www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Why Not Married Priests? The Case for Clerical Celibacy

I know this is a favorite discussion on the forum and has been discussed from all avenues...propably beaten to death, however, this is a good article on the West's position. Thought someone else might like to read it too.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/feature1.htm

If you ask me it is a lame excuse.
Married men can be extremely devoted both to being a good husband and father and also a good priest.
I do not oppose celebacy as some priest do in fact I highly laud it. It is a great gift and sacrifice that some priest are called to live out.
Our Church would be much poorer if we didnt have celebate priests.
But celebecy is not essential for the priesthood.

Stephanos I
(One who is totaly committed to the celebrate priesthood.)

This is a good article for Western Catholics. It reads as though that is its intended audience.

My only complaint is that it fails to point out that in the East, priests are not seen as monastic while in the west there is a monasticism about the priesthood. In fact, other than a few sentences in the beginning, there is no real support of the tradition of the East.

I agree though, that for the west, celibacy is a discipline that should remain.

I don't think anyone is arguing that celibacy is "essential" for the priesthood. If that were the case then Roman Catholics wouldn't consider EC or EO priests, well, priests.

Logos Teen

There is a tendency in the West to elevate the theological arguments for the discipline to something intrinsic in priesthood.

More than once I have heard that priests are to be Christlike therefore celibate - so what are Eastern priests, less Christlike? Nope. What about St. Peter? According to some in the West he supposedly no longer had marital relations - I dispute this completely, as marital relations with one's spouse is not a sin.

Pani Rose,

I agree with you that this article is a good article on the west's position. I'm glad you posted it. I had a subscription to Crisis Magazine, they always print good articles, IMO.

I think a rebuttal "Why Married Priests? The Case for Married Clergy" should be written.

The author of this article acknowledges our venerable Eastern tradition of both celibate and married priests, and then proceeds to undermine the practice with all sorts of theological and practical reasons. I would say his article is compeletly unbalanced.

I wonder how many married priests of our Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox communities he interviewed for his article? Did he even attempt to research the theological rationale for married priests that underscore our own reasons for having them? I tire of patronizing Latins who feel they have done their duty by acknowledging our tradition before completely undermining it in a one sided manner - and then regard their arguments as fully "Catholic". If we were to do the same regarding some of the strange developments we have seen on the Latin side over the centuries such as excessive canonical penalities for violating Lenten fasts, refusal of communion to infants, waiting until Latin Catholics are practically adults to become fully initiated Christians through confirmation, the elimination of minor orders, etc etc, there would be an outcry of bias and "Eastern arrogance" against the West. Could not the same be said here, but in reverse?

The rebuttal is simple. Genesis 2: 18.

"And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself."

The most important word is "the Lord God said"!

God said it, and so that trumps any earthly law. The eastern discipline is more scriptural, and in line with the will of God.

If we neeed proof, then we have it in America. The fact that "it is not good" does not need further evidence.

The solution is simple. Only married men, and monks (living in community, so not alone) should be ordained to be priests or deacons.

No single men, no celibates. It is not good. (God's words, not mine.) The Catholic Church is only reaping the fruit of its disobedience.

Nick

Dear Father Stephanos,

"Celebrate priesthood?"

It sounds like you're talking about the married priesthood here . . .

Alex

Dear Friends,

If the West were truly committed to a celibate priesthood, it wouldn't allow former Anglican and Lutheran (and some other) clergy who become Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests in the married state.

The argument saying these clerics were so "invincibly ignorant" about marriage and the priesthood is not convincing . . .

In addition, the Latin Church can't have it both ways. As has been noted here, the Latin Church appears to have the attitude that celibacy is something that is truly intrinsic to the character of the ministerial priesthood. At the same time, however, it notes the tradition of the Eastern Churches to have married clergy. The Latin Church should make up its mind - the EC's have, historically, suffered the loss of their married clergy tradition when RC's have, in various ways, forced celibacy on their priests, or have forbidden married clergy etc.

The fact also remains that the more ancient tradition in the West was to have married clergy, later rationalizations about this notwithstanding (ie. "the married priests lived with their wives as brother and sister" and other similar nonsense).

Some Latin Catholics, even though they are as liberal as can be on other matters, defend the "celibate priesthood only" position at all costs, as I've recently heard from a liberal Catholic high school teacher ("my priestly brother would leave the Catholic Church if it allowed married priests!").

The Orthodox Church does indeed allow for celibate priests, although these are usually to be found in monasteries, "parish monastics" (widowed priests) and the like.

I wonder if this were put to Latin Catholic laity, what they would say about the possibility of having married Latin Catholic clergy?

In addition, there seems to be a double standard with respect to those Catholic priests who have fallen in their vocation as a result of abusive acts and those who have left the priesthood to get married.

Priests found to be abusive are transferred to another parish, if charges aren't immediately brought against them by those they've abused or if the church authorities don't immediately call them to account.

But priests who don't want to live a lie and leave to get married aren't allowed to function as priests any longer.

