If only all priests could marry we’d never have any trouble in the Church and everything would be all unicorns with rainbows for tails. That’s what we’re told all the time. The media would love us, right? And I’m sure we’d never get a story like this one from the Orlando Sun-Sentinel:
They were men of the cloth.
But their cloth of preferance must have been silk — as in lingerie.
Lead Pastor David Loveless, who has been married for 33-years and was recognized as “one of the top 20 Christian leaders in the US to watch,” has resigned from the Discovery Church in Orlando after admitting to having an affair, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
Loveless is the third pastor of a major Orlando-area church to resign within the past six-months because of an affair.
Look at the joy the media takes in reporting these kinds of stories about religious. And if there’s one thing the media loves more than taking down Christian pastors, it’s Catholic priests.
So if you ever think to yourself that allowing all priests to marry would be a good p.r. move for the Church which would get the media to lighten up, think again. Every divorce proceeding would become front page material.
Please remember, it’s not that the Catholic Church doesn’t typically allow married priests, it’s not even about women’s ordination, and it’s not even just about abortion or gay rights. They hate the Church because the Church follows Jesus and not their progressive agenda. They hate the Church because the Church stands for something. It’s not this issue or that issue, it’s that the Church stands for something at all.
May 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm
But one of the problems we have is the reactionary response to the progressives. Our correct response should be to ignore those idiots and do what we need. We happen to need more priests. There was a tradition of local bishops training and ordaining married men within their diocese, but instead we've got the plethora of rules which actually make us weak and vulnerable to the progressives' attacks. They thrive in a bureaucratic environment- the hospital ceases to be about treating the patients and outcomes based on rule sets that don't correlate to our humanity become the yardstick for success.
May 7, 2013 at 6:24 pm
I sometimes think that a priest with a wife and kids would make him vulnerable to coercion. People would be able to silence him by threatening his family. A bachelor priest has no such vulnerabilities. In a time of persecution, I think this would be significant.
May 7, 2013 at 6:43 pm
aquinasadmirer- this happened in Romania- under communism, some married priests became orthodox instead of going to Siberia to be slaves and then martyred (but then some monks also did this to save themselves)- none of our Catholic bishops renounced the catholic faith
There is no need for married priests in the Roman rite- educate the married deacons well and allow them to do what is permissible (it is funny- one thing that 'rad trads' and ultra-liberal Catholics agree on- they both have contempt for married deacons….)
May 7, 2013 at 6:47 pm
I was an Episcopalian for the first 37 years of my life, and every one of the priests at the parish I grew up in wound up divorced. When I married my non-practicing Catholic husband, we had to pay to receive pre-marital formation from a divorced Episcopal priest. Thank God for bringing me into the Catholic Church, and bringing my husband back!
May 7, 2013 at 6:47 pm
but the lesson from the original post- PRAY please for married clergy! Satan hates marriage and clergy and parents…it is the 'perfect storm' for attack
May 7, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Priest's wife,
Yes, pray for these (and all) clergy.
Satan doesn't have to attack territory he's already got. If he can get the local shepherd, the sheep will be easier pickin'
-Mark
May 7, 2013 at 7:55 pm
The only way to break the homosexual stronghold on the priesthood right now is to allow married priests. The best priests in my diocese are Anglicans who have crossed the Tiber. One example of an affair doesn't make the whole batch rotten, just as a celibate priest breaking his vow doesn't make them all such men unchaste. We deal with divorce proceedings. We deal with the affairs of celibate priests. The married and celibate like will cause us scandal and pain because we are all sinners. Either way we deal with this aspect of fallen humanity, but why not be politically savvy and apply this remedy to a particular problem of our age? We know it is allowable. We now must decide its prudence.
May 7, 2013 at 8:18 pm
"The only way to break the homosexual stronghold on the priesthood right now is to allow married priests."
Er, no, it isn't the only way. A better way is to declare the homosexual condition a diriment impediment to the priesthood and bar all homosexuals from the seminaries. The gay "stronghold" will then die out in the course of time, and the priesthood will then be as Christ intended, a totally heterosexual profession.
May 7, 2013 at 8:29 pm
It seems like we have married people who can serve.
What is holding married men and women back from doing Gods work. We can all do more than 'consume' Gods word.
We have the diaconate.
To me the errors, or demands center on "ME". As a consumer of God, I want to be the focal point and my personal opinions sacramental.
None of these Chang improves our worship of God. So why emphasize or get vested in them. When I am doing so much for God that I can do no more and outgrow my parish, profession, lifestyle, etc. then and only then should I demand a greater role…which we know never happens. Because as we know from the saints, they made it all about them, especially the female saints.
May 7, 2013 at 9:02 pm
The question in my mind is not
"If only all priests could marry"
Rather it is
"If only more married men were considered for ordination"
which is a very different thing. Benedict XVI has said the root cause of the clergy crisis comes from "a lack of fidelity to Christ." Amen, and did Jesus the Christ use the marital status of a man as a criteria for choosing that man for one of the 12? What I have read in the scriptures indicates that He did not and I have read Papal writings that agree with that.
The Roman Rite church had very good reasons back in the 1100's to institute the "discipline" of celibate priesthood due to some pretty hideous abuses. Those reasons may still hold, or then again, it may be time for a "ressourcement" look at ordination requirements. I don't envy the Pope or bishops with responsibility for that decision.
May 8, 2013 at 1:35 am
I hope I'm not drifting off-topic here, but many (at least) bishops regard priests as underlings in the worst way, and fail to respect their hard work in God's service.
May 8, 2013 at 5:02 am
I totally thought this was going to be about cross-dressing ministers or a priest who was stealing ladies lingerie.
May 8, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Father Corapi once said that priests do not marry and have children because the devil will hold the wife and children as hostages. Now, the other side says that there is no devil and no hell that Jesus was imagining the devil's temptations in the desert, that the exorcisms performed by Jesus do not matter, so it is mean to deny priests a wife and children. Maybe we should ask the devil if he exists? Oh, but the devil is a liar. So, if the devil says he does not exist, ought we believe him?
May 8, 2013 at 4:52 pm
I've never met a preacher's kid who wasn't either messed up or admitted to having a tense time when they were young. It's a hard life.Every single thing you do reflects on your father's ministry.
May 8, 2013 at 11:04 pm
Allowing priests to marry will do not one thing to address the evil of queer clergy.
It is an ontological impossibility that a homosexual could have a vocation.
Screen out all perverts and do not let them enter a seminray.
May 9, 2013 at 6:53 am
The Catholic priests I know don't have enough time now to do the work that is required in their parishes. Where in heaven's name would they have enough time if they had a wife and children???