Dan

Remind me again why you just joined a Church whose bishops you consider cowards?

K.

Alex,

Whereas I am 100% for Married Priests (I someday might be one, if that is what God wants and the community needs!), I am 98% against married bishops.

I know what a bishop's life is like. I just don't think it would be fair to his wife (or him, or their children).

Besides, then we couldn't get to see bishops wearing klobuks! (for the uninformed: those cool black hats!, oo woops, Ruthenians wouldn't know that, since ours don't "do" that sort of thing!) Of course, a married bishop could wear a purple klobuk like Bishop Basil Losten, or blue.

anastasios

PS My friend from Slovakia, a deacon, once related to me a story about a married priest in Slovakia. The Orthodox made him a bishop due to I guess a shortage. So he followed the tradition, and his wife moved to a monastery, he professed vows, etc. Only.... pastoral visits to the monastery increased threefold from that point on! If this story is true, it happened in the 1980's.

Dear Anastasios,

I certainly hope and pray that you will become a married Priest one day! The Church definitely needs you!!

I just mentioned the bit about married bishops on a whim . . . I don't see any movement in that direction soon. But it is true that the early Bishops were "men of one wife." That is good. Any more wives can really complicate things . . .

Yes, I have read about priests who parted with their wives to become bishops and even monks!

There is the interesting case of the Catholic Venerable Servant of God, Cornelia Connelly, a convert to RCism with her Episcopalian husband.

Her husband really wanted to be an RC priest and this was in the days when they just didn't ordain married clergy coming to the CHurch from Protestantism (as is done with Anglican and Lutheran Ministers who become RC's now).

Cornelia pleaded with her husband not to do that, but he insisted and the Church allowed them to separate. He apparently had ambitions to become a bishop, but that never materialized. Cornelia became a Nun in the meantime.

Her husband then gave up the Priesthood and became an Episcopalian Minister again. He demanded Cornelia's return to him, but she refused. He even took her to court over it, but nothing came of it.

Her husband then spent the rest of his days earning a living by writing against the Catholic Church!

Cornelia's beatification process is coming along and she is especially honoured in New Orleans since she was received into the Church at the Cathedral of St Louis there.

Her children blamed the Church for their parents woes etc.

You are right, these are all things and problems to consider.

Alex

XPUCTOCb BOCKPEC!

"A priest source told me there will be married priests ordained in the US in the next 5 years."

There already are married priests in this country. They're all former Anglicans and now they're Romans.

Oh, you mean our priests....

Well, we do have a married Ukrainian priest here where I live. This priest and his wife happen to be the parents of Fr.Valerian Michlik, recently was with our Pittsburgh Diocese.

Our next Archbishop will really have his hands full to say the least!!!!

mark

>>>Remind me again why you just joined a Church whose bishops you consider cowards<<<

WelL, why don't you review the history of our esteemed episcopacy in this country and provide us with some profiles in courage?

Besides, in this country, at least, the diocese takes a very secondary seat to the parish. In Europe, people would laugh a diocese that spans half a continent.

Dear Mark,

I think our Presbyteras are the ones who have the heavier burdens! God bless them all!

Alex

Concerning the new leader of the Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S., Metropolitan Stefan, Archimandrite Taft had this to say:

"Before appointing him as the new Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Rome asked him if he intended to ordain married men as priests. Stefan responded 'ABSOLUTELY,' and then Rome appointed him as the new Metropolitan. Fifteen years ago they would not have appointed him." (This is a paraphrase from my memory, not the exact words... but pretty darn close).

In short, whether or not we will have married priests is in the hands of our bishop - especially the future Metropolitan. Rome can no longer be blamed as an obstacle!

Anthony

Anthony,

I will gently remind Father Hrubiak, our Vocations Director, of this when I see him sometime between May 22-24.

BTW Father Loya has asked me to direct our Parish's Evangelism efforts.

Please, pray for me regarding both matters.

