Rejoice and be glad.
"About 100 married, former Protestant ministers are serving as Roman Catholic Priests in the United States."
So very, very strange!! The theology double speak that allows this to happen must have taken years to develop.
Bless all these converts!!! If I were a Catholic priest, I would leave the Church, get married and become a Protestant minister and then reconvert. And no doubt there is some Canon somewhere that does not allow this. Ahh, more deep thinking theology!!!!
Realist, you are right, you wouldn't be allowed to do this.
I have reservations about the ordination of married priest converts. It is possible that they could be used willingly/unwillingly as levers by dissidents to put the case for the end of mandatory celibacy in the Roman Rite. We have seen hints of this in Australia.
I have no problem with mandatory celibacy, but it needs to be pointed out that it is a disciplinary issue, and not a theological one. Remember that many priests of the Eastern Rites are married as well. Therefore, there can be legitimate debate about this subject, because it is not a defined teaching that priests cannot be married.
Correction: The priests of some Eastern Rites now practice Western celibacy.
You should make sure he is invited to the next A-L conference. He would have been at Yale the same time as my old ELCA pastor.
Actually the better and permitted process would be to first become an Anglican priest. You could be single or married before entering the seminary. Then, get married if not already after graduation, then make the change.
Is there a blog for "wannabe" Catholic priests? This suggestion should be noted to these guys.
Great economics too!! The Anglicans "foot the bill" for most of the education and we simply pay for finishing school.
Of course, by installing giant HDTVs in all Catholic Churches, beaming in Sunday Mass with your choice of languages, music and choirs(ditto for funerals and weddings) from the Vatican on a time delay, having a Papal general absolution once a month via HDTV, FedEx/UPSing a year's supply of Communion with Eucharistic Ministers and with Deacons continuing their current roles, we can eliminate 95% of the current priest positions. It is called Godly downsizing and outsourcing. And look at the money we would save in lawsuits!!
As a convert myself, I also have great reservations regarding married convert-priests.
I have never been too sure of the need for this special treatment (since they are laymen, as other Protestant laymen).
I have always thought that this would readily be used by "Progressives" to further the cause of married priesthood in the Latin Church, especially when it became less exceptional and more common.
I have always been more than doubtful about the wisdom of giving them a few token seminary years, which are more than insufficient to erase decades of Protestant thought and attitude. A few of them (High Church Anglicans) easily insert themselves in Catholic thought. But most (and I have seen several) retain several erroneous notions kept from Protestantism.
It is, all things considered, a dangerous move. And it should be truly exceptional.
I am delighted by this trend. I do not fear its undermining the celibacy norm in the Latin Rite for two reasons.
First, it cannot but remain exceptional, diachronically if not synchronically. We live in a time when liberal Protestant denominations with an episcopal structure, in which I include Anglicanism, are disintegrating so visibly that the truly orthodox among their clergy are bolting, usually for the Catholic but sometimes for the Orthodox Church. My friend Al Kimel of Pontifications is a good example. But while it may grow in the short term, this phenomenon is self-limiting. As the Catholics in such denominations leave, the ones left there will only accelerate what's been causing the disintegration, and there will in due course be nobody left who wants to leave among the rump that keeps the Potemkin villages up.
Second, cradle-Latin-Church men, who are not canonically eligible for priestly ordination if married and are almost always considered pastorally ineligible if divorced-and-annulled, are for more numerous than disaffected liberal-Protestant clergy. Most vocations will continue to come from the cradle group and will be celibate. "Realist"'s suggestion that married Latin-Rite Catholic men who wannabe priests just leave the Church, get ordained where they go, and then apply to return as priests won't work. The bishops are very alert to that ploy and won't give it any room, for the very good reason that it's fundamentally dishonest. One cannot even, as a Catholic, switch to an Eastern Rite for the purpose of being ordained as a married man. I've looked into that very seriously in the past; both the Latin and the Eastern bishops are too hip to it to allow it.
Realist--
Why are you so terribly angry that God is in charge of the Catholic Church and that the Holy Father in Rome is His vicar on Earth?
Chris,
The Pope using all the power and technology God gave him/us could dramatically reduce the work force and save us all a lot of money and anguish. Of course, he is still having a problem deleting limbo so I guess modernizing our Church is bit too much to ask.
God by the way is in charge of a lot more than our Church in case you have not thought outside our Catholic "world" and small galaxy lately.
Chris:
Realist is a Catholic in name only, if that. If indeed he is formally a member of the Catholic Church, he is a liberal Protestant manqué. So of course he dislikes the Catholic Church for the same reasons that liberal Protestants generally do. He sticks around for residual, sentimental reasons.
