MY HUSBAND, THE PRIEST

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In a way, ours is like any other marriage, a union of souls, raising children, paying the bills. In a way, too, it is like any other second marriage embarked on by two people in their early middle age. Both accustomed to being in charge, running our own and the lives of those in our care, unaccustomed, at first, to making joint decisions, to even asking the other what he or she thinks about it.

As is the case with any second marriage, both with histories we bring, histories living and dead, histories brought out and laid on the table and worked over and through, histories left alone because they are too painful or because there really is no point.

My history runs around the house or calls on the phone—three children ages twenty to eleven, plus an ex-husband. That marriage has been over and annulled for ten years, but the evidence still sits at the dinner table and checks come twice a month.

So yes, it's like any other marriage, any other second marriage, any other marriage between two forty-somethings who find themselves in the ridiculous position of chasing after a nineteen-month-old, who is our own history in the making.

But there's something different, too. I told you about my history. Then there's his. He's a Catholic priest. Yes, out for several years, formally laicized—"reduced"—as official church lingo puts it—to the "lay state."

Reduced, perhaps, but not (as the popular terminology puts it) really an "ex-priest" or even a "former priest," because, of course, as the old ordination rite put it, Tu es sacerdos in aeternam. You are a priest for eternity. That's a long time to keep a history.

It lives with us in various ways, some concrete, like more children from another marriage, only quieter. When he left the church, he gave away all his vestments to a Brazilian seminarian, but he's still got his first chalice and paten stored in a box in the back of a closet. He's got his sick-call set, too, with little containers of oil, a purple stole, and an empty pyx. Just in case?

The history goes beyond the physical relics, though. Leaving the priesthood is, of course, difficult on every level. Unless you've obtained another professional degree in the process, you're stuck with one of the most useless credentials known to humanity, even if you have three of them, as he does: degrees in religion. I should know—I have one too.

That means, of course, that your most logical future employer is your past employer: the church. But you really can't work for the church in the diocese in which you were a priest, especially if it is a small diocese where everyone knows you, so you really have to move, and you probably want to, too. It's all well and good to be open and honest and hope that the people who "knew you when" will accept you as they know you now, but it strikes me as more than a bit insensitive, even arrogant. Announcing your departure from the pulpit one weekend and sitting in the pew with your female friend the next—and yes, I've known someone who's done it—strikes me as just a bit self-serving.

Even if you move, remember that canon law prohibits some professions (and all roles during Mass—like lector) to you, although bishops vary in their attention to that rule, so if you want—or have—to work in the church, you have to look hard for a bishop who will look at those rules for what they are. Which is nonsense.

You have to make other transitions, too. You have to go from a life in which old ladies called you "Father" and treated you like the good son they thought they never had, to one in which you are just one employee among many. You go from standing (however unwillingly) on a pedestal to being either necessarily anonymous or actually reviled as some sort of traitor, especially by your former colleagues in the priesthood, some of whom will support you, while others of whom will never write or call again. It's just the way it is. So much for the brotherhood.

Yes, priests work hard, but priests are also given a great deal as well. They benefit from scads of professional privilege, from dry cleaners to dentists. Doctors write prescriptions for them in the sacristy after Mass. They are showered with gifts—mostly booze or checks—at Christmas. Most of them have housekeepers, cooks, and car allowances. They have the promise of being taken care of the rest of their lives.

So the priest who leaves, leaves all of that and faces, perhaps for the first time, or at least the first time in a long time, the pressures of real, practical responsibility with consequences, not only for himself, but for others as well.

It also makes for interesting interactions with our fellow Catholics, of all stripes and varieties.

You see, despite the quick judgments of many who hear who he is and who we are, my husband and I are not exactly radical Catholics. We're actually in a rather odd spot theologically. I guess you could call us "orthodox." Mostly. We're both well schooled in modern interpreters of faith, and have found them wanting, to say the least. You can tell by what books are allowed to live upstairs and which are relegated to the basement. The literary progeny of past presidents of the Catholic Theological Society of America and European priests in snappy suits are used to living in the dark.

But theology is not ecclesiology. Structures come and structures go and as students of history, we are well aware of the limitations, errors, and sins of the church. How could we not be? We're living proof. So here we are, suspect, to tell the truth, on all sides, depending on who finds out what about us first.