Dan L

Dear Dan,

Married priests and evangelism are linked.

If people won't join the Church because they dislike the Pastor, they may do so because they like the Presbytera. Happened in my grandparents' situation.

Alex

Brendan,
I agree with you 100% on this issue.
Eastern Catholics should be nothing less or nothing more than Orthodx in Communion with the Apostolic See of Rome.

Stephanos

Alex,
There is no contradiction. Union between the Churches before the "schism" is what is normative. We need to thouroughly study what that communion consisted of and accept that union. Not a later understanding wether that be Catholic or Orthodox. It is my opinion that both sides have moved from what was center in reaction to each other.

Remember the Pope words to those Russian Intelectuals who sought communion with the Apostolic See of Rome! "Nec plus, nec minus, nec alietur!"
Nothing more, nothing less, nothing different!

Stephanos

Anthony,

I left Pittsburgh three days late, it seems.

All,

The Romanian Catholic bishop [Bishop John Michael Botean] has ordained married priests without a peep from the Holy See. A mutual friend of mine and Anthony's went to the ordination of a Romanian Catholic married priest in Florida.

All,

In addition, the Ukranian Catholic bishops in Canada have ordained married men to the priesthood for years, as well.

As to the Roman Catholics not ordaining married men to the priesthood, the Roman Catholics have been doing that since the early 1950s [starting in Germany with former Lutheran pastors]. In the U.S., former Lutheran pastors and former Anglican priests have been ordained as married men to the priesthood since the start of the Pastoral Provision in the early 1980s under the leadership of Bernard Cardinal Law.

Most of the married priests who came over from the Anglican/Episcopalian Church are theologically quite conservative {Anthony Dragani and I know that for a fact, since we had a married Roman Catholic priest as a professor in an extremely disappointing course at Franciscan University of Steubenville entitled "Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy." The course was very anti-ecumenical and very anti-Orthodox, in my opinion. This priest was against married priests in the Eastern Catholic churches and said that the allowing of married priests was a generous indult by the Roman Catholic Church when the Ruthenians came back to the Catholic Church at the Union of Brest and the Union of Uzhorod. Needless to say, for my final paper in the course, I wrote it on how the Eastern Catholic churches are allowed to have married priests (I wonder why my grade for the course dropped from a "B+" to a "B"[!?!])}.

By the way, I am a Roman Catholic who loves the Eastern Catholic Churches.

Dear Michael,

I wish I could be as optimistic as you about our Bishops in Canada ordaining married men, but I cannot . . .

What has been happening is that candidates have been going to Ukraine and getting ordained by the bishops there as married priests (my great uncle, Met. Sterniuk, was "notorious" for ordaining married priests!).

They were then sent back to Canada on "mission" duty from Ukraine.

This has stopped, however.

The retired Bishop of Saskatoon, the Most Rev. Basil Filevich, ordained a married deacon a priest.

To my knowledge, Rome has not defrocked him, threatened him with the Inquisition or otherwise shocked him into subservient submission and public repentance of his dastardly deed.

Let us indeed pray for courage for our Bishops! Once they all start ordaining married priests, they just might find that they don't need it

Alex

Dear Stephanos,

I agree, but there are many in the Ukrainian CAtholic Church who would not.

They and other Orthodox Christians in western Ukraine, have adopted western practices e.g. the Stations of the Cross.

They wouldn't think of parting with these and don't see a conflict with Eastern liturgy etc.

It would also be pastorally unwise to go back to before 1596 or 1700 to how people used to do things then.

In actual fact, Orthodox practice was also very Latinized during the Kyivan Baroque period.

I think the general rule should be that public liturgy in the Eastern Catholic Churches should be free of Latinisms, whichever gurus decide on what they are and how to expunge them.

Private devotion is always that and it should be left alone.

As for the "nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter," that is an excellent ideal. Unfortunately, and historically, it was never truly realized in Catholicism (the Russian Catholics possibly the exception to the rule).

Alex