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There has been a lot of comment about this on other threads already, but for those who are interested in the topic, I thought you might want to hear an account from an insider.

The following intervention in Cardinal Scola's summation has not been widely reported (because of the new restrictions) and certainly the response of the majority of the bishops has not been reported.

I will give you the text of the e-mail I received with sensitive names omitted:

"Our Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III has advocated the cause of a married priesthood at the Synod. The Melkites are a theologically conservative Church. Therefore, His Beatitude is taking a conservative position when he argues that married men should be ordained priests. It is the Eastern Christian tradition. Since the Council of Trullo, in the first millenium, the East has taken the view that celibates should be monastics, and the norm for parishes should be married priests.

I couldn't say that it was unanimous, but certainly the majority of the bishops gave His Beatitude an ovation following his intervention."

"Since the Council of Trullo, in the first millenium, the East has taken the view that celibates should be monastics, and the norm for parishes should be married priests."

Indeed this is the position and it goes even further to say that monastics should beliving completely outside the World in monasteries. In practice, especially here in the States, there are monastics who serve in parishes, but that is relatively rare and resorted to usually when there is a specific need for a priest and when there is no monastery nearby. In the East, monastics are not parish priests, and parish priests are virtually always married, or widowed, men. This is not to say that monastics and monasteries do not interact in some manner with the world around them. In fact, except on the Holy Mountain, monasteries, both for men and for women, seem to have an almost symbiotic relationship with the people and villages around them, but its not in the nature of the relationship between the parish priest and the parishioners. In fact, anything approaching regular attendence at Divine Litrgy in a monastery chapel or church is positively discouraged.

"Our Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III has advocated the cause of a married priesthood at the Synod. The Melkites are a theologically conservative Church. Therefore, His Beatitude is taking a conservative position when he argues that married men should be ordained priests. It is the Eastern Christian tradition."

I love the Melkites. You can count on them to be the ones who push the envelope. In a theologically conservative way, of course.