www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Conference on EC Married Priests

This looks interesting:

http://orthocath.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/conference-on-married-priests-in-rome-november-13th/

Interesting indeed! Thanks, for this, Anna

It will be interesting. The speakers are outstanding! Unfortunately I'm not able to attend.....

While it is hopeful that Eastern Catholics are discussing this I am afraid that the Hierarchy of Rome will not allow married priests in the USA.

it is an odd response since they ordain DROVES of Episcopal Priests who are married into the Latin Catholic Rite.

It confuses Eastern Catholics - especially married men who would gladly fill the need for priests - and creating an artificial
deficit of priests in the church.

I am not sure but could not the Ruthenians use more priests?
The Melkites? The Ukrainian Cahtolics?

It bothers me to hear for prayers for vocations in our church
that I guarantee will go unanswered. My church does not have a deacon (yet) - I saw a video of several Byz Cath churches without deacons - what is up with that?

It is especially distressing when I know many many viable - able bodied men ready to serve.

It is sad.

Agreed.

So, Eastern Catholic bishops should just grow something between their legs and start ordaining married men. There really isn't anything Rome can do about that, except complain. The truth is, a lot of Eastern Catholic bishops like celibate priests--they are cheaper (no need to pay a "living wage" in accordance with Catholic social doctrine), easier to move around like pawns on a chessboard (no irate Panis complaining about having to pull the kids out of school because her husband is being moved to a new parish), and easier to browbeat (no Panis to put some spine into their husbands). If we don't ordain married men, it's basically our fault, not Rome's.

well said.

Indeed, Stuart.

But can I ask: is it not the Ruthenians alone who will not ordain married me? I know of at least one married Ukrainian who was recently ordained priest in Stamford. And of course, north of the 49th parallel, they ordain married men all the time.

That looks like a short 'Who's Who' of notable Catholic priests of the Byzantine-Slavonic tradition.

Father Peter Galadza - Canada
Father Lawrence Cross - Australia
Father Thomas Loya - USA

I am not really familiar with the others, but these three are well worth paying attention to.

Please note for the record that Protopresbyter James Dutko is an Orthodox priest from ACROD in the United States and the son of an Orthodox priest whose family, along with Bishop Orestes Chornock, entered into Orthodoxy in 1938 from the Ruthenian Greek Catholic tradition following the imposition of Ea Semper and Cum Data Fuerit. His presence is significant,from both a substantive as well as a symbolic perspective. Father James has been an Orthodox memeber of the North American Catholic Orthodox Theological Consultation since its inception some three decades ago.

Like many men of that time, Father James' grandfathers were actively involved in the KOVO (Committee for the Preservation of the Eastern Rite - the organization which eventually morphed into the ACROD.) His maternal grandfather was actually excommunicated from the Greek Catholic Church as an officer of the Greek Catholic Union during the years leading up to the creation of ACROD for being one of the signators to the appeal filed with Pope Pius XI following Bishop Basil Takach's efforts to impose celibacy.

His late father, Msgr. Stephen Dutko, was one of the first married priests ordained by Orthodox Bishop Orestes Chornock in 1942 and served the Church for nearly seventy years prior to his repose in 2009. His nephew is a second year Seminarian at Christ the Savior Seminary in Johnstown. To add a bit more flavor to the presentation, Fr. James is directly related to Blessed Pavel of Presov through his paternal grandmother. He has a cousin on his father's side of the family who is a married Greek Catholic priest serving the Greek Catholic community in Plsen, Czech republic - a country with a decidedly Latin Rite majority and one in which married Greek Catholic clergy are apparently not on Rome's radar.

Fr. Jim will be delivering a message which needs to be heard in Rome - that is that the traditions of the Eastern Church need to be honored in their time-honored entirety, as was promised at the time of the Unions, if the Church of Rome ever is to expect the Orthodox to believe in Rome's sincerity in matters ecumenical.

I will keep you posted about this event as I learn more.

thank you, for this, DMD - plenty of background.

The Ruthenians alone do not make a practice of ordaining married men outside of the United States and then returning them here to be pastors. In other words, of all the Eastern Catholic Churches, they alone obey the spirit, as well as the letter, of Ea Semper.

Bishop Nicholas of Newton has indicated his desire to begin ordaining married men right here, without prior notification of Rome, but is hampered to some extent by the Melkites' reliance on the Ruthenian semnary in Pittsburgh, which, for some reason, is considered to be "unsuitable" for married seminarians. Go figure.

So the two married seminarian Deacons, from the Ruthenian Church, studying advanced theology at Byzantine Catholic Seminary don't count?

Don't get me wrong I think we need to restore the practice but our Bishops are heading in that direction. Maybe it is not as fast as some would like but they are heading that way.

One thing that surprises me is that there are not only married priests in the UGCC, but the fact that the priests are quite young, in their 30s and 40s, as opposed to priests in the Ruthenian Church that are middle-aged or seniors. Seems like they must be doing something right in the Ukrainian Church. I only wish that more and more Ruthenian Clergy could be married and ordained, let alone bring in newly ordained priests into the Ruthenian Church at all. Sad times indeed around here.

Why not use one of the Orthodox seminaries?