www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Number of Bi-Ritual Priests in the Byzantine Catholic Church?

Dave,

I have attended there about 5 times.

I usually attended Assumption UGCC in South St. Louis on Oak Branch near I-55 and Lindberg. That is until I moved here to Indy.

God Bless You,

Dr. Eric

Thank you. Next time you're in town, visit for a Liturgy. The Center recently gave us three classrooms on the opposite side of the building from the Adoration Chapel where we were meeting . . . which is really great, because now we don't have to "convert" the chapel before Liturgy, and we don't have to tear it all down again afterwards. Our icons have gotten pretty banged up from all the movement over the years.

Dave

By any chance was Father Patrick Hoffman, of blessed memory, one of the bi-ritual priests who served your parish? He and I were friends since we were both deacons.

Fr. Serge

I only moved to the St. Louis area two years ago . . . but the name isn't familiar. I'll ask around.

Dave

Dave,
The web site for the St. Louis Byzantine Catholic Church is now up and running, and is located at: www.stlouis.byzcath.org [stlouis.byzcath.org]

Marilyn

I'll say this much: the number of Bi-Ritual Priests is growing in Tennessee. a few more Latins are undergoing training to serve in Knoxville and Nashville Dioceses. I only wish a certain Latin Priest in Chattanooga, whose uncle was a Ruthenian Priest (and from I heard Divine Liturgy at OLPH in Chattanooga)Father Emil (eternal memory),would undergo training, and be available for any ECs in Chattanooga. GOD speed the day.
Much Love,
Jonn

Seems that this is the only way the "Sui Juris Metropolitan Byzantine Church of America" can gain priests. Will this practice be enough to sustain the churches in the next ten years?

U-C

The Cantor at the mission is very very good!

Are all those priests that serve the mission from that particular St. Louis RC Center? Any of them incardinated into the Parma Eparchy?

Ung

Not the only way, but one way. Some of our best pastors have been biritual priests.

Nick

That is really only part of the equation.

About 55 minutes from me, the offices of The Coming Home Network can be found in Zanesville, OH. It assists clergy of non-Catholic communities who are in the process of becoming Catholic. (And in fact there are hundreds of them out there that have made or are making that journey.)

If today our bishops made it known that should these men and their families enter the Church via the East, presbyteral ordination was a real possibility without making a fuss of the Pastoral Provision (which technically does not apply to Evangelicals and the like) we could have 20 men in formation tomorrow. Question is, where do you put them, how do you support them.

Canon law is pretty clear that the Church is obligated to support them and their families. Additionally it has been explained to me that a nuance of canon law (with which I agree) is that you have no rights to sign away your rights. That is to say it would not be possible to say "Don't worry, I don't need a salary and will never ask for one, I waive my right to support." You can't waive it. And this is good, it precludes coercion or the creation of a class of people with fewer rights. (Think of it as being like minimum wage. You can't tell your employer and the state, it is OK, you will work for $3.00 an hour!)

This was an issue with an Orthodox priest who approached our bishop to be incardinated assuring the bishop that he would not be asking for a salary, he would just like to be rostered and be permitted to concelebrate DL or occasionally fill in for Father when he is away... Again though, should his circumstances change, and his secular employment come to an end, he would have the right to demand an assignment and an income from the eparchy. Our church operates on a $12K a month budget, we simply don't have that.

Would we start to supply our priests to the Romans as bi-rituals then? I am aware of one UGCC priest who helps to support himself and his family offering Mass at a local latin parish in a diocese that needs the extra help. I don't know that I would count on a lot of Roman enthusiasm accross the board for such a proposition.

Same issue for the oodles and oodles of new deacons that have been more recently ordained. A good number of them would make fine priests (I can name several off the top of my head!). Ordaining them is not the problem. Paying them kinda is.

Alternately, we could call up some diocese in Africa, Asia or even Latin America where the roof is coming off the seminaires, they are so packed full of men in priestly formation and do some borrowing if needs be... That has its own sets of issues.

But it is kind of a "what comes first, the chicken or the egg?" sort of proposition. Would we have more congregants who were better supporting the church if we had more priests?

The local OCA parish in this city is just about the size of the BCC. They have four attached priests, three of whom as I understand work full time secular jobs. There numbers have, as I understand, remained fairly steady. The local Antiochian priest has been forced to remain a school teacher as well. There is nothing wrong with this at all, but it is, from the perspective of our bishops, not an ideal or (again, given the right of a priest to get paid) a viable option.

In the end the only two things I KNOW for sure is 1) it is very complicated 2) I am grateful I am not a bishop.

It's not quite that simple, apparently. This came up in our parish.

A Lutheran convert must first convert to RC, and then switch to an EC rite. The local RC bishop (Pepe, Las Vegas) signs these as soon as they hit his desk.

Then again, locally, Byzantine and Roman have a great working relation. Until he took over our parish (when the bi-ritual RC Franciscan's health demanded his sudden departure), the only actual BC priest in town was assigned to a huge RC church, at which the RC pastor is also the (uhh, vicar? chancellor?), and also to the bi-ritual mission-to-be. So our BC priest works several days a week for the assistant to the RC bishop in his parish, is in charge of the mission and our church, and is also associate pastor for the Greco-Roman-Albanian parish.

It takes a score card to keep track of this . . .

hawk

what in the heck is going on?

Dandelion

Henderson,NV

Dochawk,

(This whole issue sounds "Jacked Up!)

Canon law is pretty clear that the Church is obligated to support them and their families. Additionally it has been explained to me that a nuance of canon law (with which I agree) is that you have no rights to sign away your rights. That is to say it would not be possible to say "Don't worry, I don't need a salary and will never ask for one, I waive my right to support." You can't waive it. And this is good, it precludes coercion or the creation of a class of people with fewer rights. (Think of it as being like minimum wage. You can't tell your employer and the state, it is OK, you will work for $3.00 an hour!)

This came up in our parish.

A Lutheran convert must first convert to RC, and then switch to an EC rite. The local RC bishop (Pepe, Las Vegas) signs these as soon as they hit his desk.

Do you think that due to the Canon law a Lutheran convert "has" to become RC 1st, and then EC.?

Do you think the RCC is shifting the monetary responsibility on EC's?
and by shifting the responsibility on the EC's can be another way to get the RCC off of the hook on married clergy?

apparently?

think politically now

Dandelion

Actually, I think it can be done. Monsignor Ronald Knox, who was a celibate high-church Anglican priest at Oxford, did make such an arrangement with his prospective bishop upon entering the Catholic Church. He wanted to serve the community at Oxford, rather than be assigned "at random", and for this privilege he agreed not to take any stipend from the bishop.

Of course, he earned his living by writing (as well as serving as chaplain at the university), so that his employment was not incompatible with serving as a Catholic priest, and he had reasonable expectations for deriving income from writing (since he was already being published). At various times, also, some of his (very well-healed) friends would invite him to stay with them for extended periods of time (as, for example, while he translated the Vulgate), etc.