getting married. They now consider themselves 'lapsed Catholics'.
My wife's mother, a serious Catholic, has come to accept the sexuality of her daughter - and a grandchild - but she never should have had to go through the internal conflict caused by what the church taught. Frankly, I am glad her husband died before facing these revelations. I doubt he would have been as accepting.
Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church is losing members and clergy? It condemns people for behavior that society commonly accepts while it fails to hold its own clergy accountable for behavior that society universally condemns.
628
@cynicalskeptic. The scripture says the way is narrow that leads to salvation, and broad that leads to destruction. I know many wonderful Catholics who are serious about their faith and heed the historical, orthodox ways. Those who have left to enjoy what the world has to offer instead do not define the Catholic Church.
5
@ehillesum
Many of those who "stay" also do not "define" the Catholic Church.
These doctrines are artificial, man-made,. political, and often economically inspired. And frequently temporary.
What this means is that your attachment to and inflated regard for these changeable, pragmatic, some very recent "rules" is an earthly crutch, a means of avoiding confronting your own humanity and that of others, a false refuge in a complex and daunting world.
Although there is a formidable infrastructure supporting your iron-bound rigidity, including The Mighty Douthat of Things Never Change in Catholicville Unless I want them To Including How to Decide if Your Current Pope is Infallible or No, things do change, as they must. As they always have.
So, you know all the latest about the church paying for abortions? And supporting nuns who have had them, usually at the hands, so to speak, of priests?
Same thing. The church can dissemble and bear down harder in their harsh discipline, except when convenient not to or it can admit it is, after all, part of this world. And it can learn to deal with all the rest of us have to deal with, maybe show us how to bring God into those decisions instead of asserting that being human is a religiously terminal condition.
The church could learn what it is to be a successful, compassionate, maybe holy part of life on God's Earth, for a change.
Like Jesus chose to do. Not a bad example there, you think?
32
@cynicalskeptic
Your last sentence is the most arresting, most provocative:
"It condemns people for behavior that society commonly accepts while it fails to hold its own clergy accountable for behavior that society universally condemns."
That exemplifies the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. I considered inserting the adjective "today's" in front of "Catholic church" until I recognized that that has been true for pretty well all the church's existence, violating Christ's most meaningful admonitions almost since its founding.
39
My father was a Franciscan priest, my mother worked in the rectory.
He was a highly intelligent teacher with a good sense of humor. His mother was Irish and entire family in New Jersey are Catholic. It was 1950.
I had two sisters. Our existence was not acknowledged for 58 years. When his mother died he was not told. When he died no family members attended his funeral.
I received many gifts from my father. A love of reading, exposure to culture, nature and St Francis among them.
181
How did this work? We want to know more. Your mother had three children by this man, or he had two more with another woman, or women? You had a father-daughter relationship with him, how? Did your mother hide her pregnancy? How is it she kept you? Was she married to someone else?
14
@Elaine Bachmann Elaine, you have a sweet attitude. Thank you for sharing your story.
5
@Elaine Bachmann There's a book in there.
13
I don't know why the Catholic Church clings to its unmarried clergy. There is a massive shortage of priests, they know celibacy is discouraging young men from entering the priesthood, and they know many of the celibate priests are not chaste. Yet, even when it is suggested that in South America there should be a limited relaxation of rules for married priests there is a tremendous backlash against Pope Francis, as if he is conspiring to destroy the church. What will destroy it is not having enough clergy to teach and administer the faith. If they don't do something now, in twenty-five years it will be gone.
101
@S.L.
A very militant wing of the RC is extremely vigilant about having married clergy in the Western RCC, which is dominantly the RCC, Eastern Catholics being numerical small.
They are currently in uproar that with the coming Amazon Synod where there is the most extreme shortage of Roman priests. Francis has floated the idea that perhaps proven married men (viri probati) might be ordained. They raised such a howl that he had to publicly say this was not the main focus of this synod.
Whether or not the Roman hierarchs decide maybe some married priests might be allowed in a clergy scarce place as the Amazon, isn’t going to affect saving the Amazon, and the rest of our dying and demented planet.
There are bigger fish to fry - like the planet itself.
Militant RCs would be more aligned to Mr. Melania Trump's view of global warming - deny it!
5
With luck! Long overdue.
4
I have a close relative who left the priesthood to marry a nun he was working with, and they have been together for over 30 years, happy in their union and still actively involved in their church. On the downside, her family disowned her for the act of renouncing her vows, but at least to our credit our family embraced them. For either one of them I couldn’t imagine two people more suited for each other.
177
My mother is Romanian Orthodox. The Orthodox Religion is considered equal to The Catholic Faith. In history, “The Great Schism” occured when The Archbishop of Rome declared that as spirituall descendant of Peter, he was the head of Tthe Christian Church. The other Archbishops disagreed and The Catholic Church split from the orthodox or conservative church.
Until this time all priests could marry and have families. The Catholic leadership felt that married priests put a financial strain on the wealth of Catholic leadership and abolished marriage of the clergy.
Orthodox clergy, to my view, are more well balanced and familiar with the dilemmas of secular life unlike Catholic clergy.
Will Catholics return to their Orthodox roots? One can pray.
12
"...recognized the church’s fault lines — its tendency toward secrecy, its culture of obedience, its history of abetting abuse — long before outsiders learned the extent of the problem...."
(In the Middle Ages, it seems to me, the Catholic clergy assumed many of the prerogatives of the absolutist ruling classes, becoming, in effect, ecclesiastical nobility. This situation still often exists, present in the culture in which the clergy still live, a culture of secrecy, absolute obedience, and secret willfulness, as demonstrated in the clergy sexual abuse scandals, outed by civil institutions. The culture also is watchful of opposition and often will move quickly to attack opposition, often in secrecy. And, if you are a Catholic, you might well know how it is to be talked down to by clergy. Nevertheless, the powerful message of Christ is still a daily demonstration in the Church.)
5
@John Corr
During the dark ages, the Catholic Church maintained the accumulated science and history of the ages. Monarchies were granted legitimacy by the joint declarations that the King was anointed by God, as confirmed by the Pope. The Catholic Church was a political power that maintained a rule of law.
There were multiple schisms over the decades, and various countries through off the central control of Rome. So there are Greek, Romanian, Finnish Orthodox Churches along with Lutherans, fundamentalists, etc.
The political power of the Catholic Church prevented Europe from descending into chaos after the Roman Empire collapsed. Power corrupts, so inevitably schisms formed and power got redistributed.
The bureaucracy maintained the rule of law. The rule of law, with the Pope appointed King owning everything is not appealing in today's society, but life went on. Bureaucracies have the benefit of delaying change until society can adapt to whatever is prompting the change, but can also become so moribund that they become ineffective.
All power structures commit sins and can be abusive of those out-of-power. Ultimately, they adapt or collapse.
In current society the religion of secular humanism has taken over much of the government bureaucracy and the bureaucracy has assumed powers more appropriately exercised by elected legislatures. Under Obama, we transitioned to a society where the king created regulations absent legislative input.
2
There could be a renaissance of the Catholic church if its priests and nuns--its core personnel--were allowed to marry and have families. But again, maybe not, I'm not sure Protestant churches where celibacy is not a vow are flourishing either. That's a topic for a good comparative article on modern Christian religion in the USA and the world. Celibacy vows are not required of clerics in Judaism or Islam either. That has not interfered with the ups and downs of these religions either.
6
My mother was also a teaching nun (a Franciscan) for ten years before she met my father while they were in grad school at the University of St. Thomas in 1974. They were married in 1976 and I was born in 1978. As much as I enjoyed my childhood in what was effectively a base de communidad in Ft. Worth, Texas, I fear that our generation of Vatican II, post-Catholic Modernism Babies may have lost the fight against the more Traditional Catholics. (At Least in Texas.) It's hard to say though since the Church lost political authority in the 19th century. Gone is the power of guilt and shame it maintained until Vatican II's promulgation. As much as the Traddies want to believe otherwise, the only thing the Church has left is aesthetic power and with it, prestige. And that has taken a tremendous hit with the sex abuse scandals. Who knows what this fourth existential crisis in two thousand years will bring?
6
For those of us who are atheist, what a giant waste of time this article is, and how much harm religion has conveyed to culture as a result of continued wastes time is made more evident. A culture created for financial reason by the church to contain inheritance has become dogma, reinforcing the bind made up stories have placed on our culture. And , other than money, the practical result of a “celibate culture” is to provide refuge to predators. All this because people are unwilling to give up their comforting stories.As hitchens’ notes, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”how much better we would all be if this could happen.
11
Our headline: "Priest Marries Priest." That's a story that also needs to be told. We know of many gay couples who manage to live and love "under the radar." Because we chose to leave active ministry and live openly and honestly, we were scorned, rejected and, worse, ignored, often by our own family members and our "brother" priests. After 15 years of marriage, we can both say we would be better priests today than we were back then. We know the joys and hopes, sorrows and anxieties of the people we promised to serve in ways we never knew before.
27
I've been in AA for almost 30 years. In my experience Catholics represent by far the largest percentage of any religion in AA meetings, and one of the most painful points in their histories is the guilt trips that their church laid on them.
34
@Sandy
Catholics, or former Catholics, form the largest demographic in the country when sorted by religion. Demographics would suggest they would represent the largest share of any randomly selected group. A self help group that teaches surrendering to a higher power, forgiveness and redemption would be particularly appealing.
"The Catholic Church" does not "lay a guilt trip" on practitioners of the faith. Individuals feel guilt when they have done wrong and hurt those around them. How much of the twelve steps of AA are a process of stopping destructive behavior and forgiving oneself for past behavior?
If recovering Catholic alcoholics are blaming the Catholic Church for their behavior, they haven't reached the point of accepting that they control, and are responsible, for themselves.
You are reflecting the anti-Papism of your personal history. The history of the progressive philosophy is full of anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic grounding. The poor people Margaret Sanger wanted to discourage from reproducing, in addition to those of African descent, included the brown southern Europeans and Jews.
3
I just spent a holiday at a beautiful large monastery in Italy, where the total population of monks was 8, all elderly. If the Church hopes to continue having any priests or nuns at all, allowing priests and nuns to marry seems a no-brainer to me. What I really think would bring significant change would be to allow women into the priesthood. What better way to up the numbers and combat pedophilia? Without these changes, I think the Church is doomed.
15
My husbands family are fervent Catholics. His only nephews are both becoming priests. They consider it a badge of honor, I consider it a waste of two lives. The Catholic Church lost its moral compass and it is beyond me why anyone would want to give up his life in its service. To me it’s very sad.
24
@Hothouse Flower
I do hope that the two nephews see the established church as a place where despite all the evil that the church has done to her followers that the light at the end of the tunnel is now on forever.
The flawed men in charge of the church have to atone for their sins and yes the Pope is not moving fast enough but he is making changes and the criminals will not be overlooked again. We have all suffered at the perversion of men and women who never believed in the meaning of Jesus but did believe in the destruction of young children. Who used the church to hide their sins and in doing so destroyed generations of believers.
Religion is what you bring to it, I believe your nephews who bring the love of Jesus have a calling and want to do the right thing and the priest and nun who found love well who are we to judge. God doesnt live by man's rules but the belief of taking care of each other and ensuring that we all enter the kingdom of heaven. established order as one of
The old ways have to change we can not have another generation suffer in the way that we have suffered and love is the best prayer that we can utter.
Your nephews will be priests who are giving and wonderful. They will continue to steer the church with their moral anchor. With the backing of you and your family they will have the support of good Pope we can change the church and we need faith to move forward everyday.