We belong to an ordinary parish, and my children have gone to Catholic schools. My husband prays the Office every day and has a shadow box of relics underneath the big crucifix that hangs in his study, which is now also functioning as the baby's room. Or at least he had it there until last week, when the baby figured out how to open it.

We love shrines and relics and bizarre saints' stories. We both write, and in our work, we tend to be focused on unpacking the truth of tradition and exposing the follies of modern arrogance. So, of course, those who know us first in relation to our writing are surprised at our attitudes toward things like canon law, clericalism, and a married priesthood.

Those who know the history first—the laicized priest married to the previously married woman—are surprised by our comfort in tradition, our prolife convictions, and our lack of interest in being anything but Catholic.

If you insist on using political labels to identify Catholics, here's the way it works: the "liberals" aren't interested in us because we make fun of them. The "conservatives" like us until they find out our histories, because there's no worse epithet—not "pagan," not "Protestant," not even "heretic"—in a conservative Catholic's vocabulary than "ex-priest," a word which comes with a "p" conveniently built in so it can be virtually spit out of contemptuous lips.

The history of my husband's vocation, naturally enough, has also shaped our reaction to the clerical scandals of the past year. The ghosts and this history have come alive for us in a new way. The hypocrisies and injustices that my husband dealt with and buried when he first left have come to life again, fueling, on his part, a renewed sense of cynicism, and on my part (because I'm that way) rage.

My husband committed no crime. He did nothing wrong. He left with the good recommendations of his bishop. He is a fine man—brilliant, deeply spiritual, and full of compassion.

But. While my husband received some support from his diocese, it had a definite endpoint, clearly indicated by his bishop. He lost his pension. No one offered to pay for any degrees to make him more employable after he left. So you can imagine that as we read story after story of pedophile and other sexually abusive priests, we seethe. We seethe at the protracted support given these guys—years of financial support, money for treatment, participation in pension plans—even after they've admitted their crimes and supposedly been stripped of their faculties.

And the bishops cry in protest, "But we have to! He's a priest! No matter what, we're obliged to support him!"

Uh, no. Ask any laicized priest, any man who left for the simple reason that he wanted to legitimize a heterosexual relationship in the sacrament of marriage. Some dioceses—Chicago and Seattle, for example—allow a married priest who has served a minimum number of years to keep his pension, but this is rare. The supposedly inviolable obligation to support a priest—in aeternam—can, in reality, be applied at the bishop's will. There's hardly a bishop in this country who protests about his undying obligation to support these guys, no matter what. Not surprisingly, one of the most stubborn prelates in this regard was Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, under whose watch even admitted sexual abusers were kept on the payroll—pensions included—but who only responded to the requests of long-serving but now married priests on a case-by-case, "charitable" basis.

Over the past twenty years, some American bishops have tried to do two things at once: they've tried to express sympathy for victims of sexual abuse, and they've tried to protect clerical privilege. They have obviously worked especially hard at the latter, giving sexual predators and abusers chance after chance to "reform," continuing to support them with financial help and with kind letters. At the same time they were intimidating victims so that an accused priest would not be revealed and would, therefore, not have to leave the priesthood, and not leave one more parish to merge or close.

I can only wonder about that as I sit here in the living room with my husband. Our baby Joseph—so named because of my husband's devotion to Saint Joseph—runs around in his nineteen-month-old flurry of activity. My older kids drift in and out. The dishwasher runs. Football is on the television inside, and snowflakes—which the baby calls "bubbles"—fall from the sky outside. It is a lovely life, and I am so grateful for it—the present, even the history.

It is a shame, I think, that the bishops have spent so much time guarding their numbers and their clerical class by protecting sexual miscreants. It is a shame, not just because of the injustice to the victims and the harm to us all, but because it is just so ridiculous and unnecessary. For thousands of priests are sitting in their living rooms with their wives tonight. Some wouldn't give two cents to get back into it, and have left it all behind, gladly.

But there are others. Others who left and harbor no real bitterness. They who still embrace the Catholic faith. Others who may not yearn for their old life, exactly, but are still haunted by it.

