Tag Archives: Priestly Celibacy

A Thoughtful Look at Married Episcopalian Priests Becoming Catholic Priests

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This is a most interesting and thoughtful article looking at what happens when married Episcopalian priests become Catholic priests with their wives and families.  The article by Katharine Saunders takes a look at the effects not only on the parishes that receive these priests and families but the difference in the roles of say an Episcopal priest's wife in a parish and how that differs in a Catholic setting.  (H/T Fr. Smuts)

And there is a nice profile of the Father Charles Hough III and his son Father Charles Hough IV in this piece, so here's an excerpt of the top of the article, but I hope you read the whole thing.   And when you are done, I have some questions for you below the excerpt.

Chuck Hough III was thrilled when his son decided to enter the family business. His concerns were like those of any other parent: He wanted his son to make the decision independently, without pressure from family members or friends. Hough’s business, though, is unlike any other in the country. He and his son, Chuck Hough IV, were recently ordained Catholic priests. Both are serving in Texas. The Houghs will join the 75 or so married former Episcopal priests currently ministering in U.S. Catholic parishes.

The married Catholic priests are being welcomed through a special arrangement called the “Pastoral Provision,” approved in 1980 by Pope John Paul II. Their reasons for converting are diverse.

“I didn’t become Catholic to be a Catholic priest,” says the younger Hough, 31, the newly appointed pastor of Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church in Houston. “I became a Catholic for the salvation of my soul and the souls of my children and my wife. It’s a grace from God that they are allowing me to petition to become a priest. It was something that was on my heart, and I would faithfully be a Catholic layman for the rest of my life.”

While preparing for his diaconate ordination, Hough served as an assistant director of religious education at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Keller, Texas. Hough and his wife, Lindsay, lived in the parish rectory with their two children, Charlie, 4, and Wills, 1. He taught religious education and coached his son’s soccer team, the Thunderdragons.

The younger Hough renounced his Episcopal orders in June 2011 and, along with his wife, joined the Catholic Church in November. The couple is among a growing faction of Episcopalians who have left the Anglican church, many because of objections to the ordination of women and gay priests as well as changes in the liturgy.

Hough and his dad received their “rescript” from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome earlier this year. That means they have met all of the spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral requirements for becoming Catholic priests. Together they were ordained deacons in May, with their ordinations to the priesthood following in June. The preparation process involved weeks of study, oral and written exams, and psychological testing.

The elder Hough, 58, served as an Episcopal priest for 31 years until March 2011, when he resigned as the Canon to the Ordinary, a position similar to the vicar general in a Roman Catholic diocese. He was received into the Catholic Church last September.

Crossing the Tiber

Father and son had been working for several years with a group of Episcopal priests in Forth Worth to join the Catholic Church en masse. They even made a presentation to the local Catholic bishop, Kevin Vann, five years ago about unifying the Episcopal and Roman Catholic dioceses.

“We thought the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was the diocese to do this,” says the senior Hough. In the end, he said, several priests got cold feet.

“We were then forced by conscience to resign our livings and take this leap of faith,” he says.

The younger Hough said he wasn’t running away from anything when he made the decision to leave the Episcopal Church. “I was coming toward truth. I can sum up my decision by saying there was a lack of authority [in the Episcopal Church]. We looked, we sounded, and we acted like Catholics, but we weren’t Catholics,” he says.

Okay.  I promised you questions:

How important is the married priesthood in the Anglican patrimony, the idea of the family at the heart of a parish?

If the married priesthood is important, how do the Ordinariates also cultivate vocations to clerical celibacy?

How have the roles of priest's wives changed over the years?  As the article mentions, it does not actually cost more to support a married priest, and often the wife is also bringing in an income.  That is certainly true of many of the circumstances I know about; the wife often has a professional income — but it means less time for her to prepare teas and socials!

Your thoughts?

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The Role of Laity in the Ordinariate and the Role of Women

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Someone raised the issue of the role of the laity in the Church, especially since the Second Vatican Council.  I, however, have seen the role of the laity sometimes completely skewed.