3
@Tony Thank you for this thoughtful post. However there are other meaningful ways to serve God besides the priesthood.
6
A a recovering catholic who was in parochial school in he 50s, altar boy, Jesuit high school, university and medical school my take on the decline of male clergy in the USA has little to do with the burden of celibacy but social acceptance of gay men.
In the 50s, 60s and 70s coming out as a gay man in a catholic family was unthinkable.
So the church was a place of refuge where being gay was quietly accepted by gay men in all positions of authority in the church. It was a job for life, authority, stature the company of other gay men.
Women are simply no longer willing to be treated as dirt under the feet of priests and the life as a nun is not seen as attractive.
36
I'm not a Catholic. But it seems to me that the church leaders are off their rockers. No sex for priests. No leadership roles for women. Priests cannot marry. I don't think Jesus had this in mind. Just saying.
43
Requiring celebecy and restricting priesthood to men creates a shortage of priests. This make a Catholic priest more valuable to the hierarchy than a child, a nun, a lay woman. Thus the institutional cover up of abuse. It's that simple.
4
I am looking forward to the day when I see the headline "Priest Weds Priest." Since Pope Francis is infallible, he can allow priests to marry either men or women.
Although the Roman Catholic Church does not as yet allow married priests, the Byzantine Rite, recognized by the Vatican, permits priests to be married.
http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19991002byzantine4.asp
5
The Catholic church primarily changed the church's marriage policy because priests and nuns would leave their land, houses and assets to their progeny instead of the church, who wanted it for themselves.
15
Uh...its high time we ignore the Roman Catholic Church...until it either implodes, or wakes up and gets with the program.
But I'm sick of this discussion and the RCC in general. The pew sitters in the RCC need to demand change from their Church. Its really that simple. If the congregants don't care enough to push for change, why would the Organization change on its own?
But Catholics are by nature apathetic. Its how they are raised in the Church by the Church. The RCC doesn't demand their faithful know much about the Organization, or the very Religion (the Bible, the Origins, the doctrines, dogma, Apologetics, the history,etc) they propose to believe...but just to conform. To come to weekly mass, at the very least, drop some coins in the baskets, stand, kneel, stand and kneel again, murmur some prayers, show up at the Carnival-Vegas spectacles and maybe send a few of the kids to a the local parochial schools. And that's about it!
Pay no attention to the creepy men behind the curtains! And most assuredly pay no attention to the larger crimes and sins committed by the Organized crime Clans residing in the Vatican. Men who abuse and misuse the donated funds, who would demand they be clothed in the finest of silks and linens, eat the very best foods, sleep on the best sheets - all of which is prepared and set by an army of attendants - then offer to spend those resources to feed and clothe the poor around the world.
Nothing changes in the RCC till the pew sitters rise up!
13
The extraordinary is, rather, quite ordinary. Nonetheless, the writer belong somewhat to a unique and special club, not unlike my friend who is the son of 2 individuals who met in a concentration camp.
5
I left the Roman Catholic Church decades ago when it became abundantly clear that the people running the Church were fakes and liars. Not only because of the long covered-up sexual assault of children, but also because of their toxic attitudes toward non-heterosexual people, wrapped in the insincere “hate the sin, not the sinner” double speak.
12
The future of the faith isn't the isue. It's the future of the religion. Although the words are (too) often used interchangeably, they refer to different things. Faith is the stance that something beyond human understanding exists, and (perhaps) has some role in human ltfe, if (perhaps) not in phyiscs. A religion is a culturally conditioned expression of that stance. As such, it does not require faith, but merely obedience to the rules, including the rules about what statements to make and assert true.
Jesus had the most trouble with and opposition from the religious people of his day. That is still true for people of faith, who tend to be quite cavalier about religion, and sometimes opposed to it. For them, a religion is valuable as a community of believers, and as a framework for service. It's not important for its own sake, but for what can be done with like-minded people.
That's why "nones" are the fastest growing segment of the Christian tradition these days. The young people have understood the difference between faith and relgion, and they opt for faith.
5
The marriage of two ordinary people was newsworthy fifty years ago because it was scandalous, and, given the current state of Church doctrine, would be and is scandalous today. The rest of the piece is simply wishful thinking.
1
Excellent Article.
Well, maybe the Catholic Church will renew itself as it did in the 6th Century when the married Irish Catholic clergy, both men and women, came into Europe to reinvigorate the faith.
BTW, I note Mr. Manseau's first name - Peter. For a few years in the early '70s, my wife and I had neighbors, a former Priest and former Nun, who had been missionaries and had married several years earlier than Mr. Manseau's parents. Their 4 sons names were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I understand they were both still associated with missionary work.
5
I was raised Catholic, but have started going to an Episcopal church - they basically have the same liturgy though because of scheduling I sometimes go to the Catholic mass or some weekends I go to both. I guess you could say I am in transition.
Robert Louis Stevenson, I believe, said, “in the final analysis we are each our own doctors of divinity.”
I like the Church’s liturgy and I think as an entity it has a big role to play to make society better - especially things like Catholic charities.
The problem I see with the Catholic Church is the hierarchical authoritarianism. They insist on it. It’s their way or the highway.
I have my own ever evolving sense of the divine - and I think most of us do, including at least half of those that walk into a Catholic Church. Anyway, when I walk into the church it’s for the mass and to get closer to Jesus, not to embrace every element of what some power loving authoritarian loving bishop insists I believe in. When I walk into the church I believe I am not theologically welcome.
When I walk into the episcopal church I feel that I am welcomed entirely - even if my theology is different than the stated orthodoxy. I could be wrong but they seem intrinsically less authoritarian and less ideologically driven. I’ve been quite surprised - but as a former law professor who taught Comparative Law, I realized that the episcopal church is more like the law, in that it is based upon common sense with adherence to values & not ideology.
33
@Tim Kane
What are your thoughts about the current schism underway in the Episcopal church?
2
@Tim Kane
I'm a cradle Episcopalian who went to Catholic School. Catholic School (Roman Catholic) turned me off form religion. If I wasn't raised in the Episcopalian church I would have left the church forever. My Episcopalian roots have kept me close to the church. It is a positive experience of scripture, tradition and reason.
5
@Tim Kane Best decision I made in the past 5 years was to leave the RC Church and join the Episcopalian. I am not longe a seething, angry mess when I leave Mass or read about the latest RC travesty against women and children.
6
My understanding of the history of the Catholic requirement of celibacy is this- at one point in the Middle Ages the church saw that married priests were leaving their wealth to their families rather than to the church. To reverse this, celibacy was imposed. I don’t know the whole history, but the assertion is that this was a major motivation for the imposition of celibacy, which did not exist in the early church.
If indeed this is the case, look at the consequences of such a simple economic decision.
I think a revisiting of the whole history of the reasons for celibacy in the church is in order.
34
@JG
There is nothing preventing a priest, today, of leaving his personal wealth to anyone he wants. Most priests do not take a vow of poverty [although many nuns do.]
1
I believe that the mass exodus of catholic nuns has more to do with more opportunities being available for women to work and have careers. Formerly, being a nun was one of the few paths that led a woman to teaching or nursing, or being a principal, or leading a community. Probably many joined who were not as serious about their faith. In the tumult of the 60s, only those who were seriously religious remained, making the convents emptier, but more serious & devoted. Is that such a bad thing?
9
@Alyce
In addition to changes in career opportunities also involved is a general trend for women to marry men who are older than they are. When the population is growing, a slight mismatch occurs, with the number of younger women exceeding the number of slightly older men.
WWI and the Spanish flu took a disproportionate bite out of the male population of marriageable age. [More American soldiers died of the flu than battlefield injuries.] In 1920, women got the right to vote nationally. It only takes a small number of single women who don't find any of the available men to be sufficiently attractive to marry to devote their passions to rabblerousing.
The same trend occurred in the 1950's and 1960's. I'm not saying that women joined convents because they couldn't find husbands. But a woman who felt her mission in life was to teach children or be a nurse knew that it wasn't happening if she got married. Joining a religious community gave her even better economic security than marrying a prosperous man [who could always die and leaver her widowed with children to support] plus the ability to pursue her mission.
The changes introduced to the faith by the Vatican councils and ecumenical changes to doctrine shook the Church and the clergy, as change always does. Simultaneously, the sexual revolution created the illusion that forsaking sex was a bigger sacrifice than thought when originally committed. Plus, there were new occupational opportunities available
1
I know one such couple. They are quite elderly and still in love after a number of decades.
6
It is pleasant to contemplate that the repressive Roman Catholic Church of my youth might one day cast aside its medieval and exploitative practices. At the same time, there is no "modernization" the Church could do to get me to sit through the same ol' Sunday mass that I experienced perhaps 1000 times as a kid. I've learned that spending a Sunday morning hiking in the mountains, practicing yoga, or enjoying good sex brings me far closer to God than the mass ever could.
11
Peter Manseau makes the error that many Catholics do when he writes "no longer a practicing Catholic". The correct phrase is "now a recovering Catholic".
3
@Elaine LaVaute
I disagree. I consider myself a lapsed Catholic, or a non-practicing Catholic. Why would I consider myself a recovering Catholic? That would suggest that I am ready to reenter the life of a churchgoing member.
4
“Recovering” in this context is an offensive term. If the Catholic Church wasn’t for you, the problem is individual not systematic. We have become a society of the un-ruled. We don’t obey social niceties, rules or laws in church or at work or at home. We act and dress and conduct ourself as we wish without restraint. We cut lines, talk loudly and incessantly, drive substantially over the speed limit without the benefit of turn signals, dress down at work, act like clods on planes and subways, refuse to accept responsibility for our actions, wallow in ignorance and cherry pick our morals and beliefs. Whether it is Catholicism or capitalism, the definition of society is a grouping of people who follow a roughly similar set of rules. From keeping to the right when walking down the street to no committing murder, and all that is in between, rules are the way to maintain order. And order is a fundamental matter of maturity and self-discipline.
5
@Twinone It is a nod to the recovering alcoholic who can never have another drink. I too am a recovering Catholic who will never set foot in a Catholic Church ever again unless I am attending a wedding or a funeral.
7
Your parents weren’t vow breakers so much as vow makers. Fifty years of marriage is truly an example of taking a vow seriously, so much more so than a flimsy vow of celibacy.
12
@Lee V. Good dialogue and debate are always good and welcome things. However, as a Priest who has taken that vow and love it dearly, to hear you describe my commitment in a derogatory way simply because it is not marital is offensive. I'd ask you to think about being more civil in the future.
What about someone who was married and walked away from that marriage in a hurtful way, only to enter into a new union for 50yrs. Did they not commit the first time? Any good commitment should be lauded after 50yrs. May we see many more happy marriages reach that milestone.
15
@Fr. Jacob
Beautiful, Father. Thank you.
4
Like so many rules and regulations in the Catholic Church, the rules against marriage were created entirely for secular reasons but the Church dresses it up in theology.
The world will be much better when the last priest dies after giving the very last mass.
"A religion had been killed along with the last priest, celebrating his last mass in the last church."
-Emile Zola
8
Why doesn't the Pope start new order of priests and nuns that allows them to marry? All the other celibate orders would remain in place, unchanged.
And then see what happens.
14
The abolition of celibacy will be the beginning of the cleansing of the Catholic Church. Period.
All other talk on the subject is just blather.
9
This fomer altar boy understands that the DNA of the "church" is and always has been organized aound one thing alone. Control. The pieties from the pulpit were and are cover for those who made the rules for centuries.