They don't want the clericalism and the pedestals. They are grateful that their new lives let them see the falsehood in all those trappings and the simpler, yet joyful, realities of marriage and family. Service is still a part of their history. It is why they entered the priesthood in the first place. It is how they understood the call. So many are still willing to do just that. They would gratefully spend time during the week preparing a homily, then go down the street Sunday morning, put on some vestments and say Mass in their own parish communities. They wouldn't mind doing sick calls and being with the dying or even doing some marriage preparation, some weddings, some baptisms. They would give themselves gladly to that, grateful that all that training and those gifts are being put to good use. It seems to me, if clerical culture needs to be broken up and exposed to the light, that would just about do it.

Yes, it's a shame that the bishops have been so worried about seminary numbers, going about closing parishes, putting priests to work as pastors of three parishes at once, trying to maintain parishes that twenty-five years ago had three priests on staff, but now have only one. It is a shame that these bishops have been motivated by this concern to throw their resources into keeping sexually screwed-up priests in, no matter what the cost.

While all the time, they could have been working, quietly but firmly, toward bringing good priests who happen to be married back into ministry. Had they done so, we might not be all the way there yet, but we would be much closer to the point at which you didn't have to be a convert or Eastern-rite to be a married priest.

For now, the chalice stays in the closet, the baby runs joyfully wild, marveling at the bubbles falling from the heavens, and the ghosts of ancient history lurk in the shadows, marveling at the puzzle of such pointless waste. [end]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amy Welborn is a freelance writer living in Indiana.

So, would you judge a priest who requests laicization in order to marry more harshly than a priest who remains in his vows but gets a little on the side?

Good question.

Personally, I have little respect, or use for those who justify their failings, defend them, gloss over them. I think this is what the homo crowd and the pro-abortion crowd do. They are foisting their personal predilections on society. They try to convince others to accept what others have always deemed wrong.

The laicized priest who had entered into an illicit relationship with a female is embracing his failing by breaking his sacred vows. When he marries the woman, I don't see it as a noble thing, or the "proper" thing to do, but rather an incredibly self-indulgent, highly scandalous decision.

I think the priest who keeps his indiscretions private does his flock a greater good, by not publicizing his quasi-apostacy. He is not, in addition to his adultery, adding on the sin of scandal, and explaining his failings away. So, given your two choices I would judge the laicized priest harsher, only because his misdeeds have a longer lasting and wider effect on those under his spiritual guidance. As to their eternal souls I am not qualified to give an opinion.

Also, I would like to add that it is sound policy for the Church, just as governments, businesses, and the military do, to issue sanctions against those who violate their contractual agreements. It is not uncommon for benefits to be sacrificed when someone opts for an early out. If a priest has lost his faith in his calling, if he has succumbed to the calls of his corporal being, then it is perfectly consistent that he accept the realities of the corporal world, which does not reward second thoughts.

So, the man who seeks to conform his life (though he sinned in the process) to the Church is somehow more "scandalous" than a priest who maintains a clandestine affair while still attempting to represent himself as a chaste man?

The man who acknowledges that he can only be chaste inside of a marriage is a greater sinner than the man who feigns chastity, but leads a life of unchastity.

Got it. I think the laicized priest makes you uncomfortable, whereas the whoring priest seems to be fine with you, as long as he doesn't renounce his vows publicly.

Fewer men want to be priests than want to be deacons.

Are you sure? Are there more men studying for the diaconate than for the priesthood?

It's been my observation that deacons have way more leeway when it comes to self-determination. Once a priest is ordained, his life is pretty much dictated by the needs of his bishop. Deacons seem to be able to come and go as they please, move from state to state, dictate how much of a role they are able to have in the parish. Compared to a priest's commitment a deacon is not much more than a male church lady.

Not to degrade or insult, my point is that if your statement is true, more men become deacons because becoming a deacon doesn't require a whole heck of a lot, which would be perfectly consistent with the zeitgeist.

Not to degrade or insult, my point is that if your statement is true, more men become deacons because becoming a deacon doesn't require a whole heck of a lot, which would be perfectly consistent with the zeitgeist.

Not insulting at all.

Totally clueless, but not insulting.

I spend more time preparing my homilies, and my RCIA classes, than my pastor does.

He has more time, but, since my commitment doesn't require a whole heck of a lot, I have to squeeze in preparation between a full-time job and other commitments.