Case in point: Last year, I attended a Catholic Mass in another province.  There were about 40 priests present.  However, as they processed up from behind the altar to partake of the Precious Blood, an army of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (EMHCs) came forward.  The wine had been brought in glass pitchers and after consecration, the Precious Blood was poured into glass goblets that were given to the EMHCs, mostly women, who then stood next to the person (mostly also EMHCs) who distributed Holy Communion.  I watched aghast as people came forward, took the Precious Body in their fingers and dipped it into Precious Blood, with only a passing concern for possible spills.

The role of the laity in the Church has, in some quarters since Vatican II, stressed the role in ministry within the confines of the Holy Mass, whether it's the lay readers, cantors, liturgists, or EMHCs.

With a shortage of vocations and an uptick of lay theological training, many dioceses have solved their priest shortages by putting lay ministers in charge of a range of diocesan activities, such as youth ministries, catechesis, and so on.  However, could this expansion of non-consecrated ministry in the church be partly responsible for the drying up of vocations?  If I'm a young man and I see that I can serve the Church in ministry, get paid reasonably well and don't have to be a celibate priest, what's the incentive for the latter?

This has also contributed to what some critics have described as the feminization of the Church, despite the all-male priesthood.  Father may be the parish priest, but behind the scenes most of the parish team might be female.

In the Ordinariate, we will need to think of how we encourage vocations to the celibate priesthood, and ensure those vocations come from men who could be good husbands and fathers but give up those goods for the greater good of serving the Church.  We need to find a way to make sure there are more Mercers and Wilkinsons in the pipeline — lifelong celibates who could eventually become full bishops in the Catholic Church.

I have had it said to me there needs to be more openings for women, more obvious routes for women in the Ordinariate, to exercise their spiritual gifts in the Body of Christ.  I confess, I bristle.  I like our all-male altar parties and I think the only way men will be brought back into the Church is if there is a masculine approach to worship.  Otherwise, you might notice a certain phenomenon — when women start running things, the men stay home or find something else to do.  Some of this is a sad abdication of their roles as priests and fathers in the home.  Yes, we women will lead when we have to, but strong women like me can not stand being around men I can push around or who leave me having to run things because they haplessly sit around waiting for someone else to take initiative.  Grrrrrr!

But the other reason I bristle is because I think to myself,  "What am I, chopped liver?"

Is not what I do an exercise of my spiritual gifts as a woman in the Church?  My work puts me directly in contact with cardinals and archbishops and I have never been treated as less than equal because I am a woman.  On that wonderful day I got to meet the Holy Father, the nun who handled press credentials took both my hands in hers, fixed her eyes on me, and told me to never forget the importance of what I do as a journalist.  "It is an apostolate," she said.

I think of others in our small parish who are out in the world but serving God.  My friend Barbara who is a family doctor not only saves lives, literally, but works closely with other doctors concerned about conscience rights, religious freedom and human dignity.

My friend Mary is a high school math teacher, but whose love for her students speaks volumes about the Gospel without a word needing to be spoken.  That's what lay ministry is supposed to look like. None of us is clamoring to be an EMHC. (Though I did joke with our former bishop Carl Reid about asking to be one.)

We have so many others who contribute in various ways, either through through volunteer efforts both with the church and outside or through their work.  The role of the laity, as St. Josemaria Escriva pointed out, is out in the world, making the ordinary work of their lives a holy Work of God, Opus Dei.

The role of the priest is different.  He is the stand-in for Christ and without the priest there would be no Eucharist.  He equips us with the sacraments so we can move into the world, full of all the graces we need.

That said, what are some roles for women in the Ordinariate that may even see them licensed for certain activities such as hospital, or prison or other work?

What can we do to encourage vocations to both the celibate and the married priesthood?  How can we create a critical mass of celibate ordinands who are both normal and masculine so that they have community and support for the counter-cultural sacrifice they are making?

Your thoughts?

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Summary of Tonight's Discussion on The Journey Home

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This evening's episode of The Journey Home will be rebroadcast today (now Tuesday) at 1:00 AM and 9:00 AM, Thursday at 2:00 PM, and Saturday at 11:00 PM (all times ET).  The following is a brief summary of tonight's discussion.

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phillips09 Summary of Tonights Discussion on The Journey Home

Fr. Christopher Phillips

Invited by the host, Fr. Phillips began by sharing a few details of his journey into the Catholic Church.  He was raised in a Protestant family, found his way to Anglicanism in the Episcopal Church, and his faith tested by the breakdown of Catholic Faith and Order in the Anglican Communion, and with personal doubts about the validity of his ministry in TEC, he became one of the first Episcopal priests to be received into the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II's Pastoral Provision.  Starting from very humble beginnings, he founded the parish of Our Lady of the Atonement which is today a thriving church and school.  His story should be familiar to readers of The Anglo-Catholic.