The reformation underway will parallel the one that began when the secrecy of Latin gave way to the publication of the testaments auf Deutsch. As humans learned to think for themselves, clerical control lessened and papal reaction tightened. Then it was "indulgences"; now it's sexuality.
Are there enough assets in the Vatican and its banks to monetarily balance the grave wrongs over the past 60 years, let alone the last 1000? We won't know any time soon, be we'll know later.
16
I love my Catholic faith and it saddens me when it is criticized so often by the liberal press. We seldom hear any criticisms of the Jewish and Muslim faiths probably because it would not be tolerated. Catholics should speak out more against this unfair treatment and I intend to do so whenever it occurs. As a practicing Catholic, I will defend my wonderful religion of 1.3 billion members at every opportunity without exception. Others who love the faith must also.
15
@KMW, in my experience, the criticism you deplore has been directed at actions by individuals who have committed crimes, and a hierarchy that has covered up and protected them, not at the Catholic faith itself. Our “wonderful religion” has been plagued over the centuries with bad actors, political motivations, dishonest intentions and greed. But I know that my faith rests in God, not in His imperfect, often sinful, representatives.
12
@KMW
One doesn’t have to believe everything their faith teaches or defend all of its practices or leaders. Most take the good with the bad and live with it or work for change. My family members who left their orders and married remained employed by the church and worked to change it from within. They saw both the beauty and the flaws of Catholicism. Personally, I’d be appalled by any Catholic who defended the sexual abuse cover-up, Magdeline laundries, etc. Blind faith and obedience to authority are what lead to things like jihad when taken to the extreme.
3
@Mary McC While it is true that a lot of the criticism is directed at actions by individuals as it should be, it is also true that elements of the Catholic faith itself --like the value of celibacy, or marriage as between a man and a woman--are mocked, if not condemned outright. Many people, both some who grew up in the Catholic Church and have now left it and some who really know very little about the Catholic faith, write comments in this space which appear to be the result of great anger--and sometimes of real ignorance.
3
My father was a young seminarian in Barcelona when, in 1972, he flew to the Dominican Republic as part of a delegation that traveled to help the nuns of the Our Lady of Mercy order in a fundraiser event.
My mother was one of the nuns in charge to plan the event. They met soon after the seminarians arrived. Six months later they got married and I'm here writing about it, almost 45 years later.
27
"he knew that his decision broke the rules of the church, but he had done so for its benefit".
What a good reason to marry.
I hope he did it because he loved his bride to be not because he wanted to call attention to the issues of the church. If indeed it was to call attention to the church, he used his new bride for his own benefits, selfish.
3
In the Catholic Eastern Rites (I am a Maronite), priests can marry as long as the marriage precedes ordination.
2
Celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church was not handed down by Jesus. It is a church law that was changed, and can be changed again. The Church is hurting itself and undermining its mission by denying the tremendous potential of many non-celibate men and women who want to be members of the Catholic Church. But honestly, as long as the hierarchy insists on a male-dominated organization, the Church will continue to be a psychologically dysfunctional organization, which directly impacts its spiritual well-being and witness in today's world. The Church needs a Vatican Council III that must update its understanding of these creatures called humans. A 15th century view of humanity provides good cause for people to leave the church, including my own caring and intelligent millennial children (now adults) who attended many years of Catholic school, but will never become Catholic. I write as an ordained priest, now married, and one who shakes his head at the obvious stupidity of an organization that continues to insist on its outdated, unintelligent, and harmful views on women, sexuality, and variety of loving relationships. As long as those remain in place, the Church will continue in its decline.
55
Things change, even if uber-catholics deny it. When I was young our Catholic church had five masses on Sunday and you could not even get in the door for the noon service. The parish had two full time priests and a retired Monsignor in residence. Now it doesn't even have a school.
Vatican II was an effort to get the people more involved and the uber-catholics are still fighting it.
The church will die due to a lack of clergy if the present system is maintained. The Catholic church will devolve into a cult.
Let priests marry, let women be priests, let divorced people take communion. Clericalism is killing the church. Thomas Paine called it "priest craft" for a reason.
15
It is ironic that in 2019 we are reading a criticism of the thousand-year tradition that some men and women can choose to be totally committed to the larger community while for others, their own biological families are their highest priority. In the ‘60s, the norm for lay people was to pair off permanently in their teens and early twenties while the decision to enter the Church was counter-cultural. Now, many middle-class people marry in their ‘thirties and many more choose to permanently stay single and concentrate on an interesting career. Even among widows and widowers, there are some who search for a new exclusive relationship while others enjoy singleness combined with platonic friendships. Catholic parishes now have respected lay staff members doing much of the work that was done exclusively by priests in the ‘60s, so that the drop in the number of people willing to make that total commitment is less of a problem than it can seem to non-members
3
As a (former) Evangelical, holding on to the threads of Christianity in the Trump era, I recognize Evangelical views on abstinence, celibacy and sexuality in general as very similar to those in Catholicism: rigid, punitive, restrictive, patriarchal and, above all, hypocritical. If, as believers, we recognize we are creatures, then we should acknowledge the generous gift of sexual expression. "Fundamentalists" fear the passion of sex and try to control it.
20
I spent so many years defending the Catholic church against progressive attacks. I told myself the attacks were ignorant and shallow. I told myself that my inner city parish was different. They were thinking intelligent people.
Then I left a bad marriage and the people at the church never spoke to me again.
30
I believe the church should go back to basics giving up its obsession for money, bureaucracy, ritual and grandeur. 90% of its rules, canon law, have been made up by popes during the last 2000 years and have nothing to do with Jesus or his teaching.
25
There is much to be said for following thru on lifelong commitments.
5
I'm trying to think of a name for this new possible religious group Peter Manseau imagines where Catholic priests can marry, and there is a less-restrictive view of matrimony. I would go with ... Episcopalians?
20
I have news for you. There is marriage in the Catholic Church for priests. The Eastern Rite Of Catholicism has allowed priests to marry for hundreds of years. This happened when Western Europe invaded parts of Russia and the Ukraine during the middle ages. Those formerly Orthodox regions were allowed to keep the structure and practices of the church Including marriage of priests and language.It was an ingenious solution for keeping the population happy and profits rolling happily to Rome. Please disregard all of the rigmarole the church is spreading about celibacy in the priesthood. The only, and I mean only reason the church doesn’t allow marriage for priests is monetary.
12
Amor Vincit Omnia
4
?Will there ever be women priests? Will priests have to marry Catholics exclusively? What if his wife is agnostic? A divorcee? A widow with minor children? A man? Growth has many possibilities.
Rabbis marry. How else can they provide guidance to a congregation of mostly married adults and their children?
18
There already exists a loophole, at least for priests.
This is how you do it.
First, go to Protestant Seminary and get ordained as a Protestant minister. Any of the mainstream churches will do.
Two, get married.
Three, tell the Catholic Church you want to convert and continue as a Catholic priest.
Four, take new vows, exception granted.
6
@Sirlar That's not quite true. First, you have to be ordained in a priest in a Protestant Church that still has the apostolic succession (Look that concept up in Wikipedia.), like the Anglicans/Episcopalians or Scandinavian Lutherans. Then you have to marry before you convert to Catholicism. Then you have to reapply. If you are sincere you will be accepted as an ordinary lay Catholic. If you want to become a Catholic priest you and your wife have to be prepared for some intense screening. Once you become a Catholic priest you have to settle for a restricted calling, usually as an assistent pastor, since they can't move you and your family around like your celibate colleagues. I don't think Catholic orders, like the Jesuits and Franciscans will take you as a priest, either. Remember, the CAtholic church will only do this for men, even though some of these protestant churches ordain women priests.
3
@Sirlar Women would still be excluded from the RC priesthood.
2
To me this dictum has always been about control. "You lot over here. You lot over there. Everyone listen to that guy in the miter and the rest of you out!" The whole set up is divisive, punitive and has absolutely nothing to do with the love of Creation. Nothing at all to do with love period. And love is the first and foremost commandment.
7
Celibacy should be a choice, not forced, not coerced, and not as a condition to one's faith and loyalty to one's religion.
If the 'holy union' wasn't so important then why was so much importance attached to the marriage in the Catholic church?
Man-woman-child is a unit of society.
If Catholics were to look at millennia of abuse rampant in their church... bishops, priests, nuns, choir boys, novices, etc... with an unjaundiced eye, would you not ask yourself, perhaps maybe the basic premise is wrong?
As a physician, I first learned by textbooks & then saw every day in practice, human sexual-physiology is ruled by hormones and emotions. You simply cannot turn them off.
Is anyone here going to tell us that Priests and Nuns do not self-pleasure themselves? They do (physician-clinic-rooms are the true confessional).
What does that tell you?
You can not stop emotional-sexual desire simply because you decided to buy into Catholic hierarchy.
The extraordinary amount of pedophiles becoming priests/bishops to gain access to parishioners' children should have woken the church to the real abuse of this position. These men did not have any issues with being celibate with adults, because they had a pathology.
The requirement for celibacy in the Catholic church would end & years from now, we will look back at 2000 years of emotional and psychological abuse of faithful humans.
Health in human-sexuality has two denominators... lack of guilt and free-choice.
14
Maturity should bring self-discipline which means hormones and emotions are not in control. The problem is that mist of us aren’t sufficiently mature. As you said, it is visible every day in the way we drive, the way we work and the way we live with others. No one takes pride on developing a stamina for making the hard choices. Everyone seems to pursue comfort and pleasure without restraint.
Thirty years ago, my upstairs tenants was a former nun who often "befriended" the president of one of the three local seminaries in my geographical area.
He really was a great person who participated in so much social justice. I thought it was crazy that he was a Catholic and in the closet.
3
My husband's parents emigrated from Eastern Europe circa World War 1. They were both of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church, recognized by Rome. Back then and there, and perhaps to this day, if a man was married and chose to become a priest, he could do both, be a husband in the Biblical sense as well as socially, and be an ordained priest. Fast forward to 1969, when I would go to church with my baby daughter and marvel at the humanness of our pastor's homilies. I later found out he was married to an RN. When our second daughter was baptized in 1974, a few years later the priest performing this rite married a sister, the 8th grade teacher of the parish school. But then in the 80's, a male cousin when a teen was molested by a pedophile priest. These little stories lead to one conclusion: It is neither normal nor just for the Church to require celibacy. It becomes the perfect breeding ground for among the most heinous of acts....raping children whether they are male or female. The Church will continue to lose those sisters and "fathers" who want to serve God and be married if it continues down this ominous and archaic path. It will also lose most of the Mystical Body of Christ, as it is called. That is the laity, like me.
7
The Catholic Church is sealing its own fate by refusing to allow its clergy to live the healthy, natural lives so many want.
1
This will be a very good thing for people at large all over the world. Former presidential advisor Steve Bannon need to go Vatican and work with POPE on this issue. He might get a Noble Prize for his work, if he succeed. Steve Bannon is an Irish Catholic, man behind Donald Trump, where he is now.
Priests could marry in the Catholic Church for its first millennium. The problem with the Traditionalists is that they’re not traditional enough.
237
@Geoffrey James
I wish more articles would mention this fact. It's not like some tradition from day one of what the church considers the beginning, with St. Peter being the first pope. So if for 1,000 years, priests could marry, why not now?