You don't know much about the permanent diaconate, Chuck, and even less about how most priests spend their time. And, I like you, so I'll stop right here.

The man who acknowledges that he can only be chaste inside of a marriage is a greater sinner than the man who feigns chastity, but leads a life of unchastity.

Not quite what I said.....or meant anyway. The priest who renounces his vows in order to make permanent his illicit affair, does more harm to those who have been served by him than does the priest who's spiritual dependents are kept in the dark. I have not judged their sin. I made a point not to.

Interesting that you call him "man"; I call him priest. We may have differing views on the sacerdotal nature of our subject, thus our disagreement in this arena.

I think the laicized priest makes you uncomfortable, whereas the whoring priest seems to be fine with you, as long as he doesn't renounce his vows publicly.

Yes, the laicized priest makes me uncomfortable. After years of contemplating this commitment, after determining that his vocation, his true purpose in life was to become a celibate priest, he becomes completely sidetracked. Yes, it contradicts my notion of the way things are supposed to work.

I am not fine with a whoring priest. In my heirarchy of virtue, holy vows are more important than concupiscence.

The priest who renounces his vows in order to make permanent his illicit affair, does more harm to those who have been served by him than does the priest who's spiritual dependents are kept in the dark.

If the Church laicizes the priest, then witnesses his marriage, it is no longer "an illicit affair." It is a marriage.

And I think you overestimate the number of Catholics who are scandalized by a priest who leaves the priesthood, and the effect it has on them.

Most Catholics are in favor of married priests anyway.

After years of contemplating this commitment, after determining that his vocation, his true purpose in life was to become a celibate priest, he becomes completely sidetracked. Yes, it contradicts my notion of the way things are supposed to work.

And yet the Church deals with this situation through laicization.

Celibacy is extrinsic to the priesthood. It always has been.

It seems the Church is much more compassionate toward these men than you are.

You don't know much about the permanent diaconate, Chuck, and even less about how most priests spend their time.

Yes, you are probably right. My statement was based on my very limited knowlege of the deacons I have been associated with. I know that they are free to up and move any time they please, and I know that they, noone else, determines what level of participation they contribute to the parish life. I contrasted this with the virtual feudal regimen an obedient priest labors under to explain why, if you are correct, more men prefer the diaconate to the priesthood. It is, in relative terms, a much easier tour of duty.

Isn't this true? If your employer transferred you to Tacoma, could the bishop stop you from going? If you told your pastor you were unable to give the RCIA classes anymore would he be able to coerce you into giving them?

If you told your pastor you were unable to give the RCIA classes anymore would he be able to coerce you into giving them?

It depends.

My pastor, whom I've known for 40 years, would let me take a hiatus, but would expect me to resume teaching after a period of time.

We have a deacon sitting on the sidelines in our parish because the pastor wants him to preach every fourth week, and he says he can't make that commitment.

Yes, deacons are able to move when they need to. But, the Church doesn't pay me for my services, so I'm not beholden financially. If I have to be self-supporting, then I'm going to have a bit more freedom than a priest who relies totally on the Church for his sustenance.

Many deacons are "deacons-in-waiting", preparing for their ascent into the priesthood. This is part of the "progressives" plan to assure a married priesthood.

The deacons,especially those who are busy giving homilies,tending to the sick,presiding at funerals,baptisms and counselling the soon to be married as well as those looking to obtain annulments,and teaching in the RCIA programs,seem to be anxious to perform every function of the priests.This must be an attempt to publicly perform almost as a priest. It won't be long until we hear the brainwashed laity,programmed by lazy priests and ambitious deacons,most of whom just want to destroy that nasty old,intrusive Catholic Church,start questioning why deacons can't be priests since they do everything the priests do anyway.

The congenial,collegial bishops will put on their long faces,and nod and dither and send off a paper to Rome requesting the Vatican look at the ordination of these invaluable,capable men,who have endeared themselves to lay and the ordained clergy alike. While waiting for the answer they will give the go ahead for the deacons to assume more and more priestly duties.

Shortly thereafter,they will pooint out how these married deacons are able to perform all of the functions of priests and it is hardly just to not permit priests to marry,and while we're at it why not women. Soon,the priesthood will be open to somebody,anybody,everybody.and,just so they don't offend anyone they are going to stop asking candidates if they are Catholic or not,since the question would indicate that perhaps the priesthood was not open to all and that would hardly be inclusive now,would it?