As he pondered his future in the Episcopal Church, he wrestled primarily with the issue of authority.  Blessed with a strong father as a role model, he understood the importance of paternal authority and came to see that, in an ecclesiastical context, this authority could only be found in the Catholic Church.

Different families have different expressions of the same truth; there are different ways of living in families.  Anglicans will be returning to the full unity of the Church with the laudable traditions unique to their family, and these particular family customs will be expressed ecclesially in the context of personal ordinariates, akin to ordinary dioceses.  Due to the comprehensiveness of the Anglican tradition, the personal ordinariates will be similar to ritual churches in some respects, but as Anglicanism is an offshoot of the Latin Rite, it is only appropriate that it be rejoined to it.

The Apostolic Constitution will not provide a "back door" to those seeking to undermine the universal norm of clerical celibacy (a discipline not a doctrine) in the Western Church.  Future ordination of married men to the priesthood will be scrutinized by the Ordinary assisted by his Governing Council of priests and subject to the permission of the Holy See.

Asked about the public response to Anglicanorum Coetibus, Fr. Phillips said that he had not heard anything at all negative.  At a recent meeting of priests in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, many of his confreres enquired positively about the development.

The Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) is in the forefront of those groups anticipated to avail themselves of the Apostolic Constitution.  The TAC is represented by the Anglican Church in America (ACA) in the USA and many of its members are ready to go.

Fr. Phillips receives enquiries almost daily from Anglican priests and others interested in Anglicanorum Coetibus.

A caller asked if there were any correlation between the circumstances of Anglicanism and the Eastern Orthodox.  Fr. Phillips pointed out that while Rome holds Anglicanism in special regard, she sees Orthodox jurisdictions as proper Churches, which while separated from the Holy See, have maintained all of the essential elements of Catholic Faith and Apostolic Order.

He noted that the Apostolic Constitution may prove a door for many separated brethren to enter the Catholic Church.  Protestant visitors to Our Lady of the Atonement find much that is familiar in the Anglican expression of the Catholic Faith (the exposition of Sacred Scripture, hymnody, &c.).

A caller asked if there will be a role for permanent deacons in the personal ordinariates.  Fr Phillips said that he hoped so, noting that the personal ordinariates, functioning equivalent to dioceses, will have all of the normal elements of Catholic life (e.g. parishes, religious houses, &c.).

A caller asked if there were any particular theological stumbling-blocks for Anglicans considering the Apostolic Constitution.  Fr. Phillips answered that while certainly there would be Anglicans here and there with hang-ups — just as there are Catholics with qualms about individual points of doctrine — the type of Anglican likely to take up the Holy Father's offer already accepted the fullness of Catholic teaching.  He noted that the TAC already had adopted the Catechism of the Catholic Church as its standard of faith.

Mr. Grodi asked if there were a risk of sectarianism in the future Anglican personal ordinariates.  Would these people still consider themselves "half-Anglican"?  Fr. Phillips brilliantly pointed out that the whole point of the Apostolic Constitution was that the incoming faithful retain their Anglican identity, noting that this was not his idea, but the will of the Holy Father himself.  When he came into the Church, he brought with him his eucharistic vestments, his chalice.  There is much in Anglicanism that is already Catholic.  These elements are to be retained.

Grodi: Talk about (Archbishop Thomas) Cranmer.  Fr. Phillips:  Cranmer was a heretic — but a translator of beautiful liturgical prose.  The common people of England desired to remain Catholic.  Cranmer tried to fool them by creating an ambiguous liturgy, one which retained many Catholic elements.  He only fooled himself.  The Catholic elements took root in the now Protestant Church and allowed the Catholic tradition to continue.

A caller asked Fr. Phillips about that which he felt was lacking in his previous ministry.  Fr. Phillips: Authority.  The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, governed by a democratic process, presumed to alter not just ecclesiastical discipline but Catholic doctrine.  How can a question like the sanctity of human life be decided by a majority vote?