12
@D, I agree with you; I wish this fact were included in more articles. As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I know that “Roman Catholics” and Eastern Orthodox Christians were essentially “The Church” until the Great Schism of 1054. It is my understanding that married men have always been allowed to serve as Orthodox priests (but not as bishops), but I don’t know how, why or when the RC Church instituted the celibacy requirements on its priests.
5
@Terry
The RC church banned priestly marriage when priests started passing church property down to their children. It was all about the money.
15
The initial reason for "celibacy" in the Catholic Church was because married priests were leaving Church property to their sons. The Church didn't really demand celibacy, just no legitimate heirs. As usual, it's about the money.
It's also about power. Jesus, the great Jewish egalitarian, did not teach misogyny or patriarchy. It was Paul and Constantine, both from famously patriarchal cultures, who grafted this pathology onto the Christian Church. That is why I no longer belong to the Church, regardless of the sect. Until God is personified as female as often as male, then "male" will be "God" as "God" is "male", to paraphrase theologian Mary Daly.
260
@Judith Dasovich- An educated comment, I’m very impressed.
13
@Judith Dasovich Essentially religion is a vehicle for authoritarians to control the authoritarian susceptible and thus derive and maintain power.
I am NOT saying all religious are authoritarian or authoritarian susceptible - I am saying that the core of religion is an exercise in power and control using authoritarian resources and constructs.
A way to become an elite minority which has license and means to rule a majority.
This construct generally starts with authoritarians looking to impose their philosophy of whatever on others - sort of for the love of the philosophy - but almost always ends up as a tool used by plutocrats and oligarchs to acquire power and riches in some way.
Tribalism is manifest - and with tribalism comes its mechanisms - one of which is "costly signals" - biological evolution has them - so do religious sects. They invest individuals (e.g. soldiers) in the group - the vows of priests and nuns an example.
Another much more socially destructive one is the emphasis of self-defeating and unnatural artificial constraints that religions pass off as morality while they ignore real morality while feeling morally superior. "Sure I am heaven worthy - I don't bake cakes for same-sex couples now do I!!"
All through this screams to us "I am a man-made construct!" - God screams - "I am you - I AM MADE IN YOUR IMAGE!"
Here is my point - there is a lot of GOOD that could come out of religion and the religious - IF WE DON'T TAKE IT SO SERIOUSLY!
14
@Judith Dasovich In my Episcopal church here on the north shore of Massachusetts, God is personalized as female just as often as male. It works, and very nicely. Our male rector is married to a female priest who leads another parish. That works well, too.
28
Won’t the marriage of either/or priests and nuns cut unto the profits of the church? And that’s the real point of the business of religion and precisely why it will not happen. Want a religion that has married priests or religious leaders, then pick a different one.
4
All this energy to fight an institution which doesn't deserve these efforts. Ignoring it would be very more helpful.
8
@Roland Berger
Highly agree! This paralysis of analysis on clerical celibacy deflects from real issues burning humanity. More trenchant analyses have been publicly published. PM adds nothing new to the narrative. I've had the privilege of meeting his parents and they were brave to do what they did, despite the attacks they endured. I doubt if Peter didn't have his Smithsonian credentials if the NYT would have published this.
The Roman bishops, in their baroque bubble, would prefer others to take their bait, as PM and NYT has. It is simply rearranging deck chairs on the barque of Peter
2
@Roland Berger Tough to do in some places.
@Debra Merryweather
I know that from experience. My brother was a priest, daily confronting his choice, fighting not to doubt it.
2
So many people condemn celibacy as if it is the worst possible life choice when every other life choice in these pages is affirmed and celebrated. No, it's not for everyone. But for some, celibacy is not so much a sacrifice as a gift. A life of celibacy lived as an expression of faith and service to others can be rich, rewarding, and deeply satisfying. Someone commented that priests and nuns are "condemned to a life of loneliness." Personally, I was never more lonely than when I was sleeping with other people. Turns out once I was "alone," I never felt more connected. Peace.
11
@Anonymous I agree that a life of celibacy lived as an expression of faith and service to others can be rich, rewarding, and deeply satisfying, but not if it forced upon its adherents. You describe celibacy as a gift. Isn't a gift by definition something that is freely given? Wouldn't optional celibacy be a better example to the Faithful?
6
@Anonymous- Celibacy by choice is personal, celibacy by job requirement is a whole other thing. Your comment seems to say that humans can’t be trusted to be a true believer unless they follow the arbitrary rules. I would suggest that it is a weakness of those who blindly follow rules and do not challenge bad ones. And haven’t we all gotten tired of living with bad rules?
7
@James
Yes, a gift is something that is freely given. Becoming a priest or nun is a choice. You're not drafted. :-) As I said, it's not for everyone. In fact, isn't that kind of the point?
8
My father was 8 when he was selected in his school in Angola to go to a prep school of the Little Seminary in the region of Rome. For my grand-parents it was an opportunity for their eldest to escape a war torn country and receive an excellent education. He said goodbye to his whole life and was shipped to receive a good prestigious catholic education in order to become a priest. The thing is my father is an atheist and to him the whole experience felt like being trafficked. Yes, he felt safer there than under the bombs but as a non-believer he was made to go along a charade. The faculty was cold, the school austere, children felt lonely, many of the foreign children could not afford to go home visit their families until graduation ten years later. When returning home my dad announced he would not become a priest but a surgeon.
13
@Emilie
I recall a head of a religious order which had recruited priest candidates in India and bring them to Rome for an education. After education the majority decamped.
As a result, the order restricted to educating at seminaries in India.
Seminaries did not attract, to any significant degree, children of the wealthy. It was a boon to lesser economic strata boys.
The Roman system, of course, favored the wealthy ones.
There was even a canon law provision. I think it was entitled, "patrimonio ecclesiae." It allowed them to be independent to a local bishop and responsible only to the pope.
Also, wealthy priest candidates would disproportionately be tapped to be bishops.
This historically was epitomized in the "prince bishop."
2
Peter Manseau mentions the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland while not mentioning how Roman Catholic Nuns tormented girls in "Magdalene" programs in the USA. Many of the orphans in Catholic orphanages were children of unmarried mothers doing penance in "asylums" on the same site. Many Catholic nuns and sodality sisters who perhaps were themselves tormented/programmed in convents went on to torment young Catholic girls in penitential convent settings as recently as the mid-1960's. Peter Manseau mentions a couple films. Here are a couple more: "The Magdalene Sisters" rings true. Also, I suggest the more recent US film "Novitiate." The sort of Q&A sessions conducted by "Novitiate's "Reverend Mother" remind me of the sort of discussions in which I was forced to participate so I could learn what constituted an "impure thought," a "sin" 6 year old children were instructed to confess in preparation for First Communion. This was over 50 years ago, just prior to Vatican II's changes. In "Novitiate," a parochial school girl first learns about "love" as it is linked to the word "sacrifice." Those linkages run deep for those of us who were brainwashed into believing love requires the sacrifice dignity and health in pursuit of perfect abnegation of the flesh. Prurient, sexualizing projection still guides the thinking of doctrinaire Catholics. As a guiding vessel, the Church long ago tossed overboard many people that the Church, itself, crippled.
19
The Catholic Church will change or continue dwindle. It really is that simple.
Dogma and tradition should never rule over logic, reason, and rational thought.
When this has passed, should the Catholic Church modernize and liberalize and become more egalitarian, everyone is going to be looking around wondering what all the fuss was about and why it took so long.
10
Logic, reason and rational thought are antithetical to religion.
2
@Incorporeal Being
Buddhism is full of reason and rational thought.
John Shelby Spong is a retired Episcopal Bishop and author of over 40 books and he is steeped in reason and rational thought.
I agree that much of religion is what you say, but not all.
Btw I am totally non religious.
As a former churchgoer/Episcopalian, I dutifully scrolled through the acres of letters, reading some and skimming most. Whew! Such a relief, that at 80, I am free of all that. Some years ago, among California's redwoods, I found myself saying "This beats church!" Not only among redwoods, but at ocean's edge, in the woods — wherever — Ah, I'm free!
40
Living now in southern France—in the epicenter of the Pays Cathar, or Cathar Country—I’ve become a student of the history of the area. Two relevant historical points to make is that one of the reasons the Catholic Church started enforcing celibacy around the 12th-13th centuries (the height of the Cathar movement) was to avoid the thorny problem of priests’ offspring making material claims to Church property: If a priest can’t marry, then he can’t have legitimate offspring. Problem solved. It’s no coincidence that many Church regulations (those that have no biblical connection) have more to do with protecting their wealth and influence than with any divine motivations.
My second point, while somewhat peripheral to the celibacy issue, is the question of, “Have you ever wondered why churches are tax exempt?” The answer is fascinating. In the very earliest days (ca. 7th C.) when the Catholic Church was formative and many offshoots (including Catharism) developed, the Church began forming alliances with political leaders—kings, dukes, counts—who found it mutually beneficial to give the Church tax exemptions in exchange for their obeisance. Nothing better to keep people in line and consolidate power and influence than combine political structures with religion: God and King become inseparable, for practical purposes. One can make a pretty strong argument that maybe once priests can marry and women become priests, we’ll reconsider the whole tax exemption issue, too.
63
And consider what the alliance between the Catholic Church and Spanish king did to those Cathars!
1
As the daughter of an Episcopal priest who was a Seminary dean, I believe our denomination has been the beneficiary of clergy who were raised in the Catholic church but "swam the Tiber" to be able to fulfill other personal goals of marriage and family life. We have also welcomed women and gays into the ministry.
I wish I could say that pulpits and pews are filled as a result. There are other social factors, 24/7 jobs, Sunday morning hockey practice among them, but Mr. Manseau has every reason to believe his parents did the right thing.
28
And the Catholic Church has scores of former Episcopal priests who swam the other way across the Tiber.
Meanwhile, the average size of an Episcopal congregation (according to its own statistics) has declined to 46 people. My small Catholic parish has more people attending 7:30 am weekday Mass than that. Mainline Protestant denominations are losing adherents (often to the Nones) at an even faster clip than Catholics.
2
As a nonbeliever, I find that the fact that existence of the Catholic Church, in the form of its founding, very troubling.
Clearly, I am not against a person having a belief structure that leads to an organized religion. At the age of 75 I still have not seen a reason for me to go that direction, but if belief of and practice of a religion pleases an individual, so be it.
I do have a case against those people who think that their approach is the only "true" way. That includes the Catholic Church.
13
@Bill Agreed. Or, I would add, why their way should be considered “true.” Is there any evidence? Is it any better than the “evidence” for another religion?
1
My wife and i both left the religious life 50 years ago and I left the priesthood. My wife burned her habit when she left and I lost mine. Nothing symbolic here. My wife is always tidying up and I am always misplacing things. Surely the winds of change blowing in the sixties especially within the Church had a lot to do with our decisions. As a committed reader of everything theological, I had pretty much exhausted any any argument or reason for staying in the priesthood for the long haul. In the end, however, our reasons for embracing a more secular way of life and embracing each other were personal born our need to find commitment and fulfillment in another human being. As the Irish song says, "it is better to have loved along the way."
42
@dfm I never heard that Irish song. The Irish culture in which I was raised - I am of Irish descent - was largely Jansenist and the stuff of Edna O'Brien novels. A now deceased unmarried Irish-American aunt of mine decried both priests renouncing their vows of celibacy and nuns ceasing wearing religious garb/habits. My aunt told me that "they" ruined everything for "us" and now are going along their merry way doing whatever they want. I didn't understand my aunt's thinking; I had not yet experienced the "recovered memory" of what was done to me before I was the age of 12. I was in my fifties by the time my damaged brain healed enough for some neurons to reconnect. And, I agree that it is better to have loved along the way but also to continue to love. Love is supposed to be what it's all about, right?