Yes, the latter break rules by getting married after ordination. But the last time I looked, this is a rule that the church can change or make an allowance for, if it wanted to.

The Church is called to witness to Christian sexual morality in this world.

How can it do so if it is sometimes perceived to be against marriage for secular priests?

Alex

Here's the problem with that article. (I was going to post it yesterday when I saw it but I forgot and Pani Rose beat me to it.)

The idea that a married priest can't give all to his parishioner who is dying in the middle of the night...absurd! A doctor often has to do the same thing and leave in the middle of the night to attend to a dying patient. If there were 2 priests in a parish, I know that St. Nicholas Cathedral in Chicago has 6 priests and 2 Deacons, (it says so on the website of the Eparchy) therefore there are 6 priests who could be on practically one night per week rotation to handle such cases. These cases in no way detract from family life.

The argument that it would cost more is valid, but then how does the Eastern Christian world survive? They've had married priests since the beginning. Yes, it would mean that parishioners would have to give more than $2.00 at collection time!!! I have taken up collection many times, I know it's none of my business and I'm not supposed to look, but... I know that a family of 5 makes more than $50.00 per week!!!!!!!!!! Let's get back to a tithe people!!!!!


A married priest is a sign for the people on how to live out a marriage in the Christian ideal, balancing prayer and family. He has much less time for usless and trivial pursuits (not the game ) so he has to live very close to the Gospel (Deacons too, I won't forget you guys!!! ) and lead his family by example. A priest's wife (and Deacon's wife) have to be strive for holiness as well because behind every good man is a GREAT woman!!! I believe that a good priests family is like a living icon of the Holy Family.

This is nothing more than a pop-apologist writing for a neo-con magazine trying to defend the institution and the notion that everything that Rome does is infallible (I detect a notion that the East is wrong for allowing this as well.) :rolleyes: And they're trying to keep up their readership after the former editor left in scandal.

Dr. Eric
Who used to use the same bad arguments to defend priestly celebacy at all costs.

Dear Dr Eric,

If all Latins were like you . . . I would have remain a fully Latinized ECer!

One problem is that there are people who feel uncomfortable with celibate priests.

My wife is one of them. She would only go to a married priest for marriage preparation, as our parish required.

And nowadays, that feeling of discomfort with celibate priests is, in general, hightened in a number of circles.

One friend of mine, a very sincere Latin Catholic, told me "What if a married priest was offering Mass, and in the moment of the Consecration as he was lifting up the Host, he heard his baby cry? Wouldn't that put him in a dilemma? I mean, whether to stay at the altar or else leave Christ to attend to his baby?"

Again, utter nonsense . . .

What are Presbyteras for?

Alex

Another thing, if celebacy is supposed to be universal, it doesn't explain why the Permanent Deaconate was created. Why let a married man become a Deacon? Won't that distract from and do damage to his family? Coming from a line of priests, did it hurt your family or actually help it, Dr. Alex?

Dear Dr. Eric!

A wonderful point. The Latin theology and practice is inconsistent and incoherent.

For so long, the Eastern Churches, especially in America have heard that there is something wrong with our 'ancient discipline' of the married clergy.

Our defense has been, that it is o.k., and our defense has been that it is a legitimate alternate tradition.

As if.... the Latin Church can criticize us all they want, but we are forbidden to question or criticize the practice of the Latins.

Our better defense might be "a good offense".

The Latin discipline and teaching about clerical celibacy is nuts, and they should be called upon to defend themselves, for deviating from the apostolic tradition.

Ours is the tradition of the apostolic Church, theirs is an invention, and not a good one. What gives them the right to try to impose their inventions upon us?

Nick

Dear Dr Eric,

Actually, I come from a long line of permanent Priests!

A "deacon" in my family was something one did for a few weeks before one got ordained a priest . . .

This is why I like to rib Fr. Deacon Lance here . . .

I'm sure he doesn't mind . . . I'm sure he doesn't . . .

There were 14 married priests on my grandmother's side - all of which held doctorates in theology and what-not.

They also built churches.

My great grandmother's husband, a priest, actually died at a young age when he came home covered in sweat after working on the construction of his new church.

He developed pneumonia and left his presbytera, Alexandra (after whom I am named) a widow.

Met. Andrew Sheptytsky had a special Presbytera's fund available and so she supported herself from that.

She spent her days largely in prayer, suffering from a number of diseases, suffering which she NEVER complained about, as I was told by all her grandchildren.

Her great happiness was distributing the money from Met. Andrew's priestly widow's fund to her grandchildren - she never asked for much for herself.

And my grandmother, also the wife of a priest, gave us all a great example of prayer and hard work around the parish.

Whenever I hear EWTN's 3:00 pm Chaplet of Divine Mercy, I think of her, as she always prayed it at that time of the afternoon.

To think of it, it has been the example of presbyteras that has inspired me MORE than that of priests, married or not.

I can't imagine what our Eastern Churches would do without them!


Alex