The Gift: A Married Priest Looks at Celibacy

While I'm deeply grateful that the Church has made an exception for certain former Protestant clergy like me, the exception is clearly a compromise. The priesthood and marriage are both full-time vocations. The fact is, no one can do complete justice to both simultaneously.

It seems to me that if he feels he cannot do justice to both he should stick to being married and not have joined up.

Yes, he was a married Episcopal priest, and is now an ordained Catholic priest.

Seeing the history and theology of celibacy in such strong terms as he does, Iwonder if he and his wife are, by mutual agreement, living in continence?

The Church opines that it is an undue hardship for a Protestant pastor who converts to Catholicism to lose his career upon conversion.

Therefore, the Church permits his ordination just as the Church ordains married men as priests for the Byzantine and Ukrainian Catholics.

If he truly believes this why is he shortchanging his wife and his parishoners?

Did either of you, in your rush to judgment, consider that he and his wife may be living in the apostolic continence he describes as essential to not shortchanging either?

wow. a loophole? I'm very surprised it hasn't been exploited.

The Church is not generally in the habit of offering a "loophole" to people who are trying to game the system.

Although it sure can seem like that depending which diocese you live in nowadays.

Pope Defends Clergy Celibacy Order
Has the Time Come to Consider Making Celibacy Truly Optional In the Western Church?
Catholic Scandals: A Crisis for Celibacy?
Celibacy of the priesthood is a church strength, not a liability
Celibacy s history of power and money

Pope: Priests Must Stay Celibate
Giving Thanks for the Good Shepherds ( A Defense of Priestly Celibacy)
Don't end celibacy for priests
The celibate superhero
Priestly Celibacy And Its Roots In Christ

How to Refute Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy
Priestly Celibacy Reflects Who - and Whose - We Are[Father George W.Rutler]
Celibacy
Tracing the Glorious Origins of Celibacy
God’s call to celibacy for the sake of His Kingdom - by Card. George

Vatican Says Celibacy Rule Nonnegotiable
Bishop Attacks Move to End Celibacy
A response to Fr. Joseph Wilson's defense of mandatory celibacy
The gift of Priestly celibacy as a sign of the charity of Christ, by Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Archbishop Dolan:"We Need to Be Renewing Our Pledge to Celibacy, Not Questioning It"

Celibacy is gift cherished by church
Celibacy Will Save the Priesthood
Celibacy Defended by EWTN's Fr. Levis
Call To Action: Dump Celibacy
The (Catholic) Church Has Always Prospered When Celibacy Is Honored

John Paul II Hails "Inestimable Value" of Priestly Celibacy
For Priests, Celibacy Is Not the Problem
Fr. Shannon Collins Discusses Celibacy
5 Arguments Against (Catholic) Priestly Celibacy and How to Refute Them
Why A Married Priesthood Won't Remedy the Priest Shortage

New Vatican Document on Homosexuality and the Priesthood Coming Before Fall 2005
Catholic priests demand the right to marry
Catholic priests urge Church to reconsider celibacy rules
Alternative Priests´ Council Hits Back on Mandatory Celibacy
Married Priests? The English Experience

Saying Yes to God: a Look into Vocations
New Vatican Document to Eliminate 1961 Papal Ban on Ordaining Homosexuals
Saying Yes to God: a Look into Vocations
Is it time to ordain married men to the Catholic priesthood?
40% of Scots priests want end to celibacy

A small, sturdy band of 'John Paul priests'(JPII legacy of conservative priests)
Yes, Gay Men Should Be Ordained
Cardinal says Priests will marry
Fathers, Husbands and Rebels: Married Priests
An Unneeded Headache (Vatican document on [NOT] admitting homosexual to the priesthood)

Vatican Prepares Draft Directives Against Admitting Gays as Priests
From Anglican to married Catholic priest
Spain gets first married priest
Spain (R) Catholic Church ordains first married priest
The Catholic Church - East-West Difference Over Priestly Celibacy

ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF SCRANTON TO RECEIVE FIRST ECUSA PRIEST
Defending Chastity in the Priesthood
Ordination of married men is raised at Vatican synod
Patriarch of Venice deemphasizes ordination of married men to the priesthood
Cardinal Pell: Ending Celibacy Rule Would Be a Blunder

Priest shortage stems from crisis of faith, ignorance of the infinite, not celibacy, say Bishops [at Synod]
Synod Affirms Priestly Celibacy
Married Priests Aren’t the Answer (a seminarian states his view)
5 Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy and How to Refute Them
(Catholic) Church makes a clear distinction between chastity and celibacy, says Priest

Why Not Married Priests? The Case for Clerical Celibacy
Married, ex-Episcopalian ordained a Catholic priest in California
Getting It Right:The Foundation of Friendship (What can a celibate priest really teach us about love
Another One Takes the Plunge [swims the Tiber]
Following the Signs (to a priestly vocation)

Long Journey to Rome (Former Southern Baptist Pastor Now a Traveling Crusader for Catholic Church)
Ex-Lutheran bishop found Catholic rock: Joseph Jacobson to be ordained Catholic priest by Christmas
The Gift: A Married Priest Looks at Celiba[cy]

Why would they live without sex?

Sex really isn't the issue. It's all the stuff that comes with sex - wife, kids, mortgage, teenagers, etc.

Once married, it would be ridiculous to live as brother and sister, imo, if they have all the other trappings of marriage. I really don't think that God intends for any man in his situation to throw his wife under the bus. :( The church let him enter as a married man - he needs to stay married.

Did either of you, in your rush to judgment, consider that he and his wife may be living in the apostolic continence he describes as essential to not shortchanging either?

I rather hate to point this out, but the author himself stated that he did not believe it was possible to fulfill the role of priest and husband at the same time. He did not address the issue of continence as being particularly where the failure lies.

Although it sure can seem like that depending which diocese you live in nowadays.

That was my point. I don't question the Church's wisdom. It's the local interpretation that concerns me.

There is certainly precedent in the Faith of a husband and wife renouncing sexual relations by mutual consent. It's nothing I could recommend as a routine practice. And how that plays out depends on whether you;'re in your 30's, 40's, 60's, or 80's --- and also whether you're living with your spouse, or have separated by mutual consent to live a conventual or monastic life.

Having looked up his bio, I see that Fr. Ryland was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1950. I assume that means he was born before 1930, which would make him 80-ish now. Maybe neither sex, kids, mortgage, teenagers, etc. are relevant complications at this point... ;o)

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