Grodi — as per his almost fanatical modus operandi — questioned the validity of Anglican orders.  Fr. Phillips' answer was exceptional.  The Church is not pronouncing on the efficacy of the former ministry of Anglican clergy.  Obviously it transmits grace.  Is this the same grace as that transmitted in the Catholic Church?  The Church is not deciding this question.  Many Anglican bishops have Old Catholic or other "valid" lines of succession.  Perhaps these are sufficient.  The Church only seeks certainty.  She can not live with 'perhaps'.  He noted that as Anglican clergy come closer to their ordination in the Catholic Church, this becomes less of an issue.  It is an issue of peace of mind and obedience to God.

What does the Queen think of the Apostolic Constitution?  Fr. Phillips: I have no idea but reports suggest that she's none to pleased with the state of affairs in the Established Church and throughout the Anglican Communion.

Marcus Grodi wonders if the Apostolic Constitution is meant for England.  Certainly yes.  Fr. Phillips notes that the Apostolic Constitution will have perhaps its greatest effect in India where there is a large TAC presence.  This is a worldwide movement.

A caller asked what it was like for Fr. Phillips when he came to have a relationship with Our Lady.  He related a story about how, driving on his way to a job as a youth minister in college, he would listen to the recitation of the Holy Rosary on the radio.  He learned the devotion and began to carry a pair of beads.  Our Lady threw it over his neck and pulled him with it into the Catholic Church.  Noted that Anglicanism is full of Marian devotion and that he specifically desired that his parish be dedicated to Our Lady.

A question about contraception.  Fr. Phillips related the moral cesspool that is the modern Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.  In the TEC, contraception, and even abortion, are often seen as moral goods.  Spoke further on the disaster of the democratic definition of doctrinal and moral issues.

A caller from the ACA asked an ambiguous question about 'open communion'.  Fr. Phillips, unclear on the caller's intention, answered that Anglicans in the personal ordinariates will be full Catholics, in communion with all other Catholics (and hence not able to share Eucharistic communion with separated Christians).  Every member of the personal ordinariates will make a profession of faith.  Folks often hesitate over small issues, he said; many are simple misunderstandings and need not have presented trouble in the first place.  Communication is the key to overcoming these perceived obstacles.

A caller asked a general question about sacramental confession and how to explain to his Protestant friends the need to confess to a priest (as opposed to "directly to God").  Fr. Phillips answered that the confession was made "directly to God"; the priest is only the mediator.  Christ himself ordained and commended the sacrament.  Though he had made confessions numerous times in his private prayers, Fr. Phillips said that his first sacramental/auricular confession, when he spoke his sins aloud to the priest, was the most liberating thing he'd ever done in his life.

A caller asked about the Anglican/Episcopalian view of the Real Presence.  Fr. Phillips again noted that this is not likely to be an issue for the variety of Anglican likely to be interested in the Apostolic Constitution.  So much of the Anglican liturgy is reflective of a belief in the reality of Christ's presence in the consecrated elements.  Few Anglicans would find the Catholic teaching unfamiliar.

Grodi closed by asking Fr. Phillips what he would tell Anglicans thinking about "coming home" to the Catholic Church.  Fr. Phillips: Because it is what Our Blessed Lord desires.  It is that for which He prayed on the night before He suffered.  John 17.

Fr. Phillips gave his priestly benediction to the audience.

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Light on Clerical Celibacy

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I have a document that probably sheds a considerable amount of light onto why the authorities of the Church are retaining celibacy as a rule and allowing generous dispensations from this discipline at the same time. I am sure most of our readers are aware that not all Catholics are orthodox or traditionally-minded. Many have exactly the same agenda as the Anglican churches we once belonged to and had to leave for reasons of conscience.

I found a statement on the website of the European Federation of Catholic Married Priests commenting on the Apostolic Constitution, and was quite flabbergasted on reading it. The document in question is a pdf, and can be downloaded from here. Rather than praise what might seem to be the thin end of the wedge towards abolishing celibacy, the attitude is sneering, as we will see from the quotes. It's unfair! – they protest.

Before going on with the appropriate quotes, the uppermost idea in my mind is that celibacy can be compared with the issue of Latin in the liturgy at the Council of Trent. Making of celibacy a dogma or something irreformable would be the biggest blunder the Church could ever make, but that does not mean the flood-gates should be opened at this time. The implications go so far, that a general relaxation of celibacy is simply not opportune. It is a question of a whole conception of the priesthood, as the quotes will illustrate. Many lay apologists make the cardinal error of nominalism – singling out issues and failing to see the big picture or the connection between everything.