5
Most organized religions have as one of their main goals the subjugation of women. The justification for not allowing women to become priests in the Catholic Church is that we are not sacred enough to participate in the part of the mass known as the transubstantiation. What does this say about men and their fears?
78
@MJ
You should have said "most organized religions covered by the NYTimes". I am a Methodist ; we have a female bishop and I know several female ministers. But the Times' religious articles, like this one, always focus on Catholics and evangelicals. When the Times printed its "Why people hate religion" article last week, every single example they gave of religious scandals involved those two branches. Apparently religions that practice what they preach aren't newsworthy.
11
@Charlesbalpha
Good point. Also explains why I find the Times', and indeed the mainstream media's, reporting on contemporary religious life so unrelatable. I'm a black Episcopalian woman who attends a church that is half black, half white and lead by a married gay priest. We're a normal group of people in every sense.
6
This is an old question of world religions, even in eastern religion. Though eastern spiritual life in early phases before Buddha, sages had a married life and deciples used to get training in the household structure of the sages. Buddha started the concept of celibate monk hood and nun hood by establishing the different monasteries. The problem of modern day Catholic Church also started showing up in Buddhist monasteries and may continue even today. The modern sage Shri Ramakrishna made it clear that monks and nuns who will teach the householders should be celibate, other wise their message of renunciation and sacrifice will not have any effect on the house holders. This is true, the non celibate priests can help on secular life but by and large their teachings have no effect on spiritual life. We should remember that number is not very important in twenty first century world - technology made the messenger very powerful. But the quality of message with its deep wisdom and clarity is more important - many eastern sages in modern world are making deep impression on the society. Catholic Church should hold to their practices and enforce it more stringently.
While the Catholic Church has theological reasons and a thousand year tradition of priests in the Latin Rite not marrying it is not going to happen for the following reason. Cost. A diocesan parish priest would get paid between 30K and 40K a year offset by being able to live with other priests in a common rectory. If the Church allowed diocesan priests to marry not only would the Church have to increase their salary and benefits significantly in order to support a wife and family but the number of young men becoming priests would double or triple (as celibacy is the leading reason while men don't become priests). The CHurch may be looking at salary costs going up by a factor of 2 or 3.
With the financial pressures facing the Church both due to declining attendance and lawsuits this is an expense many diocese can't endure.
It's a shame as married priests exist in the non Latin Rites of the Catholic Church and in the Latin Rite as converts from other branches of Christianity. Their experience of family life is often a welcome balance to the example of non-married clergy. And while the teaching again women priests is a doctrine, like transubstantiation, and in current Catholic teaching can't be changed (alas), the prohibition against married priests is a discipline, like no meat on Fridays, and could be changed as many discipline teachings in the Catholic Church have changed.
8
In 1974 or 1975 my husband and I lived in Chicago, while he did a degree at Chicago Theological Seminary. Peter's parents were somehow part of the community and one evening at the weekly community dinner, little Peter got up at the open mic for announcements, and just too cute started with, "You know, my parents don't let me say too much." I'm glad Mr. Manseau has found his voice and I have enjoyed his writings over the years.
His parents were part of a much larger phenomenon, a very healthy exodus from a church that had/has some wonderful and devout clergy and lay people and a great tradition of doing good things, grounded in serious theology and spirituality. But it was/is also a culture that was patriarchal, authoritarian (the poster who says "just follow the law") and with a distorted sense of gender and sexuality. I was part of that exodus myself as a lay woman. It was hard to give up (on) the "one true church" until it dawned on me that the Roman Catholic Church did not have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit, or truth, or goodness. Simply abolishing celibacy or opening ordination to women isn't going to "fix" the church whose idolatry of its traditions and commitment to a power status quo keeps it from letting the Holy Spirit do its work. Those moves need to come from deep change in understanding and desire, and while I pray for it, I'm not sure it's going to happen. Thank you, Peter, for your article.
13
Until the ordination of women or those of gay or lesbian orientation and their possible representation in the entire hierarchy even to the extent of choosing a pope, is achieved, the Church can not be taken seriously as a force for equality and justice. Also the draconian demands for celibacy condemn priests and nuns to a life of loneliness and childlessness which counters their right to pursue happiness. Christianity is essentially about looking out for each other but down the centuries, enforcing the rules has become it's reason for being. There is hope for the future. There are countless people in the Church who work for greater transparency and accountability and for a better world. "Rome" was not built in a day.
10
@Slioter only someone manifestly confused about our faith would assert "Christianity is essentially about looking out for each other'. Being a follower of Christ is "essentially" understanding that His work on the cross opened the door to eternal life for us, who were/are still "dead" in our sins. Loving your neighbor is part of the Royal Commandment but only secondary, by a long way, to Christ's gift to us.
5
@Slioter Religious life need not be a "life of loneliness and childlessness". Those who are truly called to a vow of celibacy embrace it as a way to love widely and non-exclusively. We are not lonely unless we choose to be and we are not childless, although we may not have biological children.
I have been a nun (in the Episcopal Church) for 20 years, and rejoice (almost) every day in the companionship with my sisters and our many guests and friends. And we consider each others' families to be our families too. The nephew of one of our sisters we call "our" nephew. Some of us have biological children, and they are "our" sons and daughters.
5
@Slioter
Mr Manseau’s informative piece deals with Catholic “morals” – right behavior or lack of it. Fair enough. Sex sells.
But what about the “dogma” part of the belief equation? How many Catholics know about, care about, and/or could intentionally defend the doctrines that are integral to Catholic teaching: virgin birth, infallibility, trinity, original sin, life after death, Jesus as man-God, immaculate conception, eucharistic presence, to name a few. While Catholics chew on birth control, clergy abuse and celibacy, to what degree are they Catholics adhering to the church’s belief system?
1
When a non-practising son of rule-breaking ex-Catholic priest and nun writes about the current
state of the Church the family broke with 50 years ago, only people who do not have enough grains of salt would take it seriously. His many generalizations are baffling.
The Catholic Church I know has some problems, but unlike the writer, I see a new energy in the last decade. Yes, some priests and clergy are debating celibacy and clergy marriage, but that in no way demonstrates anarchy.
The Church is the human face of a divine institution, and the human foibles by errant clergy do not represent its ideals. Those of us who remain in the Church do so knowing full well that the good it does is far more rewarding than its stumbles suggest.
9
@OkeEnyiKnowing that priest/nun has vowed to GOD then stepped out to get married to one another should not be a pride. I do not get the point of the title of the article.
@OkeEnyi
How would you describe those stumbles?
@OkeEnyi surely you jest. Stumbles? Predation of children, foibles, errant clergy, some problems when superiors cover up the guilty. Perhaps I am reading things like Pennsylvania’s Recent grand jury report w/ a jaundiced eye... or maybe you are.
1
I am a recovering Catholic married to a Jew and raising 2 Jewish daughters (I even did parent child Hebrew School with them years ago!)
It may surprise the many devout Catholic commenters here that there is a large underground network of married priests (in the NYC area at least) that are routinely called upon to perform weddings for mixed marriages. In the late 1980s and early 1990s when we lived in NYC we attended so many weddings of Jews and Catholics presided over by married priests co-celebrating with Reform Rabbis I was amazed. As soon as you became engaged a quick whisper request to friends would net you contact info for at least half a dozen married priests. They were very busy in that era with multiple weddings a weekend during peak season.
I’ve moved around quite a bit since then and I’ve never heard it discussed anywhere else so not sure it’s common elsewhere.
8
A curator of American religious history, yet no discussion of Protestantism, with its long history of not expecting clergy to be celibate?
This is not an issue in American Protestantism.
I'm a former Roman Catholic, currently Episcopalian, and the issue of clerical celibacy has been a non issue since the Reformation.
I was truck by that observation when I first attended an Episcopal church and looked at the Book of Common Prayer in the pew. The Articles of Religion set the tone for Anglicanism and stated that the matter of marriage was best determined by the individual conscience of the clergy person, how s/he can best live a godly life.
The irony of course is that so many Roman Catholics have Protestant sensibilities while the church is permitting married clergy under limited circumstances.
Oh, and as priests in popular culture, why no discussion of Grantchester (also on PBS), of Anglican priests who date and marry?
12
@Barbara
Thank you! I am also an Episcopalian who is formerly Roman Catholic. Since I was confirmed into The Episcopal Church (TEC) - I had never been confirmed RC - I have met priests who were celibate by choice, and married priests. Some were straight, and some were gay. All are godly people and good priests. The experience (especially) of TEC could be a model for Roman Catholicism -- but I don't expect they would really take it as an example: Henry VIII, you know.
4
@Andy Jo
But of course the Episcopal Church could be an example, yet Henry VIII would be an issue for the Roman Catholic church.
Yet, the more important thing is that American Catholics are living in a pluralistic society where they are surrounded by adherents of faith traditions that have always had a different model.
Moreover, there are Roman Catholic priests have married and become Episcopal clergymen, just as there have been married Protestant clergymen who have become Roman Catholic priests.
It's about recognizing the nuances as a foundation for going ahead.
3
@Barbara
Of course the Episcopal Church could be an example. So could the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and many other varieties that the Times pretends don't exist
2
It was in the early seventies that I sent a letter of notification to the Rome headquarters and my Dutch religious superiors in Rome informing them that I was continuing my commitment as a missionary priest in a connubial marriage with a Canadian missionary sister planning to working in the US to change global trade and economic systems to benefit African countries. I also pointed out in the letter that as a consequence of the Vatican II Statement on Religious Freedom I felt no qualms to leave the traditional priesthood.
As I was working on a volunteer basis at the Holy See office at the UN headquarters as advisor on African Affairs, I asked my friend the secretary at the Mission about the possible impact on Rome of this letter. He told me if only a dozen other priests were to write similar letters rather than simply leaving or subjecting themselves to the inhuman process of laicization Rome would take it seriously. I never heard from Rome and my religious superior gently responded that I would be living in mortal sin. Notwithstanding this negative response I still consider the submission of this notification an important contribution to the catholic church and as such might even be considered becoming a part of the Smithsonian collection of American religious history.
5
My deceased partner was a former nun. She left the convent in the early 1970s.
She loved her role as teacher and the sense of community within her congregation.
After Vatican II, "community" died. There was no more gatherings for common prayer, meals, recreation. The Sisters were going every which-way with new careers; single activities.
She left the convent, primarily, because there was no communal living anymore.
2
I was fortunate to attend Mass in Dubai which is a predominantly Muslim country. It was a wonderful service with a full Church and all nationalities in attendance including those from the Philippines, India, Africa and the US. The participation was at a 100 percent rate and the people were extremely devout. You could tell they loved their Catholic faith and took it very seriously. The Church is alive and well in Dubai and in many other parts of the world. They do not see the Church as their enemy but as a wonderful friend and very much needed in their lives.
I was so happy to have been able to go to Sunday Mass and I paid close to $40 in taxi fares to get there plus a generous donation to the collection box. This is how much my Catholic faith is important to me. I have been so blessed in life and want to give thanks to God and hope he continues showering the many blessings he has already bestowed on to me. My Catholic faith is imperative for my daily life and this will never change. Not everyone dislikes the Church. Many love its practices. The 1.3 billion members and growing think it is important to them too. They love it too.
10
@KMW
I think it is wonderful that you love the faith. Truly. There is one other factor to keep in mind, however.
