[Mrs. Don-o]

No: married men who become Catholic priests do not have to forgo marital relations with their wives. But if the wife dies, the widower priest cannot remarry.

I think it was otherwise in the past. There was a really deplorable situation in the late 1800's when Eastern (Ukrainian-Byzantine) Catholic immigrants were coming over to the US with their married priests, and some U.S. Catholic Bishops refused to accept them as priests in their dioceses.

In one particularly lamentable case, the Catholic Archbishop of St. Paul, MN --- a brusque, rash, and unfortunately influential cleric named John Ireland --- insulted a Ukrainian priest named Fr. Alexis Toth, simply because Fr Toth had been married (he was a widower). Oh, it makes wince-worthy reading.

The upshot was that Fr. Toth stormed out of the Catholic church, taking 20,000 Ukrainian Catholics with him, and shepherded them all into the Orthodox Church.

Sometimes clerics are ignorant jerks. Painful, but it happens.

[little jeremiah]

Thank you so much. All clear now.