The European Federation of Catholic Married Priests made a statement about the Apostolic Constitution and commented on the proposal to dispense from celibacy generously. They firstly manifest their appreciation of the idea of there being a choice between marriage and celibacy, and that this would contribute to a healthy diversity of vocations in the Church. So far, so good.

Here comes the big tamale:

(…) it is difficult to see how this decision by Rome can ever be justified as there is not a shred of supporting ecclesiology to sustain it — that is unless it is also accompanied by the offer of re-admission to ministry of those catholic priests who have married and who wish to resume ministry. More than 100,000 married catholic priests have been prevented from exercising their ministry. Our view is that to consider these latter as traitors while at the same time believing it is alright to encourage a group of married Anglican priests to break their allegiance to the Anglican Communion is hypocritical. When the situations are compared there is clearly a danger that this will give rise to great confusion within our communities.

It is such an arbitrary and difficult to understand decision – unless, of course, we take for granted the fundamentalist and conservative views which are at the core of this group of married priests for whom the Catholic Church is throwing open its doors. They are against the ordination of women and the possibility of homosexuals being priests in the Anglican Communion, both of which were agreed as acceptable by a majority vote of that communion. However, the Vatican seems to have decided that the type of priest in which it places its trust is not one that is aligned with Gospel openness nor capable of reading the signs that the Holy Spirit is at work.

It seems to us that this gesture damages ecumenism because it fails to take account of the many years of dialogue in order to pursue a return to Catholicism. Rather than bearing in mind the progress made during Vatican II and in the ARCIC discussions on the eucharist, ministries, and authority in The Church, the Vatican is dishonestly recruiting by allowing Christians to get around a decision of their own Church. By doing this it increases division in a Church that is already having so much difficulty trying to sort out disputes touching in particular on important issues of morality.

This is quite mind-blowing stuff, considering that those liberals would like to impose their own “type” of priest as normative and compulsory for all. Their argument is that if it is good for dissident Anglicans, it is also good for all those Latin American base communities and their Congregationalist ecclesiology to have their own! Little Jonny has to have four sweets, and little Cynthia has to have four sweets. If there's any squabbling, all eight sweets will go right back into the bag and into the kitchen cupboard. Then it's fair for all!

Now, we have come to the crux of the matter. Is accepting Anglicans into the communion of the Church a matter of just another dose of inculturation to make the bitter pill of the Gospel relevant and meaningful, or is it a question of the revival of Catholic orthodoxy? Well, we’ll have to give it to these liberals: they hit the nail on the head. They’re dead right.

It is a question of a conception of the priesthood. The flood-gates are not being opened because it would be further secularisation in the Church. For the liberals, the ordination of married men (and the marriage of priests) is an issue that cannot be separated from the cause for the ordination of women and same-sex pseudo-marital unions.

That is the reason. About a year ago, I discovered this organisation in France and contacted one of the priest members. My wife was keenly interested in the idea of contacting married (laicised) priests and perhaps learning a thing or two. We entered into correspondence, and invited this priest and his wife to dinner at our home. And very pleasant they were too. However, we soon began to understand the issues. The priest in question is in his late 70’s and was involved in the worker priest movement in the 1950’s. Those men, fundamentally, had concluded that Christianity had run its course and that the only power in the world that could implement the radical ideals of the Gospel was Marxist Communism.

They become “committed”, meaning that they were acquired to the cause of the Revolution and the class conflict between workers and the factory owners and bourgeoisie, etc. This priest’s charming wife had been a religious sister, and they were married in about 1968. We spoke about non-controversial things like children, non-religious interests like sailing or fishing, but we understood that we had nothing in common in religious terms. I was marked by the fact, according to this laicised priest, that the vast majority of married former Catholic priests are so secularised that they have forgotten every last vestige of their vocations. None says Mass (fortunately, not only because they were no longer serving as priests under a Bishop, but also because they had celebrated in lay clothes on the kitchen table when they were in good standing). A good proportion no longer attend Mass or have any identifiable belief. They would not be asking to return to the priesthood as they have gone so far away from orthodox Catholicism.