Dubai, being a Muslim country, is not especially welcoming to other religions. The Catholic Church there is in the minority. Those who attend are very motivated, and form community bonds that are very strong based on a shared faith. It is within this context that any disagreement is either concealed by the person, or by the community.
In the United States, Roman Catholicism also was a minority church - almost a church under siege. Whereas Catholics in countries where the Church was a majority, or was the official religion, could be very anti-clerical, that was not common in the United States. The system of excellent Catholic schools (for instance) was a direct result of Catholics standing up to anti-Catholic prejudice and discrimination.
Today, the Church is not really as much of a minority as it was. It exists, however, within a social and cultural context where all faiths are losing members and the larger society is becoming less religious overall (although the US is one of the most religious among the developed countries). The faithful are less willing to accept clericalism and hypocrisy.
As change comes to the rest of the world, I would not be surprised to see similar patterns develop in the Roman Catholic Church in countries where, today, any issues are superseded by their status of being a church in the minority.
6
@KMW : Thank God for Faithful Catholics who believe with a Passion on this Church despite it human faults. May God continue to renew this Church.
For those who have wandered far from it, who find themselves in a deep dark forest and nit knowing their way out of it, return and Journey back to the Faith where it's initial followers preferred Martyrdom and Death than abjure Christ.
3
@Andy Jo : Catholics in this Country or toher countries have wandered far from Christ and have become a part of the Neo-Pagan Society !
it is our Free Will that allows us to question and leave our ancient Faith . It is indeed a Narrow Gate to Heaven that only a few can enter. That is really a warning from Christ to us ALL.
1
We need a lot of reforms in the Catholic Church.
Marriage is one. Ordaining women is another.
Making our clergy more like the flock would be a boon. Right now, the separation of clergy from parishioner is not healthy. Nor is the feeling that the Bishops kept abusive priests because they both could not handle the blow to the Church's reputation, nor did they have enough priests to backfill the jobs if they removed the problems.
Of course, pretty soon it won't be a problem. People are leaving the Church in droves: over anger with a Church that sacrificed children for reputation; over anger with the marginalization of women; over anger about how we treat remarried divorcees, gay people, who are permanently separated from communion; over the increasing role of the Church as a SuperPAC dedicated to the elimination of abortion over all other social issues. Over the general failure of our Princes to the Church to act as if they even remember who and what Jesus was, as they live palatially and spend $3M on Cathedral doors as they close schools.
Nope, the surprise isn't that some break their vows to serve the Church as a couple; it is that we still have a few dedicated enough to take the vows in the first place.
64
Cathy,
I do not see Catholics leaving in droves in NYC. The Churches I attend are quite full actually and the people devout. There are many young people attending today which is very encouraging. We have 1.3 billion members worldwide and more keep on joining. We are the largest Christian faith in existence and will never see its demise.
The Protestant religions are not doing very well with their membership numbers and people are leaving their faiths. They are not happy with the things that are occurring in their denominations. It certainly has its flaws. No religion is perfect but my Catholic faith is perfect enough for me. I will be a lifelong member and never abandon the one thing that sustains me in my life. It is my rock.
2
I am a Catholic ex-pat living in Scandinavia. The Roman Catholic Church is not large here but it is expanding., partly due to refugees from South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Also due to conversion, notably among academics, and devout Lutherans. Our churches are overflowing on Sundays. We are buying and repurposing former mainline Protestant churches (Pentecostal, Methodist, Swedish Missionary Society, etc.) as they collapse due to low recruitment among young people. Young men flock to our seminaries. Women become nuns, mostly enclosed religious orders. MInd you the whole lot of us would most likely fit inside one of those massive American mega-churches at the same time with room to spare. Still, Scandinavians are finding Catholic vocations at a rate per capita that puts us way out in front, internationally. We hear none of the discussion people are venting here. Scandinavian catholics are ecstatic over belonging to a worldwide church, enthusiastic over getting access to standard Catholic practices like the rosary, Marian devotion, Lenten observance, pilgrimages, Latin chant, etc. Including a celibate religious. Converts tell me they want to a church that stands for something concrete. They can get all those things people are talking about here out in secular society. Contact with converts has made me appreciate the faith handed down to me by my ancestors.
10
I entered the convent in 1968 happy with my decision and the teaching work I was doing. With the changes for the Church brought about by Vatican II I held a growing hope that the ordination of women would become a reality in the near future. Of course that never happened and I grew increasingly aware of the patriarchal system of the Catholic church that oppresses women and continually fails, to this day, to embrace equality on so many levels.
I was one of the many who left religious life in the seventies with no regrets of having been there but with no interest in being part of organized religion today.
111
Not mentioned here is the ordination of women. That would do more than anything to energize the American Catholic Church. Not only do women make superb clergy (see Episcopal Church) but would excite women lay members who would see their peers participating fully in the life of the church and the delivery of the sacraments. Rome should really think about allowing 50% of their adherents to lead and fully participate in the faith. Probably won't happen in my lifetime but it should.
42
@Meighan Corbett NO, If that happens 1.3 billion Catholics will scream and maybe put it into a vote. That will never, ever happen and I am a woman. When I receive the holy eucharist from the hands of men, the are the holy hands of Jesus that I see.
2
I need to take issue with one statement. I am in the position of having gotten married after 30 years of ordination. My knowledge and the official document I have from my diocese states that I am suspended from orders, not that I am excommunicated. The suspension was automatic, which I knew. It became formal when the diocese became aware of it.
5
I belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the oldest Christian churches in existence, founded by two of Christ's apostles, Thaddeus and Bartholomew. Most of our priests are married men with families, and a common practice among women is to take the veil upon widowhood when children leave the nest. Celibacy is not required, and sexual scandals almost non-existent. After spending 12 years as a student at a Catholic Convent, I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church adopted the celibacy requirement purely due to monetary considerations, after all it is much more expensive to maintain a family than solitary men or women.
73
@Mariposa841......Most laity wanted the attention of Jesus if Jesus was here on earth. If a man is married he would have divided attention to his family and his flock
1
As an historian of religion in the United States, the author is being incomplete in his assessment of the Catholic Church. It's not news that the Church holds and practices teachings about priestly celibacy and sexual mores that are inconsistent with the current culture. Neither are the terrible scandals of priestly sexual abuse. Together these realities justify a healthy skepticism. There is another story though. Consider the hospitals, schools, and social service agencies that brought and continue to bring hope to the poor. Notice how many leaders and exemplars of the best of the nation were educated in Catholic Schools. Consider the vast numbers of people who were personally touched by the kindness, integrity, and care of Nuns and priests over the years (I am one of those). Remember the stories from our military people about chaplains (Catholic priests and others) who risked life and some were casualties all to serve the spiritual needs of soldiers. Those who enter religious life are almost always motivated by a sincere desire to serve and core belief in a God who loves. They also bring their humanity. So the service can be terribly flawed, broken and scandalous. The Church needs renewal by all means. Yet, so do other institutions in this country like the US Military. There is a difference though in the service they provide. The Military at core seeks to kill in the name of our country. The Church's mission is about giving life, however limited and flawed.
29
@HPower Yours is an intelligent and nuanced comment which is needed to correct the oversimplifications in the article. As one who was educated through my B.A. in RC schools I acknowledge the idealism which motivated the nuns and priests I encountered as teachers for the flawed heroes that they were. Devoting one's life to the service of others is no mean thing. The present scandals are incredibly disheartening but they don't erase my gratitude towards my educators of the past.
29
@HPower
" Consider the hospitals, schools, and social service agencies that brought and continue to bring hope to the poor. Notice how many leaders and exemplars of the best of the nation were educated in Catholic Schools".
In fact in many countries, hospitals, schools and social service agencies are run and directed by "lay" Catholics, not the clergy.
That's why they are still doing well in Australia for example despite the mass exodus of Catholics from the pews locally (regularv attendees are down to about 11% here now, and still falling).
9
@HPower
You said: "The Church needs renewal by all means."
I too appreciated -- and felt I understood -- your comment. I think the reason I do understand is because I have researched the traditional Church and read a good deal of old-school Catholic literature. My present understanding came about after a couple of years of reading. I came to appreciate Catholic theology.
The Church is in a vast conflict, and the same conflict is played out in the culture at large. It all has to do with *essential definitions* about life and its value. Formerly, the religious life was understood to be a connection with a higher fount: the angelical world. And this connection was not theoretical but real. The essence of Catholic mysticism is in *that*.
Now, *that* is doubted. What is a life dedicated to *God*? And what in fact is God? Is a spiritual life one devoted to *things spiritual* or to the solidities of life and life's affairs? Economics, equality, getting and spending . . .
There is a movement for 'renewal' and it is found in Catholic Traditionalism. But this is a generally conservative movement and the base of this conservatism clangs in the ears of those of us who have highly liberalized notions. There is now a bitter conflict between two camps and resolution is not close.
Essentially, in my case, I accept the tenets of Traditionalism, and my inevitable conservatism does not sit at all well with those with hyper-liberal ideas.
4
I grew up being preached at by parish priests (some of whom were relatives of mine). I always though it galling to have these celibate men tell me how to live my life. They lived in comfortable rectories and were coddled by (female) housekeepers and cooks. They had an easy work schedule, compared to your average working layperson, and no major bills to pay. They had no spouses or dependents to complicate their cozy existences. What did these men know of life? Of marriage? Sure, there were a couple who entered the priesthood later in life, after a career, or even after a marriage. But most had gone straight into seminary out of school. They were naive. Who were they to preach?
Nuns were always treated as second class, compared to priests. I’m not surprised that “new hires” have been steadily shrinking in the teaching orders. I have been told that the missionary orders still attract enough young women who want to do something good in the world, but who would want to put up with the restrictions of taking vows only to teach kids at a parochial school? Perhaps if women could be ordained as Catholic priests, the Church might be a more attractive life choice for them.
It’s time the Church joined the modern world. It’s stuck in the past.
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@Passion for PeachesTeaching children, who are our hope and future, is an incredibly important and challenging profession. Dedicating ones life exclusively to this calling is certainly “doing something good in the world. ” My Aunt was a first grade teacher in a parochial school for over 50 years. She, along with the other sisters in her order, were some the happiest, kindest, and caring people I have ever met.
12
@Anne I am glad that your aunt and her fellow nuns were kind and caring. Hopefully they were role models for some of their students who chose vocations for themselves. However, for every Catholic child with good memories of their teachers, there are others whose main image of a nun was Sister Maggie DeSade, who was all too quick to punch or slap a child whose only sin was talking out of turn or not memorizing the alphabet. Small wonder that vocations declined in the wake of such "role models."
18
@Anne, I was taught by nuns. ’Nuf said.
5
"As a son, though, I can’t help but hope the church might one day acknowledge that my parents were right."
Hopefully, never. Your parents were wrong. They showed no respect for the Church and neither did the priest who married them.
Catholics must follow the rules of the Church especially the rules in effect prior to the infamous Vatican II Council which has been a catastrophe. The Law must be followed or the Church has no meaning.
Liberal Catholics are not Catholics at all. They are protestants protesting the Law. Let them be anathema.
3
I find that conservative Catholics like you pick and choose what they want from the Church even more than liberal Catholics. Most, for instance totally ignore the Church’s long-standing, and largely progressive, social justice teachings.
4
@Michael Dowd Seeing your post, I'm thinking you're right - the Church has no meaning if such orthodoxy continues to tyrannize.
1
"As a son, though, I can’t help but hope the church might one day acknowledge that my parents were right."
Right, since when is the church concerned about "right"?
