Most of us are likely familiar with the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II, whereby married former priests in the Episcopal Church, the USA province of the Anglican Communion, may be ordained priests in the Catholic Church, receiving a dispensation from the universal norm of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite. What is less known is that this exception, which is granted on a case-by-case basis, is now extended to ministers of other Protestant communities (though not under the auspices of the Pastoral Provision).
WHEC-TV in Rochester, NY, has the story of a Baptist minister, married with six children, set to be ordained a priest.
A married father of six is being allowed to become a Roman Catholic priest.
The Diocese of Rochester says the 49-year-old former protestant minister is getting a "special exception" to the celibacy rule from Pope Benedict.
The diocese says this has never happened here before but News 10NBC has learned it has and not that long ago.
The Catholic faithful is told that celibacy is required by the church of its priests in what's called the Latin Rite. It's the main reason the church gives for not allowing priests to marry — as people continue to see the number of priests shrink each year. Only a priest can celebrate the mass and consecrate the Eucharist.
Scott Caton is a former Baptist minister. He came a Catholic 12 years ago and this has been a 10-year journey.
Caton's request for ordination as a priest was approved by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then by the Pope. The church says this permission reflects a still rare — but allowable — exception to the celibacy rule.
Caton said, “I'm not going to be the poster boy for a married clergy. And that's not the intent of my heart of why I'm doing this. So people will take this in different directions, and I just have to be focused and say — what has the Lord called me to do — without making any kind of political statement about that.”
Michael Macaluso, principal of Archangel School in Irondequoit, thinks it will be difficult for Caton to survive as a catholic priest. He doesn't think he can serve God and a family at the same time.
Christ the King parishioner Arnold Eckert remembers Father Mel Walczak — a married priest for the Polish National Church — St. Casimir's. He got permission to be a married priest and did serve the catholic diocese.
Walczak also became a catholic chaplain at Rochester General Hospital but he has since left the church.
Caton has been serving at St. Joseph’s in Penfield prior to his ordination as a transitional deacon June 5. As a deacon, he will serve at Blessed Sacrament Church until his planned ordination to the priesthood in 2011.
Under Vatican guidelines, the exception to the celibacy rule is sometimes used for Protestant ministers who enter the Church as Catholics and wish to be ordained. They must first study in such areas as moral and sacramental theology, the Church's canon law and related areas.
For more Rochester, N.Y. news go to our website wwww.whec.com.
It would be interesting to learn about the ministries of other married Protestant ministers who have been granted a similar dispensation.
As an aside, it seems like the reporter might have had his own agenda, eh?
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Well, incoming Baptists would be able to use the huge swimming pools that pass for Baptismal fonts in some Novus Ordo NewChurch parishes. And if they don't like statues, well, the N.O. has, in the same churches, replaced them with potted plants.
P.K.T.P.
Don't be too sarcastic. A Baptist who decides to be Catholic I believe would have accepted the Catholic teaching on Icons and the one on the efficacy of baptism whether by aspersion, affusion immersion or by submersion. And BTW all these practices have Apostolic origins and the Eastern Churches have largely preserved the latter. The error of the Baptists is to insist that submersion is the only valid way.
But I would agree with you Peter that the trendy post Vatican II Churches in the USA have these jacuzzi-like baptismal pools. If they want to stick with the early Church tradition, they should have it like the fonts of the earliest Byzantine churches or even the one under St Peter's in Rome.
The immersion/submersion pools don't look like a jacuzzi at all. They look like dungeons filled with water and the initiate steps into it. This is the theological reality of baptism. We "step into Hell with Christ, and we rise from Hell with Christ"!
A jacuzzi pool hardly shows that reality.
I am always amused at the statement or thoughts that a married man can't be a priest due to his family. That somehow a married priest can not serve God and his family at the same time. A statement made in ignorance to be sure.
