Dear Paul,
Our late Bishop Isidore Borecky (whose home has gone on the market in Toronto and is listed at about $4 million!) used to say (and two/thirds of our priests up here and more are married) that he never had any "problems" with married priests.
After all, married priests already had their own "Patriarch-Metropolitan-Bishop" in one at home to keep them in line.
I think priests should not be forced to marry (
).
But I think that all Churches (and that means you guys too :
should have some married priests around.
If you haven't gone out with a woman who wanted to be a Presbytera, you don't know how wonderful these people really are, how pious etc.
Not to say that other women aren't either . . .
Before I married, I once met a most modest woman, a former novice, who was so well-read in spiritual things and so sensitive in religious matters that after our conversation I was truly moved by her in a way no other woman ever moved me before.
Far from being "pie in the sky," this woman had a firm grasp of reality (she really wanted to marry a priest as well).
Her modesty and piety moved me to the centre of my being.
It was such a profound feeling that I felt compelled to go to confession afterward for whatever reason.
I think I fell in love with her, but it could have been one of those infatuation thingies.
Whoever is her husband today is a lucky man indeed.
Alex
