This prohibition seems to make little sense. If marriage is good and can be a legitimate part of the clerical state, as it is in the East for priests and deacons, and in the West for permanent deacons, why should there be a law forbidding marriage after ordination?
The answer most coherent with the fact of this universal law is that there was an apostolic discipline of clerical continence (i.e. abstinence from sexual union) even for those who were married, and that the existing law, which applies even where clerical marriage and the use of marriage is retained, is a vestige of the ancient discipline.
This accords with the words of Our Lord:
Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. (Mk 10.29-30)Of the apostles, we know that St Peter was married because of the mention of his "mother-in-law" (Lk 4.37-39) and yet we hear nothing about his wife at all.
St Paul says that the bishop must be the husband of "only one wife" (1 Tim 3.2). He is surely not intending here to express a prohibition of polygamy which would have been obviously abhorrent to Christians. Much more likely, he is saying that the Bishop should be a man who, if his wife has died, does not marry again. Why? Because a Bishop is someone who has left "wife and children" for the sake of the kingdom.
The discipline whereby only unmarried men were ordained is an obvious development from this, not an innovation of the middle ages.
For further information, see the article by Ignace de la Potterie at the Vatican website: The biblical foundation of priestly celibacy.
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f marriage is good and can be a legitimate part of the clerical state, as it is in the East for priests and deacons, and in the West for permanent deacons, why should there be a law forbidding marriage after ordination?
The problem with this is that even in the East, even among the Orthodox priests are not allowed to marry after ordination. That has been a continuous discipline since the apostolic period. Ordination was defined by the Church at the second Lateran Council as an impediment to marriage which can only be surmounted by the Pope.
Interesting post. I only recently learned that Catholic deacons could be married. The Orthodox are against ordained priests marrying, and ordained deacons marrying as well. They must be married before ordination. That is the rule.
Athanasius - exactly so.
Athanasius, can you send me an email? My email is on my profile. Otherwise if you are on Facebook I am on Fr. Tim's profile. I don't want to take up his blog space. Fr. Tim, feel free to delete this once Athanasius replies.
Thanks,
Atlanta
When I read of this petition I experienced a strange sense of deja vu. With good reason.
This very petition was doing the rounds in Australia several months ago, and was spruiked around the parishes by ex-preist and favourite ABC media commentator Paul Collins (who left active ministry after a disagreement with Archbishop Pell [as the Cardinal then was] over Collins' doctrinally and historically unsound book "Papal Power").
Here is the Aussie petition from the far-left dissenting web-site "Catholica Australia":
http://www.catholica.com.au/breakingnews/012_bn_080807.php
The Chairman of the ACBC responded to the petition:
9 May 2008
Dr Paul Collins
PO Box 4053
MANUKA ACT 2603
Dear Paul
I write to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20 March 2008.
The matters which you raise in your letter as in the petition are of quite diverse doctrinal and disciplinary import. They are also largely beyond our competence as a national Conference of Bishops within the universal Church.
Your letter seems to underestimate the challenges to faith which we now confront. It would not, therefore, be appropriate in these circumstances for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to engage in ongoing correspondence with you on these issues. The Bishops will, however, continue in other ways to address the current challenges.
With every good wish, I remain
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Archbishop Philip E. Wilson
President, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
Similarly, Archbishop Denis Hart (Melbourne) said in a recent address to his council of priests (this was the same address in which he told them, in Fr Z's words to "Say the Black and do the Red):
"'Recently the Collins/Purcell petition has been seeking to present to the Australian Bishops a request concerning the criteria for ordination to the priesthood. None of these matters are the competency of the bishops, but pertain to the Holy See. Some of them are directly contrary to the declaration of Pope John Paul II that the Catholic Church does not have the capacity to ordain women to the priesthood.
'When Paul Collins and Frank Purcell wrote to me at the end of October, I indicated to them that I could not endorse either the petition or the Camberwell Civic Centre gathering.
'I used these words: 'While acknowledging the challenges we face, in the provision of priests, the Archdiocese of Melbourne now and in the future, will remain totally faithful to the dispositions of the Holy See concerning who may be ordained to the priesthood. We will continue vigorous promotion of vocations and accept the assistance of priests from other countries in our time of need.
''We remain totally committed to celibate priesthood as the norm for the Latin Rite.
''I would also wish to indicate that it is not within the competence of any bishop to derogate from the provisions of the Universal Church. Therefore to this extent your idea of a petition is misleading and will I fear lead to inevitable frustration on the part of the petitioners.'
There was also a counter-petition expressing fidelity to the orthodox teaching of the Church.
All the same Collins claimed that the petition had support from "several bishops" the only one named was retired bishop Pat Power, and "at least eighty priests".
A couple of centuries ago, you sent your criminal classes out here to rot in the antipodes. Now we are sending our heretics back to you!
I have seen a recent paper arguing that Catholic married deacons are implicitly bound by this law of continency, as will be discovered from a close reading of the Code of Canon Law.
Just last weekend a priest, in a diocese of Australia, preached from the pulpit in support of married priests and alarmed the congregation by saying that unless this happened the Church in Australia would collapse. It didn't occur to this priest to think that he and others like him are the reason that his diocese has no vocations to the priesthood.