My Grandfather was a Baptist minister for almost 60 years. Started churches, was an associational director (akin to a bishop) etc etc etc. I saw him as much as I saw my father who was a shift worker at a chemical plant. using the logic of some in the article, my father due to marriage could not be a chemical operator.
I missed more family events working in the corporate arena than I have as a priest. A big difference is my family accepts me missing as a priest better than as a corporate jock looking to make the next dollar.
It is difficult to be a father, husband and to work away from family, either in a bluecollar, whitecollar or as a priest. What do people think? Men spend have so much more time to spend with family if not a priest? Last time I heard, our culture critics were decrying the lack of time fathers and mothers spent with their kids. Are all parents priests?
It was diffcult for my family when I was in the Marines. It was difficult for my family when I was in the corporate world. When I pastored a church, headmaster of a school and going to graduate school all at the same time it was difficult. Maybe my situation is different, but I do not see the added difficulty of a married man being a priest. As a protestant, I always had access to a minister. Married ministers who had healthy marriages coming to ER's when the wife was admitted in the middle of the night. Matter of fact when I was a baptist and my wife catholic, she had a difficult delivery of our first child. I called my married pastor and she called her single priest. My pastor was there within the hour. 17 years and still waiting on her former priest.
Much of what catholics think about married clergy has not been evident to me as I have been in the family of married clergy and have been pastored to by married clergy.
The wife of this baptist pastor turned catholic priest is relieved. As a baptist pastors wife her duties were many as she was considered a bonus pastor. She will not be expected to do anything as a clerics wife. My wife was thrilled at the change from Baptist to Anglican. Congregational expectations were a world apart.
So what is next? Married men can not be doctors or even president of the US? Those professions take men away from the family for extended periods of time or at inappropriate times.
Again, in my life view and experiences, this objection is too often made in ignorance. Also, married clergy have pressures and some marriages end. Just as single clergy have problems resulting in harm to themselves and others.
Fr. Mark
This is very good, Father, well spoken. I have often replied to people that it would be easy to be a full time priest with a family IF I also didn't have to work a full-time secular job to pay the mortgage, taxes, electricity, water, food &c.
Another canard is that married priests with families are "more expensive" than bachelor priests. Based on this excuse I wonder how I am able to support my family of eight on less than the base annual pay of local RC diocesan priests?
Could it be because of that old-fashioned idea of sacrifice, and a willingness to live within one's means?
Every time this issue gets raised, my blood pressure likewise goes up! When I think of what we were able to live on when we were raising our five children, I keep thinking these people don't have the faintest idea of what they're talking about.
Of course, I have seen a disturbing tendency among some who come in from the Episcopal Church, who expect to be able to live at exactly the same level as they'd been accustomed to. That may be where the idea came from…
Fr. Phillips you could be correct on the idea of salary. I personally know of two AMiA priest making in excess of $80k. Salaried curates $50-60k. I personally know Baptists ministers making excess of $100k. All either single or married no kids etc.
My wife and I have raised a family on much, much, much less. Priest and laity can live on less, much less, than what they think. Too often both are caught up in the materialism of the culture. My first alb/stole came to me from a deceased priest's family. None of us need top of the line, most expensive. We just want it because the culture tells us we need it and it is a status we have achieved.
My father, who is totally opposed to me in the ministry and really opposed to the Church, told me I would never have anything because: 1) I have too many kids 2) you are in the wrong profession. To my Father and too many Christians, we measure our wealth by how much stuff we have, verse what is true wealth. Faith and Children. Because I have my faith and my children (of course my wife) I am extremely wealthy. My material stuff I may like, but it will be junk to someone other than me. This came home to me when my Grandfather died. His earthly treasures ended up in the trash, so much junk to his wife and children.
The Church needs to regain its bearings on what is important and teach it to the clergy and laity alike.
Fr. Mark
Never mind pastoral provisions for Baptists. [...] But the ordinariate structure could help … adherents of the Traditional Latin Mass. Let's see, we could have one each for Canada, the U.S.A., Brazil, Italy, France, Greater Britain, Spain, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherland, and Belgium.