That's assuming he's Catholic n the first place. Al Kimel and I have our doubts. That's why you don't see comments from him at Pontifications anymore.
Best,
Mike
Mike,
Al Kimel, ex-Anglican priest did not appreciate my humor so I was unceremoniously banned. 
)
I wonder if Al was always a Catholic priest "wannabe" and beat the system??
Ahh, my Franciscan teachers K-12 would be proud of my continuing religious education in my "AARPie" years. Onward Crossan and Armstrong in the new wave of historical authenticity!!
And in those famous words of James Somerville, retired Philosophy Professor from Xavier University (Cincinnati),
"Religion is our vehicle for the journey. Once arrived, it will be left at the door." (to include priests, ex-priests, and converted priests in keeping with the subject)
http://www.theosophical.org/theo...000/somerville/
Sunday Mass on large screen HDTV's!! A vision coming soon to your local "priest-free" Catholic Church ruled and governed by us "pew peasants".
In the meantime, it is time to get ready for the current offerings.
Later!!!
_Onward Crossan and Armstrong in the new wave of historical authenticity!!_
The new wave of pseudohistory, you mean.
The other day you were quoting anti-Catholic cult member Robert Thiel. Today you're linking to the Theosophists, another cult. I think you've completely lost your ability to discern who is worth listening to and who is -- if you ever had that ability at all.
Realist:
I ask you to consider the folwowing:
Why can the position of the sedevacantists not be correct? After all, the chaos in the Church could best be explained by a heretic on the throne of Peter, right?
WRONG, precisely because if there hasn't been a pope since 1958, then God is a liar, for He did not remain with His Church.
Therefore, I suggest that you commit the same test on Crossan and company. IF they are correct, could the whole of human/Church history be entirely false? Did God not guide His Church or keep Her from teaching error... Eventually one must conclude that, to the extent that Crossan and company require the constant teaching of the Church to be wrong in order for their view, however interesting, to be correct, they are simply wrong for some important reason. This is true whether or not I can (or anyone on this blog can) identify where they have come off the rails.
And yes, I'm familiar with the Non-Catholic world, being a convert myself.
Jordan,
Yes indeed it is strange that the Theophists ran Somerville's articles about convergence of religions. I assume there were no blogs at the time and he needed a Internet site to publish his observations.
So Al Kimel has banned Realist as well? No wonder that the debate on his site has become more and more introverted. Only an extremely rigid form of Catholicism is recognized by him.
Not rigid, merely orthodox. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a sparring match between Balthasar and Rahner in his combox. But he'd probably ban Arius if he got to be too rude.
Selective orthodoxy, confined to ancient topics (to the total exclusion of peace and justice issues for example) and an untenable insistence that the church has never corrected itself on anything, are signs of rigidity.
Triumphalism about Anglican clergy going over to Rome should be tempered by the awareness that the traffic is busier in the opposite direction. Roman Catholic priests who transfer to the Episcopalian Church just do not make as much noise as those who move in the otehr direction.
"Yes indeed it is strange that the Theophists ran Somerville's articles about convergence of religions."
Pleae explain what's strange about heretics publishing articles that advocate heresy.
"Selective orthodoxy, confined to ancient topics (to the total exclusion of peace and justice issues for example) and an untenable insistence that the church has never corrected itself on anything, are signs of rigidity."
Emphasis on peace and justice issues to the total exclusion of orthodoxy, including an untenable insistence that the Church has ever held or taught doctrinal error, are pernicious and destructive of the life of the soul. When it comes to the doctrinal and moral truth, we're supposed to be "rigid," that is, unbending and unwavering in our commitment to truth.
"Triumphalism about Anglican clergy going over to Rome should be tempered by the awareness that the traffic is busier in the opposite direction."
Even if that were true -- I don't know if it is or isn't -- it hardly matters to the question of whether Catholic clergy should be jumping ship to schismatic and heretical groups like the Anglicans. The Catholic Church is where God wants us to be, not the Anglican Church.
"No wonder that the debate on his site has become more and more introverted."
Another possible explanation is that you're becoming less and less orthodox.
Chris,
There will always be a need for good leadership.
In the days of emperors, kings, and queens, leadership was declared to be a divine right in most cases. In general, it resulted in well educated leaders but unfortunately not always in the best of Christians.
In the NT, embellishments were added, IMHO, to achieve the divine right of Popes. For the period, it was a necessity and worked fairly well even though some Popes failed miserably at being models of Jesus.
With the education of us peasants, leadership slowly evolved into the more Christian ideals of democracy.
IMHO, it is time for our Church to embrace these same ideals.
"Power to the pew peasants!!!"
"Amy Welborn for Pope!!!!"