The day this vital distinction will be made, and it is understood that married Anglican priests moving towards the Ordinariates and the married laicised men described above have nothing in common, it will be possible to help people understand what superficially looks to the average journalist like hypocrisy.

The issue, in short, is not whether or not we priests have wives – but whether or not we are Catholic in our doctrine, spirituality and understanding of the Catholic Priesthood.

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The Vocations of Marriage and Celibacy

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A few days ago, The Anchoress posted a link and excerpt of an article by Fr. Dwight Logenecker about how contraception has exacerbated the vocations crisis. I have been pondering it ever since, and, in light of the discussion below about priestly celibacy, I'm posting a chunk here that might be relevant:

Before the sexual revolution, a young Catholic boy or girl experienced a family context in which being a husband or wife, father or mother, would have demanded a natural kind of self sacrifice.

In most families, the man would have worked hard to support a wife and many children, and the woman would have given her life in bringing up a large family. Both the man and woman were expected to lay down their lives in a vocation of self-sacrifice, and the Catholic young man or woman would have accepted this vocation within marriage as the norm.

It was within this context of self-sacrificial family life that a young man or woman's vocation to the priesthood or religious life would have been formed. The young person therefore did not question the demand for a life of self-sacrifice; it was assumed that this was the foundation of a good life. The question, then, was which manner of sacrifice is best for the individual: Dying to self through marriage and family, or dying to self through a religious vocation?

Now, because of artificial contraception, the whole underlying assumptions and expectations about marriage have shifted. Marriage is no longer a way to give all, but a way to have it all. Therefore, when a young person today considers a religious vocation, they are not choosing between different paths of self-sacrifice; they are choosing between a life that seems to have it all and a life that seems to have nothing. They must choose between a home in the suburbs, 2.5 nice children, and a double income or total self denial. The choice is between a familiar form of hedonism or an inexplicable form of heroism.

Finally, a contraceptive culture is inherently sterile. When the marriage act is open to life and is creative, it shows that self-giving is the way of life and fruitfulness. This re-echoes in the search for religious vocation for a young person. If they have seen within marriage that self-giving obedience to the Church and personal sacrifice bring forth abundant fruit and new life, then they will understand implicitly that the religious vocation — with its own set of sacrifices — is also, implicitly, a life of fruitfulness and joy.

I think Fr. Dwight is onto something here.

Chastity is tough, whether inside a marriage or outside.  And marriage and raising children is the fastest way to learning in bold relief all about your selfish, impatient, unloving and deeply-rooted character flaws.  If you don't come into marriage and parenthood with a gift of self-sacrifice, you learn it the hard way through painful experience or you wreak havoc on your loved ones.  A celibate priest who pops in to do several masses at various parishes and never has to relate that closely to the unlovely in his many pastoral charges may never have to confront his own selfishness and lack of love in the way a father might.  Though of course, God finds ways to make us all confront ourselves, doesn't He?

There are some interesting comments responding to Fr. Dwight's article.  One points out that contraception is not the only social factor in the major shifts in our culture, so is the automobile.  And I might add another is the rise of the modern welfare state and the high taxes that are needed to support a huge infrastructure of government workers who do not produce anything in the economy.  When I was growing up the milkman down the street could afford to own a big enough home to house his six children and support his stay-at-home wife.  Now only two professional incomes plus an inheritance could afford to buy that same home in a Boston suburb today.  Also, our values were different.  We did not expect to have a television and computer in every room or multiple bathrooms.

Too many people have a romantic view of marriage (and of children — found among many single women who decide to have one on their own) and look at it as a way of solving their problems or completing them.

We are not going to turn back the clock, though we may find that the coming collapse of the welfare state will challenge all of us.  Those who have big families today have a tough go.  They often can't do it without financial help from the grandparents, or scholarships from wealthy benefactors.

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Theologian Says Married Priests Will Always Be Exceptional

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Zenit is carrying an interview with Fr. Laurent Touze, spiritual theology professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, who spoke at a two-day conference held last week entitled, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," and sponsored by the Congregation for the Clergy as an event for the Year for Priests.