P.K.T.P.
I think you may be correct that the reporter may have had an agenda–I'm not sure. But I don't hold that against him.
At least this much is true: In the articles I've read about myself after-the-fact, this one seemed the most "negative," in some sense. All of you good Anglo-Catholic folks are in my prayers, and this little note comes with all best wishes.
Dr Caton,
Praised be to God almighty for your courage. It is a miracle of your becoming a priest. I am grateful for Benedict XVI's vision. He truly is the Pope of Christian unity.
Your family will sacrifice but they will also be richly blessed. The supposed statement by the principle that states "He doesn’t think he can serve God and a family at the same time." is a ridiculous statement. Did this also apply to St. Joseph. Does this apply to all fathers.
Negative reporting of truly positive Catholic developments is fairly standard.
Dr. Caton,
God bless you and your family. May your tribe increase!
Fr. Bill Ledbetter
On the question of married priests, I observe that the Eastern Catholic churches have alwaqys had them. Some less-informed traditional Latins do not seem to accept this. Some time ago, I spoke to a Ukrainian Catholic priest about this at a conference. He said that some Latilns in his area wanted to attend his church because there was no Latin Mass nearby. They refused to attend, however, and would not accept him, all because he was married. He explained how his situation was normal in his sui juris church but this made no impression whatever. Even worse, he said that some Ukrainian Catholics were critical of his state as well. Apparently, in the Ukraine, unmarried priests were the norm for decades and married priests were associated with 'the Orthodox'. The state of priests came to be associated with their confession.
Incoming Anglicans will have to face the fact that some Latin traditionalists will not accept married priests. The idea is that a man should sacrifice sexuality and imitate Christ to be worthy. While I can see this as better, I don't see why it must be. Marriage, as far as I can see, is not an impediment to service as a priest per se. You might say that this is a cherished traditon, a standard, that some want to maintain. It is more about purity than dedication but, as we now know, a lack of marriage need not encourage purity!
The best argument in favour of an unmarried priesthood is one one rarely heard these days. It is that a married priesthood leads to nepotism and promotion of a clerical élite controlled by certain families. In other words, the priesthood can become a sort of aristocracy. This was certainly a problem in Greece for a long time. I don't think that it would be a problem today owing to an acute shortage of priests.
P.K.T.P.
As long as bishops continue to be required to be unmarried (which doesn't necessarily preclude a man begetting progeny) there is no more chance of nepotism in the future than there is today – that is unless you are Marcial Maciel.
Well, uncles have nephews and married priests have sons to be promoted in a 'profession'. It is true that there used to be a problem in Greece. There was a tendency for priests to promote their own sons and for the priesthood to be dominated by certain families (whereas the monks were from poor families). I have not noticed this problem in the Anglican clergy, however.
P.K.T.P.
Anglicans and Catholics shouldn't really care if "some Latin traditionalists will not accept married priests". It's is approved by the Church.
I am a Latin traditionalist, I do accept such priests, and I agree with the comment of Mr. Taber. However, such attitudes do cause problems. It's just an observation and a bit of a warning. I don't want incoming Anlgican priests to feel rejected; nor do I want Ukrainian married priests to feel that way but some of them do. I imagine that there will need to be some 'adjusting' when the incomers, well, come in … to Communion with Rome, that is. But this adjusting will be on both sides, I'm sure.
P.K.T.P.
"Christ the King parishioner Arnold Eckert remembers Father Mel Walczak — a married priest for the Polish National Church — St. Casimir’s. He got permission to be a married priest and did serve the catholic diocese.
Walczak also became a catholic chaplain at Rochester General Hospital but he has since left the church."
I know something about this case, having heard about it years ago. Suffice it to say that Fr. Walczak had major "personal problems," and that the whole matter was grievously mishandled.
Scott Caton: God bless you and congratulations!