[thefactor]

so all the current ones are grandfathered in?

[libsl]

I wonder about current priests as well. I personally know a man who is homosexual and who became a Jesuit priest two years ago. That is a pretty liberal order from what I understand, and the last I heard from people who have kept in touch with him he was working with AIDS victims in France.

[hardworking]

so all the current ones are grandfathered in?

I was wondering this too.

[Verginius Rufus]

The idea is that holy orders are permanent and irrevocable:

"Tu es sacerdos in aeternum, secundum ordinem Melchisedech" -- "Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 109.4 = 110.4 KJV).

The most that can be done to a man who has been properly ordained a priest is to strip him of the right to exercise priestly functions. That was done to at least one of the Boston area pedophiles.