The interview is especially interesting inasmuch as the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and its Complementary Norms clearly foresee not only the reception of married Anglican bishops, priests, and deacons coming into full communion with the Catholic Church, but also the possibility of the promotion of married men (from within the personal ordinariates) as candidates for Holy Orders in the future (AC VI. § 2; CN 6. § 1.); far from the Church becoming more permissive of non-celibate clergy, Fr. Touze suggests that an ever-deepening understanding of priestly celibacy portends just the opposite.  Most astonishingly, Fr. Touze claims that priestly celibacy ranks somewhere between a discipline and a dogma, intimating that what was once considered disciplinary could one day be regarded as revealed truth.  According to Fr. Touze, the practice of a married parish clergy in the Eastern Churches is a corruption based on a manipulation of texts, is contrary to Holy Tradition, and is permitted only by way of exception to the universal norm.

ZENIT: Is celibacy a dogma of faith or a discipline?

Father Touze: Neither one nor the other. It isn't a dogma of faith because we see married priests in the Church today such as, for example, some [priests] of the Eastern Catholic Church. Not all but some admit married priests. Or as has been reminded recently in the Holy Father's motu propio "Anglicanorum coetibus," published last Nov. 4: Among the ex-Anglicans who want to return to communion with the Catholic Church, there will be married priests admitted.

ZENIT: With this measure, do you think that one day, celibacy might become voluntary also for priests of the Latin rite?

Father Touze: No, because the Church is understanding more and more the relation between priesthood, episcopate and celibacy. It is something that could be likened to the revelation of a dogma, though it isn't so at this time; one tends increasingly to understand that a practice must be promoted among all priests and also among Eastern Catholic priests which is truly similar to the one lived in the first centuries.

ZENIT: But in the first centuries there were many married priests, including the Apostles?

Father Touze: Studies have convincingly shown that this must be questioned: Celibacy of all clerics wasn't lived, but from the moment of inclusion in the priestly order these men had to live continence with the permission of their wives, because this was a commitment of the couple.

ZENIT: Why, then, are exceptions made?

Father Touze: Historically because there has been a manipulation of texts and I believe a bad translation that the Eastern Church, which has separated from Rome and has recognized that what they had declared contrary to tradition, could be accepted. In this connection there truly are some exceptions. The Church discovered that she had the possibility of admitting exceptions but that these should be understood as such. Respectably, as the Second Vatican Council stressed, there are very holy married priests in the Eastern Catholic Churches who have contributed much to the history of the Church and to the faith in times of persecution, but they are truly exceptions and must be understood as such.

ZENIT: However, these exceptions are not made with bishops. Does episcopal celibacy have a special meaning?

Father Touze: Undoubtedly. It is very different, both theologically as well as historically. What's more, with the constitution "Lumen Gentium," Vatican II defined that the episcopate is the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is necessary to discover the specificity of the episcopate and, hence, episcopal celibacy. And it can be demonstrated with the fact that for the celibacy or continence of a bishop an exception has never been made.

This is something studied by the Church on which the Roman pontificate has had to reflect more recently in contemporary history on two occasions: after the French Revolution, where some bishops, or better, former bishops, asked to marry.

This has been studied and it has been said that it is impossible, that this had never been done, that at stake was the dogmatic issue. Or still recently with the ordination of married men and married bishops that were effected in former Czechoslovakia by imposition or with the pressure of the Communist Party in power. There also the Church affirmed on the fact that the bishop must always be celibate or if he had married before his ordination because he would have to live continence from the moment of his episcopal ordination.

[Translation by ZENIT]

What do you think about Fr. Touze's thinking and what ramifications might it have for the life of the personal ordinariates in the future?

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Myth #1: Future Ordinariate Priests Must Be Celibate

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As promised, this is the first in a series of articles intended to counter the most egregious misrepresentations of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Since the Reformation, the Anglican Church has both accepted married candidates for Holy Orders and permitted clerics to marry.  It is important to distinguish between the two disciplines.  Both the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Holy See permit married men to be promoted to the priestly dignity (though bishops East and West must be celibate).  Since the time of the Early Church, however, no Catholic body has allowed clerics to marry once in orders.  The Anglican discipline was, on this wise, innovative and a significant departure from tradition.  Nonetheless, this custom of a married priesthood is now integral to the Anglican identity and its abandonment would certainly have serious ramifications in our ecclesial life.