29
Peter Manseau's parents knew that when they entered Catholic religious life what was expected. They could have received dispensation from their vows but they decided to do it their way instead. It probably could have been obtained had they felt it was important to them. Apparently it was not.
They obviously did not marry in the Church and am assuming they never did at a later date. They were rebels during the sixties when the Catholic Church was in turmoil and changing to a more liberal way.
Religious life is not easy and it takes a special person to live up to the vigorous demands placed upon them. I remember my mother said she would rather her daughters not enter religious life then to go into the convent and later leave. We did not but were active lay people and still are.
There are still those who answer the calling and make very good and dedicated lives as religious career people. They stay in and do not cause any scandal. They work in many different fields and help those in need and are in desperate circumstances. They often go where they are called without questioning. These are the ones who we should look up to. It is better to have a smaller happy clergy than one that is disgruntled and angry and causes embarrassment to the Catholic Church. This is what we should be striving for. And we do.
11
Thanks for mentioning The Atlantic article by former Boston priest, writer James Carroll, in which he calls for the abolition of the priesthood. Excellent and thoughtful. I think he succeeds in making the case.
25
My parents had a hard life. Even though they had ten children, they tithed at least 10 percent of their income to the church. They felt it was their duty, even if their children went without necessities.
My father had a dear friend from college who became a priest and then married a nun he met while doing missionary work in South America.
The former priest and nun, marrying in their late 30's, only had two children. The priest, educated by the Church, had the skills to become a college professor.
It seems like the former priest and nun had a happier life than my parents. Both my parents died in their early 70's, exhausted. The former priest and nun lived - healthily - well into their 80's.
None of my parents' 10 children are practicing Catholics.
155
@the quiet one...Happier on earth but ETERNITY id forever. I would rather aspire to ETERNAL LIFE in heaven.
2
@the quiet one There was no obligation to tithe in the RC church.
5
@DPHARISEE
My parents were miserable with so many children. My mother was overwhelmed and had a nervous breakdown. Her body was worn out from having carried and birthed ten children. My father was extremely stressed as the sole breadwinner that he would die before his kids reached adulthood and leave us all fatherless. They had fights over money but the Church always got their 10 ten percent. The reason they had so many children was because of the prohibition by the RC Church. My parents did the best they could, but it was impossible, we children were neglected and grew up broken, feeling unloved.
My dad's friend, the former priest got a dispensation so he was married in the church and was given the right of Christian burial when he died as a very old man. He and his wife were happy in this life and raised two happy and loved children. So if I had to choose which family I would have born into, it would be his, not my own.
I don't believe in the afterlife, by the way. Perhaps if I had felt loved growing up in the Church, I would have.
26
It seems to me that the role of the priest is largely to oversee ritual functions that mark life’s passages—baptisms, marriages, funerals. The role of the monk or nun is above all to seek mystic union with God or the Self through prayer, meditation, mindfulness, self-denial. I believe it’s easy for people during their formative teen years to feel themselves called to a life of consecrated celibacy and discover later that, in fact, they were not ripe for such an act of radical renunciation. The number of people genuinely called to a celibate life are relatively few. Let priests marry and at the same time continue to preserve settings—convents and monasteries— for those on a mystical path as well. This is my humble opinion.
46
It seems to me there is a basic problem here. For what ever reasons, the Catholic Church has invested a great deal of time and energy into not just celibacy but a narrowly defined view of sex as part of the authoritarian power structure that perpetuates itself. To change that would be to undermine the foundations of that hierarchy - or perhaps patriarchy is a better word.
Which is ironic, since the patriarchs of the Holy Mother Church are not supposed to become parents even though that’s implied by the word. The language is a tell; Catholic clergy use titles like Father, Brother, Sister, Mother - titles derived from family relationships. Yet without sex, how does one have a family in the first place? There’s a lot of double-think at work here.
If the Church could figure out how to be a good Catholic without depending on a rigid view of sexuality to define what ‘good Catholic’ means, it might have fewer problems ministering to the world and fewer scandals in its ranks.
Too many people have too much invested in keeping things they way they are for that to happen easily.
37
@Larry Roth, I believe the basic explanation for the familial titles is that the Church is a family, with the Pope (from the word for father, Papa) at it’s head. There are Biblical citations where the faithful are referred to as children of God, who is the Father, and you can find essays online that talk about how these current titles (Father, Brother, Sister, Abbot...which means father) evolved. It’s not just Catholicism where this is true. In other Christian sects congregants might address one another as Sister or Brother. But really, in the end, it’s just a title denoting respect. Like calling your teacher Sensei. Rabbi means master. Lama means guru. Etc.
6
My mother-in-law was a staunch Catholic, so she was thrilled when her youngest daughter became a nun.
In 1974 my mother-in-law was not thrilled when her youngest daughter, and her fiancé, a former priest, were married, by the Church, after both had been properly released from their vows.
At an otherwise "normal" Sunday dinner my mother-in-law complained bitterly to the parish priest, the dinner guest, about the laxity of the "new" church.
After enduring much the priest turned to my mother-in-law and said, "Rather than than complaining about losing a sister, rejoice in gaining a father."
My wife, my father-in-law and I excused our selves from the dinner table, went out the front lawn and cried, we were laughing so much. We were soon joined by the priest.
My mother-in-law started going to another parish's church...
True story.
117
I’m more impressed with the men and women who understood that celibacy was a gift and a sacrifice, and accepted it, than those who weren’t happy with those restrictions and instead of leaving quietly to join other denominations sought to criticize, demean and diminish the virtue of those who embrace our church in its original form.
15
As clearly documented in scripture, in the "original form" of the church, Peter, the first Pope, the rock upon whom the church was built, had a mother-in-law. And, you don't get a mother-in-law without having a wife.
3
@Christine Flowers The church in "its original form" included married clergy. Celibacy is a crippling "gift", often swallowed with doses of alcohol and hypocrisy.
2
Not original - celibacy was not made mandatory for priests until the 1100s, more than 1000 into the history of the church! Land the reason was primarily to keep property within the church, fearing that priests children would exercise rights of inheritance. The Church depends upon its members ignorance of this history.
3
I always wonder how married couples in any kind of distress are supposed to look to unmarried, ostensibly childless, priests for counsel and guidance. And how can a priest who has never had a fight with a partner or worried all night about his wayward child or had to put the health and well-being of his partner above his own truly understand the complexities of an intimate relationship? Being a spouse (and parent) should be a natural state for priests and nuns just as it is for most of their parishioners.
331
@Kate
Beautifully put!
12
@Kate
I agree with you that priests and nuns should be able to marry. But to say a person who counsels others (that would include any kind of therapist, social worker, etc.) is incapable of helping or understanding anyone unless their life situation has had the same path and set of experiences would be casting serious doubts on the value of the training that most therapists and counselors receive. Priests and nuns are human beings, have relationships with their family and friends, and may have young relatives who are integral parts of their lives.
And despite the training secular therapists receive - on the job or through education and real-life experiences - my experience and that of many of my acquaintances is that some of them are great, some OK, and some just plain awful and should be receiving therapy, not providing it. I'm sure that goes for pastoral counselors as well.
24
This issue perfectly encapsulates the difference between faith and religion. I embrace my faith in God because it’s God’s gift to me. I run screaming from man-made religion because it often has little or nothing to do with faith.
Catholic leaders in the 11th century decided that married priests were becoming too expensive what with all those children they brought forth. Hence the decision to encourage parishioners to have all the kids; the rule of celibacy and all the nonsense that followed was born.
Peter was married. Paul must have been married at one time because he was in the Sanhedrin which admitted only married men. Celibacy is a rule that has caused nothing but trouble because it’s one God never mentioned for church leaders.
227
And they also wanted any money, land, or valuables the priests owned to come to the church when they died, rather than go to family. An eye on the prize, always!
6
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Andrew Scott, the actor who played Jim Moriarty in "Sherlock," is playing a priest in the comedy/drama series "Fleabag?" Well, both characters are Irish, aren't they. Seriously, Mr. Scott was terrific playing Anthony Julius in "Denial" and is a really fine actor.
12
After almost three-quarters of a century as a Catholic and decades as a mental health counselor, I would say that the upper levels of the Vatican have a phobic attitude toward sex and also a phobic attitude toward women. They want nothing to do with either. They associate men with spirituality and women with sexuality. If celibacy were a principle rather than a phobia, the church would choose to ordain unmarried women -- most obviously nuns, already trained in theology and living religious lives -- rather than married men. But as we've all observed, any time the ordination of women comes up, the Vatican beats it away with a stick.
418
@Lynn B. Schiffhorst
"After almost three-quarters of a century as a Catholic and decades as a mental health counselor, I would say that the upper levels of the Vatican have a phobic attitude toward sex and also a phobic attitude toward women. They want nothing to do with either. They associate men with spirituality and women with sexuality."
What I notice is that your comment got over 130 recommendations! This means that your view is widely shared and agreed with. Your view fits with a general acceptance of the tenets of feminist ideology and is of course part-and-parcel of a generally liberal culture. As a therapist-counselor -- one engaged in psychological work and metaphysics -- naturally you can only understand sexual phobia, as you call it, as a pathology which must be cured or perhaps transcended.
It is definitely and even inescapably true that in Occidental culture men have been associated with 'spirituality'. The entire philosophical endeavor is 'spiritual' in that sense. And it is inevitable that women have been more associated with the body and natural processes.
Now, I suppose, there is a great deal of confusion and conflict about what *spirituality* is. Is it a renunciation of the body and the body's processes, or a *full embrace*? And what aspect of this dichotomy does *woman* on the whole represent?
In my view one has to attempt to see the larger conflict that the entire society is facing, and then turn one's gaze back to the area where it plays out.
4
@Lynn B. Schiffhorst,
I have heard this joke:
According to the Vatican Roman Curia, there are two sexes:
One is called "male",
The other is called "occasions of sin".
Many of the early church fathers were very misogynistic, and the tradition seems to have carried on.
22
@Lynn B. Schiffhorst
Please no nuns as priests and no men. Only married women who have raised children.
8
There are Roman Catholic priest with wives and children, all in good standing It is not well publicized, but there is even a Seminary (The Sacred Heart School of Theology) which specializes in "Late Vocation calls". These are people who married before they began to discern the call of Holy Orders: that alone is not considered by the Church to be a reason to deny the validity of that call. One imagines that local Bishops might vary in how much they would welcome such a candidate but that is very much up to the individual. The "institution" which is slandered for its rigidity has in fact been working around all these things for years. It's those who have left who refuse to imagine that their anger is misplaced. Meanwhile, on Family Day at Sacred Heart the necks of grand-father priests are encircled with the arms of their grandchildren as well as the collar of Rome.
And it all makes a kind of sense. Churches are easy to spot. It is hard to find a spouse. Get married first. Then see what you both think about Holy Orders.
7
@flosfer
The clergy with wives and children in the Roman rite are ex-Protestants. Sacred Heart seminary is processing them. The Roman church is welcoming of those who have "crossed the Tiber" to come to Rome, especially with dwindling Roman clergy, but deny marriage of any Roman Catholic clergy who marry after ordination.
Eastern Catholic clergy are allowed to marry but largely are treated as second class by the Roman church.
For a long time in the USA, Eastern Catholics were not allowed to have wives here. In 1929 the dominant Irish Catholic hierarchy here considered married Eastern Catholic clergy a scandal in the midst of Roman Catholics and petitioned Rome to have no married Eastern Catholic clergy here.