'In the NT, embellishments were added, IMHO, to achieve the divine right of Popes.'
That is an absurd and unsubstantiated assertion. The NT canon was firmly established long before any pope was claiming divine right, especially if the latter is taken in a political sense.
RfC, one reason that no pope can claim for himself the divine right of a temporal king is that the whole Church, from bishops to pew peasants, has access to the Holy Scriptures. We are all better informed concerning the Word of God, and we know that the Word does not support any self-serving assertion of divine right by any pope.
I'd be more inclined to support your cause of leadership reform in the Church if you would cast aside the (wholly unwarranted) hermeneutics of suspicion in your reading of the NT.
BTW, I'm sure that Amy Welborn would politely decline your nomination of her as Popess.
Dave,
If Amy politely declines the Papacy, I know a number of very intelligent Sisters who would accept it.
I can see it now, a proxyvote.com type Internet site for us "pew peasants" to vote for "genderless" pastors, bishops, cardinals and the Pope, with term limits for all of them.
Jordan Potter blandly calls Anglicanism heretical and schismatic and assures us that Anglicans are not where God wants them to be.
Happily the Roman Catholic Church has a more generous view of its sister church ("our sister church" is what Paul VI called Anglicanism).
Here's a challenge:
If Father O'Leary is correct -- and I don't doubt that he is on this point -- how can Dominus Jesus declare that it is improper to refer to daughter churches as sister churches?
Dominus Iesus does not make this declaration, as far as I recall, though the Vatican did make some statement discouraging the term "sister churches" at around the same time. Nonetheless, the phrase "our sister church" was used by Paul VI in saluting the Church of England, and Paul VI was at least as good a theologian as the authors of the more recent utterances. He also had the particular grandeur of a Pope who presided over a Council, and his testimony cannot easily be tossed on the rubbish heap.
VATICAN, Oct. 30, 00 (CWNews.com) -- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued an advisory note regarding the use of the term "sister churches" in reference to other Christian denominations.
The note, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was originally circulated in July among the officials of the Roman Curia, the heads of national episcopal conferences, and the synods of the Eastern Catholic churches. It was published in the October 28 issue of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
In a cover letter, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that the note has not been formally published in the Acts of the Apostolic See-- the Vatican's official annals-- because it is not an official act of the Holy See but simply an effort to "define the correct theological terminology." The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains that the time seemed "opportune" for publication of the note in L'Osservatore Romano because many press organs had already commented on the note after it was circulated among Church leaders. The note takes on special significance in the wake of publication of Dominus Iesus, the document dealing with the unique role of the Catholic Church in God's plan of salvation. The Congregation's advisory note, which is 12 paragraphs long, is divided into two sections. The first section, of 8 paragraphs, examines the origin and development of the use of the term "sister churches." The phrase was originally used in the modern era by the Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople, in his letters to Pope John XXIII. The term was then employed in the works of the Second Vatican Council to refer to "fraternal relations among the particular churches." (A "particular church" is a diocese or other ecclesiastical group within the Church.)
The second part of the advisory note addresses the "theologically correct" use of the phrase "sister churches." The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notes: "Properly speaking, the sister churches are exclusively the particular churches with reference to each other (or perhaps groups of particular churches, for example the patriarchates or ecclesiastical provinces)."
The Congregation then stresses the essential message of this advisory: "It must always remain clear, when the expression 'sister churches' is used in its proper sense, that the Church-- one, holy, catholic, and apostolic-- is not the sister but the mother of all the particular churches." Furthermore, the Congregation notes, while the term "sister churches" may be used to indicate non-Catholic groups, it can only be used properly in reference to "ecclesial communities that have preserved the episcopal succession and a valid Eucharist." In practice, that would restrict the use of the term to Orthodox churches.
It is not clear that the above advisory note is meant to criticize the language of Paul VI.
So Al Kimel has banned Realist as well [as me]? No wonder that the debate on his site has become more and more introverted. Only an extremely rigid form of Catholicism is recognized by him.
No, not really. The Catholicism he recognizes is really rather unexceptional and mainline. It's simply that we have a much higher threshold of tolerance for the cacophanous din of dissidents such as yourself and Realist over here -- which may speak more to our thickheadedness than our wisdom.
cacophanous din?
Cacophonous dins are in the ears of the hearer!
Solid reasoning is always displeasing.
"The Catholicism he recognizes is really rather unexceptional and mainline".
"Midevil" if you will and lost in the elitism/dictatorship of aging, "CYAPing",white men who fear the truth of history- is a better description.
Spirit - Thx. for the moral support. I hope and pray, and believe, that ECUSA is where God wants me to be.
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