www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Do we now have married priests

Diak:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I disagree with the premise of your question, so therefore I can not answer it. I don�t understand what restoring our authentic traditions and disciplines has to do with evangelical goals because my belief is that one must be restored before the other is started.

It is necessary for us to first restore those traditions and disciplines in the parish and then go forward with evangelizing once everyone in the parish is on the same page. This is what we are in the process of doing at St. Athanasius parish in Indianapolis. In fact, we would have never gotten off the ground without the extensive efforts of Father Tom Loya!

I will concede to your statement about money, we should not put our heads in the sand. However, restoring our authentic traditions & disciplines and evangelizing is a full time job with lots of overtime. Just query Father Tom Loya and ask him if he could have a full time job and do what he is accomplishing at Annunciation. Now imagine Father Tom married with children. Hey Diak, you tell Father Tom that his icon studio in the rectory is going to be turned into a nursery.

Further, we should congratulate His Grace, Bishop John everyday for being a good bishop. However, I do not agree with His Grace�s efforts concerning the importation of married Eastern European clergy. Yet, I will cooperate in any way His Grace suggests and I have proven that to His Grace in similar situation where I disagreed with him. In the last year I have personally witnessed him administer two absolutely filthy dirty situations with the decisiveness and wisdom of King Solomon.

Concerning the Kupecs, yes, Joe, Mary, Nicholas and Thomas are one of our most cherished parishioner families. In fact, Joe and I serve on the parish advisory board. Joe can provide a testament to our accomplishments here in Indy.

If we are to have a married clergy (again, a tradition I completely agree with) it must happen after we have restored our Byzantine Catholic Church with the authentic traditions and disciplines that Dan, you and I love!

All the best in Christ,

Scott

Dan:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I believe our discussions here on the forum are excellent! However, a get together would be better yet!

I'd be glad to bring that roll of duct tape that we were going to use on Father Kachuba back on August 22nd. I think Diak might need to use it on Father Tom before he tells him about turning his rectory art studio into a baby nursery!

Scott

Glory to Him Forever!

Scott, the reasoning appears to be a bit circular. You state that first Premise faulty or not, I am simply asking the question which you have yet to answer. I am willing to discuss aspects of the response, but we have to get to the answer first to have a meaningful discussion.

First of all, I said nothing of the sort. Your exagerration is without basis, and borders on a serious lack of charity. I ask that you withdraw that entirely.

I asked a question, if you recall. Name calling and insinuations of this sort are neither funny nor appreciated. How did we get to suppressing our beautiful tradition of iconography? Are you actually implying I have done so? This is ridiculous.

There are plenty of married priests who are accomplished iconographers, by the way, and I would be happy to give you a list to illustrate.

If married parish clergy is part and parcel of the tradition, which it most certainly is in the received tradition for Byzantine Christians (the Romanians have about 70% or so married clergy in the USA), that further begs my question.

And if there is a supplemental source of income to minimize the impact on the parish, why the opposition to married clergy? It is clearly within our venerable tradition, which I'll reiterate again everyone up to the Holy Father is exhorting us to recover. Your opposition with a reasonable means of mitigating the financial impacts is a bit puzzling.

When you tell people about our Church, do you tell them that married priests are traditional (plain historic fact, even recently) but we are too worried about money to actually be faithful to tradition?

It seems that this was news to several folks here. Too bad it wasn't done in Parma's cathedral so the Parmesians could have given their assent (Axios!). Are all ordinations for Parma being done in Rome now? And does one have to get paperwork from the embassy in Rome to do ministry her in the States? Is this route of marriage-ordination open to our current seminarians in Pittsburgh?

Joe

Let�s get back to discussing evangelization! How are we going to survive and grow? Where are we going to get the money to build or renovate? I�m suggesting a strategic vision that must be started now!

I submit that our avoidance of a married clergy is tied to our lack of evangelization.

How many times do we say that we cannot start a mission in a new location because we don't have enough priests?

If a worthy married candidate is willing to supplement his income with other work (as many Orthodox priests do), why not ordain them and put them to work?!

Nec

And why not late vocations as well? The Latins do it. I don't care if a man is older, he might still spend a good 10 years in a parish as a priest.

Should the Vocation Icon program in your parishes have restrictions on what kind of vocations you all should be praying for? Whether your bishops are now ordaining married men or not is questionable and maybe the people should know who they are allowed to support if a vocation comes from their U.S. parish. Thank God for outsourcing.

Joe

Professor J. Michael Thompson suggests that "Surely, the best place to find an accurate answer is the source, no?" In a more perfect world, that would be the case. In the world we inhabit, that often is NOT the case. As anyone who has ever looked for "sensitive" information can testify, the original source is not necessarily the most likely to succeed.
In response to the general question: there has never been a time when the Greek Catholics in North America did not have married priests. The only decade which I can think of when no such priests were ordained specifically for service in North America was the nineteen-forties, which is rather a while ago. But there are books and articles in print which give much more information on the matter - by all means go and read them.

Incognitus

Icognitus,
I disagree. Finding out if there are married seminarians is NOT sensitive information. I agree with Prof. Thompson, if you really want to know go to the source. Believe me, I know they will give you a correct answer.