36
@Emmett Coyne I was not talking about people who are already clergy trying to get married but the opposite: people who are already married discerning a call to Holy Orders. Ordination is indeed an impediment to marriage but marriage is not an impediment to Ordination. People who think they know all the side chapels and alcoves of the Church are fooling themselves. It, as well as the God who loves it, are way bigger than that.
@Emmett Coyne
The "scandal" is the continued "rule" requiring clerical celibacy in the first place. It is beyond being merely a scandal - it is just plain stupid.
Way back in my day, many Catholic males were "required" to go into the seminary. Many were French Canadian and many weren't. A number of my friends just couldn't make it. Being so far from family and friends and basically isolated from the world.
7
I think the annoying and frustrating aspect of priests not being able to marry is that married episcopal priests who convert to Catholicism are able to become Catholic priests.
The Catholic Church needs to move forward with its own religious.
87
@Joan In California
An old family friend was one of the first Episcopal priests accepted under that pastoral provision. He also became licensed to serve as an Eastern Rite priest. His wife wrote a book about their journey after his death.
6
@Joan In California
The majority of Episcopal priests who became Catholic priests (married or not), did so in objection to the ordination of women and homosexuals. The depth of the Catholic church's misogyny and homophobia is astounding. I have little hope for change.
3
I dare say if the celibacy requirement for the priesthood were abolished there would be no priest shortage. The Latin Rite is the only branch of the Catholic Church hat requires celibacy and the very concept of celibacy is becoming more and more recognized as being not only unnatural but uniquely absurd. Celibacy, like virginity, is of dubious value in my mind. Human beings were not designed to be either. Did God make a mistake?
99
This article doesn't mention the married priests of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church. This church was born of an historic compromise that facilitated Poland's colonization of western Ukraine by establishing the Polish catholic church in Galicia and other western Ukraine districts. The catholic church in western Ukraine accepted the authority of the Pope rather than the Metropolitan of the Eastern Orthodox church. But in order not to alienate Ukrainians it retained the Eastern Orthodox ("Greek") rituals and practices, including the practice of married priests.
Thus, for a long time there have been married Catholic priests in western Ukraine. The sky has not fallen. And the family life these priests lead has only strengthened the church. One does not hear of widespread sexual abuse perpetrated by western Ukraine priests or critical shortages of candidate priests.
Indeed, in 2014 the Vatican lifted its ban on the ordination of married men to the priesthood in Greek Catholic churches outside their traditional territories, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.
All of this underlines how utterly arbitrary is the Catholic Church's insistence on priestly celibacy. Why is the Church clinging to a dysfunctional, medieval, non-Biblically based practice of celibacy?
181
And from what I understand, the Byzantine (Eastern) Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, which allows priests to be married, has had fewer abuse scandals than the Roman Rite, to which most American Catholics belong. It sounds like it would be a good idea for the Vatican to look inward in order to at least partially address the issue of clergy initiated abuse of all sorts.
37
Celibacy was advocated by Paul, the Hellenized Jewish convert but not made doctrine by the Church until 1139 in an effort to prevent priests from leaving “church property” to their heirs. In other words, the Church hierarchy wanted the land for themselves and the church. Imagine that.
12
@Barry Schreibman I heard that a Greek Catholic bishop opined to his western colleagues how he loved having married priests. He said they never gave him any trouble because they had their own bishop living with them!
76
Wonderful perspective on an issue that bogs down the Roman Catholic church.
This economic choice (a celibate clergy incurs bills for no wives and children) has hamstrung its priests. Avoiding a married clergy hurts both the priest and the parishioner, and invites the devil into the bedroom and every nook and cranny of the church. Lead us not into temptation? And yet the church continues to flaunt that fervent prayer.
23
A study of original Catholicism -- that is, pre-Vatican ll -- shows one a religious path that is demanding. It is based on the idea of sacrificing the world for something higher. If one 'believes in' that something higher, and if one understands what ascent means in this Catholic/Christian sense, one can understand that the sacrifice of the *lower* is amply rewarded by striving for the *higher*. The entire notion of celibacy and renunciation of the sensual life is based in this. Read a Breviary (pre-Vatical ll of course).
If we no longer believe in this 'elevated space' and in an attainments that must be strived for and requires numerous sacrifices, and if additionally we actually more believe in a full life lived in the body in a more (permit me to say) Nietzschen sense, then the Catholic path will logically no longer have appeal. The *attainment* will be seen as empty or as *escapist*.
This is what I have learned, and this helps me to understand a sort of *war* waged against the essence of Catholicism, which has that very ascetic aspect. If the reward promised no longer seems a reward, but a deprivation, then of course! other options will seem more attractive and viable.
15
A study of “original” Catholicism seems incomplete if it does not include all Rites and traditions. As an apostolic church, it traces its history to churches founded by different apostles. Most, including the Latin rite, have allowed married priests at points in their history. Some have done so consistently, including certain Eastern Catholic Churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches, which were once part of the one Catholic Church, also have married clergy. In and of itself, celibacy does not elevate one’s spirituality. And at times, celibacy has been perverted, which debases one’s spirituality.
Being universal the church has and can simultaneously allow followers both an elevated space entered through asceticism and a full embrace of the body. The apostles each led different Christian communities- this is how it was originally. There is no “war” against the essence of Catholicism. Even if priests are free to marry, they would also be free to discern if and when it is best to practice celibacy.
33
@Alizia Tyler
If we all made that renunciation of the lower for the higher, there would be no one to follow after us.
Consider the Shakers as a cautionary tale.
31
The attainment of that elevated space may still be a worthy goal. But, how does that struggle qualify you to advise those who are on a more mortal path? It profoundly doesn’t! No one is saying that priests should be forced to marry, by al means leave the path of the ascetic open to those who choose it. But allow another path for those who choose to live in the world and want to help others follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
5
Andrew Scott is right asking for a little movement from the church on clerical marriage as far as possible vocations. I can tell you there will be no movement from the paying pews for the increased financial contributions needed to support “clerical families”. I am, I note, a product of the old black and white movies focused on the saintly minister unable to provide that new suit et al to their pleading son. Would not expect that pastors’ families are carefree financially nowadays either. And what would you think the role, if any, should the wife and children have in the individual parish.? Hard enough for the cleric to live above reproach.
5
The world has moved pretty far past your black and white movies. Episcopal parishes manage just fine with the families of clergy because there is no longer an expectation that the spouse (not always a woman) will stay at home and raise the children. Clerical families can now choose when, if, and how many children to have. Spouses can even have jobs outside the home. In my parish, our rector is actually married to another priest who works at a different church. Her two children are grown and flown. Our Assistant is a young man married a bright young woman finishing her law degree, and our Associate Minister is another bright young woman just starting out her pastoral career who hopes to marry some day. Our clergy reflect the varied lives of our parishioners. And that’s how it ought to be. We are no longer living in a black and white world.
7
I’m sorry, you do realize that every other Judeo-Christian religion on earth has married clergy, don’t you. The Catholic Church and its parishioners would hardly be breaking new ground here.
5
@Mary Travers It could probably be arranged. For financial purposes the priest might simply be an employee of the diocese with a salary. Then the priest could be a member of the community like any other professional. The spouse could hold a paying job wherever. The kids could go to public school or maybe get a break on the local parochial school tuition. Where does it say the congregation has to support the clergy and the family? What does your wife do? She's a priest at St. Liberatus!
2
If light travels at the speed of light, the Church prefers to “suffer” in darkness. As long as it doesn’t see the social change, it can’t acknowledge it.
The fact is that men and women of good will can serve the principles of the church and remain fully integrated to their communities through families of their own, which is far healthier. There’s no contradiction. The Church of England has a few centuries under its belt of not only priests marrying, but now of women being ordained to the priesthood. Yet, the world keeps orbiting.
Like Galileo’s absolution, a few hundred years too late (perhaps late is better than never), so too will change come to pass and priests will be allowed to marry. The question is why wait and alienate new worshipers.
80
When I went to Catholic high school, a number of the nuns who were teachers expressed unhappiness with the church’s rigidity about keeping the priesthood male and prohibiting romantic relationships for clergy. One Sister got emotional describing how much she would like to be taken out to a dinner date.
So there is a movement for change from within the Church. Either the Catholic Church will respond to the push, or they will push away those who would otherwise want to be part of them.
105
Whatever the world of I Corinthians 7-9, which advised lay widows and the unmarried that although it is preferable to remain celibate, it was preferable for them to marry rather than to burn with passion, it is well past time for the Catholic Church to recognize the real world wisdom of I Corinthians and expand the marriage option to priests and nuns, that is to treat celibacy as a preference rather than a necessity for the clerical life.
Rome needs to do this if not because it makes sense to Rome but because, if it sticks to celibacy as a one size fits all life choice, it will see its priests and nuns vanish.
68
@Steve - " ... treat celibacy as a preference rather than a necessity for the clerical life."
The church seemed to do just fine for the first thousand years, when priestly celibacy was not a requirement.
25
Too many young people went off to Seminary or Religious Life
without knowing what to fully expect and what they were
sacrificing.
There is a vast loneliness in religious life that can only
be filled by the love of Christ Jesus and the hope and strength
offered by the Holy Spirit.
It is the duty of the Spiritual Director to help the person
accurately discern if they have a true calling or not.
Sadly, too many rectors of seminaries and formation directors
don't know how to nourish the spirit and to read the signs of
the times, and so they misjudge the seminarian, religious aspirant
and drive away those who do have vocations and approve of those
who do not.
19
@John Brown
That vast loneliness is a sign of a need for human, including bodiily, including romantic, including sexual contact. Why these things should be considered incompatible with "the love of Christ Jesus and the hope and strength offered by the Holy Spirit" is beyond me. Clarify.
7
@John Brown On a lighter note, they should have learned from the wisdom that the Mother Superior in The Sound of Music passes on to Maria.
3
@Melpub
Anyone can come to Christ whether they
are married or single.
Those that enter religious orders are
expected not to marry and so are left with
the Love of Christ to fill the space where most
of us find another human and from that love
of Christ they then spend their lives in charity
toward all they meet - they have no family concerns
or desires to help the family first.
3
The parents were brave enough to dare to succumb to love. Good for them!
131
Good writing, but, I have to say, I tire of former Catholics lecturing those of us who have stayed, while, expressly or tacitly, courting the approval of the cultured despisers of religion, as if to say: "Well, I have some appreciation for the history of the church, and a fondness for my parents, but, of course, I could never really, you know, BE, a Catholic.
62
@brian I don't read this essay as pandering to "the approval of the cultured despisers of religion." Instead, it is a personal narrative about how in the wake of Vatican II, devoted Catholics faced a crisis. I know many priests, monks and nuns who left the church, many of whom married and remained in their hearts devoted to the Roman Catholic Church.
Rome needs to recognize that its tradition of a celibate priesthood and its extension to nuns is an obstacle to retaining and attracting priests and nuns. The church is dying and you talk as if it can blithely remain as it was.
198
@brian
I admire and applaud former Catholics lecturing those who have stayed! Hopefully some will listen. How Catholics can continue to attend services every Sunday, and contribute to a Catholic Church that has refused to definitively deal with its tragic abuses is incomprehensible to me.
142
@Steve
Steve, I hear your argument. But, hear my counterargument. Whether or not the author remained a Catholic or not is immaterial to the essay. functioning only to signal himself 'safe' to his envisioned readership. Please pause and reflect on that for a moment. His self-referential aside is a distraction, albeit a minor one, from the subject matter of his otherwise, well crafted reflection.
14