Father, there is one point about ordaining ex Anglican clergymen that I have never had explained to me. If, as the Church teaches, their Anglican orders are null and void, thus, in effect they are laymen when they become Catholic, what is the difference between them, and any other married Catholic layman, prior to their being ordained? I have had it explained that they have "pastoral" experience, and certain gifts, from acting as an Anglican Minister, but how can these be any more so than a good Catholic layman, for example an RE teacher, or lecturer in Theology? They, since they are Catholic, will have presumably also benefitted from having the fullness of the Truth, so be just as good a candidate to be a married priest. Now, I personally, do not want married priests, but I don't know how to explain it to my son - who was somewhat perturbed to see a photo of a married Priest with his wife and children, pinned up in the back of a Church we visited. Of course, we'd always told him that married men can't become Priests - so I had no satisfactory explanation for why an ex-Anglican clergyman is any different to a married Catholic layman, once he converts! Does what I'm asking make sense? Is there a good explanation of this anywhere?
The argument that only a married clergy will solve our vocations shortage doesn't hold water. The Anglicans have got married and female clergy and they still have a lack of vocations.
Married Anglican priests who convert to Rome with their wives are often ordained as Catholic priests. Do they have to practise continence?
Father Tim,
I guess I still fail to see the point. If the West is willing to ordain married men as deacons, why not presbyters? We deacons, while the first level of major orders, are still nonetheless in major orders sharing in the grace of apostolic succession. Both East and West have favored over many, many centuries a celibate episcopate, which I believe is a reflection of the apostolic ideal. Deacons and presbyters are delegates of the bishop, each reflecting different - yet complimentary - aspects of his apostolic fatherhood. (It is why I am as deacon referred to as Father Deacon Daniel, and not "Reverend Mr." - a complete aberration and a reduction of the ministry of deacon to either an exalted layman or a priest 2nd class, neither of which is the true case.)
The priest and the deacon, if I may borrow a Trinitarian image from St. Irenaeus, are like the two hands of the bishop who is the icon of God the Father. Just as there is a hand which is usually dominant, so the presbyter is the "right hand" while the deacon is the "left" (no offense intended to lefties!). Both hands are equal in dignity, for the right hand cannot say - "I do not need the left!" and the left hand cannot say "I do not need the right!". The deacon is the icon of the bishop's kenotic fatherhood to the congregation. The presbyter is the icon of his sacerdotal fatherhood to the congregation. Even if one admits to degrees of elevation in the hierarchy (which I do), if one is willing to admit married men into the order of the diaconate, in principle there is nothing which says that such married deacons cannot or even should not be elevated to the order of presbyter.
Which brings me to the final point which is that celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom is the ideal, which is why even in the East candidates for the episcopate, where the fulness of apostolic succession resides, are always chosen from monastic and celibate clergy. If your line of argumentation regarding a "celibates only" presbyterate is consistent and brought to its logical conclusion, it must include the diaconate as well.
And yet, how many many tens of thousands of deacons have been ordained in the Latin Church?
The decision by the Second Vatican Council and later ratified by Pope Paul VI to restore the permanent diaconate to the Latin Church and to open it up to married men demonstrated that married men in holy orders do not in any way compromise, sully or diminish the dignity of the apostolic ideal of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom.
Regarding the admission of ordained men to the married state while still retaining their faculties, such things are done for widowed deacons with young children out of a sense of economia so that the children are able to have a mother. I only know of it being done once for a married Orthodox priest, with very mixed reception across the Orthodox world. But the notion that priests who are in vows of celibacy and have "jumped ship" without the blessing of their hierarch to marry someone - usually of their own flock - should be restored to ministry is just absurd and not even on the same level as the issues raised above. Those who have been already laicized with permission should not be restored either, since such things would simply ratify what is usually a scandal among the faithful - the abandonment of ministry for the sake of marriage.
Finally, with all due respect, these delusional clerics who think that women should be ordained to the presbyterate need to stop lumping married men as priests in their petitions. It sullies the godly dignity that such a blended vocation represents, especially to those of us in the East.
In ICXC,
Father Deacon Daniel
There is indeed an inconsistency in current practice in the Western Church. I think it is better to admit frankly that it is an inconsistency and needs at some appropriate time in the future to be rectified.
I know many good former Anglican priests and many good married deacons and I respect their faithfulness to their dual vocation of marriage and the clerical state. But in the beginning it was not so ...
Father Tim,
My hope is that by being "rectified" you mean extending the opportunities for priestly ministry to married deacons in the Latin West. :-)
Respectfully, there are many practices and disciplines that exist today that "were not so" in the beginning of the Church's history. The same is true in reverse. (The Order of Penance comes to mind...as does the use of the Artos or "leavened bread" in the West) Assuming that your position on a "celibate only" sacerdotal and diaconal ministry is in fact the case and was universally observed (an assumption I do not share entirely) as you know, the fact that a discipline existed before is not sufficient justification for its revival.
It is difficult - if not impossible - to imagine the elimination of a married diaconate in the Latin Church. Such a course of action, apart from the praiseworthy service many married deacons have shown, would send a dreadful signal to the Orthodox (and Eastern Catholics) of a retrenchment in the Latin position on married clergy. The majority of Orthodox priests and deacons are married men serving in parishes. Any effort by Rome to "restore" such a discipline to the Latin diaconate would simply be disastrous ecumenically, possibly even creating confusion on the part of the Eastern Catholic hierarchs and artificially generating another obstacle to full communion. It is one thing to uphold a praiseworthy ideal as an ideal. It is quite another to say that the ideal, especially one which does not violate any divinely revealed principle, must be imposed.
In ICXC,
Father Deacon Daniel
I am not in favour of any immediate juridical attempt to rectify the anomaly, no. "At some time in the future" perhaps, and preferably by organic change.
I agree with you that a practice existing in the past does not justify changing back to it. That would be the "archaeologism" condemned by Pope Pius XII. But where a practice is of apostolic origin, that is a good reason to value it and not to move any further away from it at any rate.
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