I have no doubt that the greater number of deacons are men striving to serve God and are intelligent,holy men.I see the beautiful,thoughtful comments of Thomas More and Tantumergo frequently. However,just as priests and bishops did not suddenly lose the faith but were instead selected and brought in one by one, by crafty men,who only sought to bring down the Church,in like manner,the deacons'programs are developing.

No,I think your theory is right on the money for about one/third of the deacons,I think another third are dedicated to serving God and the Church,giving as much of their time and prayers as they can for the Greater Glory of God,and then there is that last third. I bellieve they have been carefully selected and miscatechized and led,unbeknownst to some of them, to push into the priesthood as parat of the plan to destroy the priesthood.

I am old enough to remember when Communism was a threat to our country. One of my professors,in about 1958,at a secular university said:Communism will never prevail because of two things.the universal Roman Catholic Church and the healthy middle class in America.So I always kept my antenna up and watched those two indicators.

Several years later,I read a book that said,there was a concerted effort to destroy the Church. This time it would be done from within. The book said that the destroyers would use two tactics. One was to corrupt the priesthood and the other to destroy the papacy. I see that taking place right now,so I pray alot. I know the Church will be protected til the consummation of the world,but it doesn't say in all places,so I pray that we can keep the Church in this country intact until we get through these trying times.

I didn't mean to dismiss your theory because,it holds true for many,many deacons.I apologise.

There are no similarities between the two cases.

Yes there are. Both appeared to be valid at first blush, and the participants all treated it as valid. A priest acted as a priest, but later asked to have his vow set aside. A husband acted as a husband, but later asked to have his vow set aside (or annulled, for the hyper technical). Technicalities aside, both took vows that were later violated/changed/whatever, and went on to essentially leave that vocation, enter into another, etc.

I know we can point out legalities that are different, and to you these things are key, but to me they are not. The statement I made that you seem to object to was that I would not feel as much trust for a man who went back on vows like this. For me, that applies to MOST annulments and MOST of these ex-priests.

That the vow itself is a necessary sacramental element to one, and not to the other, would seem to be to be a bit of a nitpick in the context of this discussion. IMHO we are not discussing Sacramental validity, but the violation of a vow.
One cannot violate a vow from which one has been released. It is a logical impossibility.

Well, one can violate it before one is released from it. This is of course precisely what I mentioned in the post you responded to. In fact, you admit this below. Therefore it is not a logical impossibility.

Your objection is strained.

I’ve been aware of the circumstances behind only about a dozen former priests who’ve been released. In each and every one of those cases though, the priest was “dating” a woman before being released. Without getting into the details of what is or isn’t dating, I think that is enough to violate their vows. Accordingly, I have to disagree with you. There are exceptions, of course, but many of these men do violate their vows before they are released.
It is impossible to validly infer anything about laicization cases in general from twelve annecdotes. You need to take a case statistical inference.

You really do what to make this a hyper technical discussion don’t you? Do you have ANY evidence to the contrary?

I didn’t think so. I see two ways to proceed here. First, you can recognize what everyone who has substantial contact with priests already knows. Most leave because they are already in a relationship. Or, you can provide some proof to the contrary.

A mere complaint that I haven’t provided a statistical study is insufficient, when you provide absolutely no counter evidence, nor do you even contend counter evidence exists.

Certainly, if a priest was dating before being released from his vows, he violated them and sinned.

Obviously.

This is a strange statement though, given that above you claimed that “One cannot violate a vow from which one has been released. It is a logical impossibility.” Yet here you admit that one could have violated the vow, and there is evidence that many of these priests have violated this vow.

You have no idea if that was the case with this man. You have absolutely no basis upon which to accuse him. You are dangerously close to committing the sin of slander if you persist.

If either of us is committing slander, it is you who slander me. Please show me where I have accused “this man” of anything please. All I have said about “this man” is that I would tend to distrust a man who took a vow to God but decided he couldn’t do it. Frankly, I didn’t even make that comment specific to “this man.”

Your charge of slander is unfounded. Please review my comments before making inflammatory accusations.

patent

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