The Vatican said on Monday that its new rules facilitating the conversion of Anglicans, including married Anglican priests, did not “signify any change” in its rules for priestly celibacy.
The announcement seemed aimed at dampening recent debate about whether in creating a new Anglican rite within the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican had brought in a kind of Trojan horse ”” married former Anglican clergy ”” a practice that might someday normalize the acceptance of married Catholic priests.
In a watershed in Catholic-Anglican relations, Pope Benedict XVI announced three weeks ago the creation of a new structure in which Anglicans could convert to Catholicism yet keep certain parts of Anglican ritual, including liturgy. The move was widely seen as aimed at traditionalist Anglicans uncomfortable with the ordination of women and gay clergy members.
Well, of course. That’s what you’d expect. But just because the Vatican doesn’t INTEND for this to lead to any loosening of the normal requirement for priestly celibacy, that by no means guarantees that it won’t actually have some real effects in that direction. Time will tell.
David Handy+
It seems that this is just fine for married priests who wish to move over but for the male children of the laity and the priests who convert, they would be limiting their potential priesthood to having to embrace celibacy. The whole thing is a non-starter in my opinion.
read again Brad, whilst celibacy will be the promoted norm in sympathy with current Roman teaching, married candidates will be considered on a case by case basis- a HUGE and generous concession from Rome
Well if that is the case then I would hate to put my faith in its being carried out after attending Seminary. Just skeptical..
Brad
I think that Rome has always been pretty clear that swimming the Tiber is an all-or-nothing deal — you either accept Roman doctrine and discipline, or you do not.
That being said, the concession to married Anglican clergy was almost forced upon them — if they held a strict line on priestly celibacy, then almost no Anglican priests would be eligible to become Catholic priests within the new Ordinariates, and that would make it very difficult to create a place for Anglican-style worship under the Catholic aegis. It was either bend a little on celibacy, or be reduced to offering Anglicans nothing more than the opportunity to convert to straight-up Latin-rite Catholicism — which is already available to anyone willing to go through RCIA.
Brad, I believe that the married candidate for orders would be evaluated before ever going to seminary and the permission to go forward would be given then. I would guess that if the seminarian married while studying, that permission would be asked for as soon as that development emerged. I don’t think that it would be practical for either the seminary or the seminarian to wait until just before deaconiate ordination to petition to have celibacy dispensed. Not to say that a candidate couldn’t be denied ordination for something else later down the line (just like other seminarians) but I think the marriage issue will be dealt with before a seminarian even began.