Posted on 05/27/2014 5:18:07 AM PDT by GIdget2004
It's complicated but other churches seem to manage.
Is Pope Francis looking closely at what is done in the Eastern Churches in regards to married priests?
1,000 years? Less than half of that, really. Two of the best known clergy in the sixteenth century were both married, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and his successor, Thomas More.
I'm actually a direct descendent of the former.
The calculus will soon change when the shortage of priests begins to impinge upon the collection basket. Then they may be willing to make the trade-off for the additional cost of supporting families.
He is correct in that the Church did allow priests to marry for the first several hundred years of it’s existence. Also correct in that juggling the demands of your flock and your family is incredibly challenging.
Thomas More was never a priest.
I'd say that wife and family would be a plus.
My hometown Catholic priest had a housekeeper, maid, cook combo and a bookkeeper and drove a Cadillac.
He was wonderful.
Thomas More was never clergy - what are you talking about?!?
The priests I have known have seen content with celibacy with one exception but the new bunch of deacons I could see transitioning into priesthood. Most of them are married.
More was a lawyer.
Mistress and issue[edit]
Wolsey lived in a “noncanonical” marriage for around a decade with a woman called Joan Larke (born circa 1490) of Yarmouth, Norfolk. The edict that priests, regardless of their functions or the character of their work, should remain celibate had not been wholeheartedly accepted in England. Wolsey subsequently had two children, both born before he was made bishop. These were a son, Thomas Wynter (born circa 1510)[21] and a daughter, Dorothy (born circa 1512),[22] both of whom lived to adulthood. The son was sent to live with a family in Willesden and was tutored in his early years by Maurice Birchinshaw. He later married and had children of his own. Dorothy was adopted by John Clansey, and was in due course placed in Shaftesbury Nunnery, which had a fine reputation as a “finishing school”. Following the dissolution of the monasteries (under Thomas Cromwell) she was awarded a pension.[23] Following rapid promotion, Larke became a source of embarrassment to Wolsey who arranged for her marriage to George Legh of Adlington, in Cheshire, circa 1519. He himself provided the dowry.[21] Henry VIII had a mansion built for Legh at Cheshunt Great House.
He wasn’t allowed to marry but did it anyway. How come I seem to know more about your ancestor than you do?
Your point?
My High School Chaplain (Father Finks) left the priesthood and was a follower of Saul Alinsky.
“A butcher’s son, and looks it?”
And such priests, were they married, would be any more virtuous?
A bad egg is a bad egg.
Leni
Priest’s are stretched to their limit. The church needs more. If that means accepting marriage, I can live with it.
And look at all the money the Church has saved, after paying off the lawsuits because of the child molester priests. (sacasm)
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