The Vatican today issued a statement about its plans to create a personal Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans which discusses the possibility of ordaining married laymen on a case-by-case basis.
Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was seeking to quash speculation that the publication of the Apostolic Constitution had been held up by squabbles over the ordination of married men. Not true, he insists.
His statement makes clear that celibacy will be the norm for priests in the Ordinariate ”“ but does not rule out the possibility of married seminarians becoming priests, so long as the local Ordinary, the bishops’ conference and the Holy See agree that an exception should be made. My reading of this document is that it does not completely close the door on the possibility of future married seminarians being ordained.
Yes–but a single (formerly Anglican) man in RC seminary who meets someone (a single woman) and gets married–can’t be ordained? (no) And a formerly Anglican priest, now a Roman priest, whose wife dies–can’t remarry? (no) And a married Roman Catholic man cannot go to seminary at all. This is indeed a rule that is a spliced-together cord, with different strands for different folks.
Isn’t it rather similar to the Eastern rite Catholic discipline? Of course the historic discipline of priestly celibacy in the Western patriarchy remains unchanged. In other words former Anglicans are being recognized as having their own patrimony. The Western norm remains but space is made to recognize a particular gift that some in the Anglican ordinariates may bring to the church.
Boy, is it ever complicated to read about the best intentions of the Papal See. And I am not being at all facetious about that; they really are good intentions. However, I am too lazy to do it.
Some years ago a book by Fr. Greeley (I wish I could recall the title) involved a young man who has to decide to enter the priesthood and give up a romance with a young lady. Over several hundred pages this agonizing story goes on and on. After I read it I recall a woman commenting that “If it were about an Orthodox Christian couple, he just would have married the girl and gone to seminary”. Ah, but that would have been a pamphlet, not a potboiler novel. If you have a taste for high drama, reading long novels and navigating intricate *clarifications* you know your path. There are Catholic Christians who have had little need for clarification about ordination of married laymen for the last 2000 years. They are far more experienced in it.
**********I can tell of the experience of one Pastoral Provision priest, Fr. Peter Dally (deceased). He was 1.3% of the total. He took them up on the offer in 1980. It took five years before he was ordained. If he’d gone in another direction it probably would have taken weeks (He was an unusually well educated man). I understand, Elves, if this rankles you.************
Well at least we have a date for the document: “by the end of the first week of November.”