Before we go any further, two points must be firmly established.  Firstly, our tradition of a married priesthood, as closely related as it is to our Anglican identity, is a matter of discipline as opposed to doctrine.  To have married priests rather than celibate ones affects our faith not a whit.  The discipline has proven wholesome and desirable in our ecclesial context, but it is not creedal.  There is no reason to presume that it should not change over time to meet the pastoral needs of our people.  Secondly, while a married clergy is the norm in our communities, post-Reformation Anglicans have a long tradition of celibate priests alongside their wedded brethren.  This celibacy is a precious gift from God and should be fostered among us wherever it is to be found.

The Roman Catholic Church — that is the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church — requires that all candidates for Holy Orders be celibate and clerics are not allowed to marry.  It has been contended that Anglicanorum Coetibus, while generously making provision for the reception of married ministers from the Anglican tradition, requires all future seminarians and candidates for Holy Orders to be celibate.  This assertion is not true.

The pertinent sections of Anglicanorum Coetibus are reproduced below.

VI. § 1. Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon lawand are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement In June are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.

§ 2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

The essential difficulty in interpreting these paragraphs arises from a failure to understand that it is a common device in canon law to state a general norm and then immediately to derogate from that norm via an "extraordinary" provision.  It is not the intention of the Holy Father that the special accommodations extended to Anglicans in the Apostolic Constitution overturn the general discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin Church.  Because the new Anglican structures do not constitute a sui juris Church with a separate code of canon law, the extraordinary Anglican provisions must be fit into the existing body of law.  Lest the extraordinary permission be interpreted as signaling an abandonment of the discipline, the universal norm is first emphatically stated.

The universal norm, then, presumes that both ministers with Anglican orders who are unmarried and future candidates for orders will submit to the discipline of clerical celibacy.  It is clear that married Anglican clergy will generously be accommodated as they enter into the full communion of the Church; the general dispensation is admitted by all.  But what of the future?  Does Anglicanorum Coetibus not seem to close the door on a married priesthood in the future?

Article VI. § 2. begins by restating the universal norm: the Anglican Ordinary will only admit celibate men to the order of presbyter.  But immediately we read: He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

Under some circumstances at least, it must be admitted that married men may be advanced to the priesthood in the future, that a dispensation may be granted by the Holy See.  But under what conditions?  And why ought we believe that the permission will be generously granted?  Given the universal norm of clerical celibacy and the historically conservative application of the existing Pastoral Provision, should we not assume that this permission will generally be withheld?

The answer is to be found in the corresponding section of the Complementary Norms.

In consideration of Anglican ecclesial tradition and practice, the Ordinary may present to the Holy Father a request for the admission of married men to the presbyterate in the Ordinariate, after a process of discernment based on objective criteria and the needs of the Ordinariate. These objective criteria are determined by the Ordinary in consultation with the local Episcopal Conference and must be approved by the Holy See.

Two justifications are thus given for the continued admission of married men to the presbyterate:

  1. Anglican ecclesial tradition and practice
  2. the needs of the Ordinariate

Firstly, it is recognized that a married priesthood is essential to Anglican life.  The very purpose of the Apostolic Constitution is to join our Anglican life with that of the larger Catholic Church.  The imposition of a celibate clergy would radically alter our Anglican tradition and practice, and this requirement would violate the very spirit of the Holy Father's invitation.  Secondly, the needs of the ordinariate itself will determine the liberality with which the dispensation from the general requirement of clerical celibacy is to be granted.  The ordinariates must have clergy to minister to the people and our communities produce few celibate vocations.  The needs of the ordinariates therefore must dictate generous dispensations from the universal norm (at least for the foreseeable future).  Only at such time as the Anglican ordinariates are fostering enough celibate vocations to sustain themselves, would the Complementary Norms suggest that such dispensations might be withheld.

Despite Anglican tradition, and in deference to the ancient tradition of the Church both East and West, clerics of the ordinariates will be forbidden to marry.  That is to say, a married layman may become a cleric, but an unmarried cleric may not enter into a marriage.

The drafting of Anglicanorum Coetibus did not occur in a vacuum.  The Roman curial authorities are well aware of the essential nature of the married ministry in the Anglican Church.  The present Apostolic Constitution, while upholding the universal norm of clerical celibacy (which, it must be understood, is under assault everywhere), does indeed make provision for a married Anglican ministry in perpetuity.  As long as our communities desire to maintain it, the law of the Church will generously provide an accommodation.

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