Gene Palumbo has asked me to post this on his behalf. I don't want to share too much commentary here as, in a sense, this is Gene's post, and I'm hoping he will provide comments with his thoughts. It's a short film, 17 minutes long, about Terence Netter, a former Jesuit priest who, while in the Society, taught philosophy in Europe, then pursued his passion as an artist and taught art at Fordham. In the course of living his life and ministry, he met Therese Franzese. They were acquainted, then became friends, then after a time fell in love. They loved God, the church and one another, and wanted to marry. This happened during that time in the 1960s when there was hope, eventually quashed, that priests would be allowed to marry. In the course of 17 minutes, their story can't be told in great detail, but we hear it in an evocative way. And it's quite beautiful. I know that a priest leaving the priesthood often is fraught with problems and emotions, but this couple seems to have maintained their integrity - and/or at least have found peace with one another in their marriage.
The headline of the NY Times story which contains the link to the film is, "A Priest Who Left the Church for Love", but it wasn't clear to me, from viewing the film, that the couple left the church. I don't think I've ever belonged to a faith community that didn't have at least one former priest as a member, so I know it's possible to maintain one's connection to the church after walking away from ordained ministry.
Here is the URL. I recommend spending 17 minutes viewing this film.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/opinion/the-spiritual-exercises-priest-marriage.html
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ReplyDeleteI tried to listen but it is behind a paywall. I was able to find a transcript. It didn't sound to me like they had left the church.
ReplyDeleteI have read that a laicized priest ordinarily can't serve as a lector, EMHC, or catechist. Which seems harsh. For something that isn't doctrine, and wasn't obligatory in the early church, they have doubled down on celibacy in a punitive way.
I'm glad the couple is still married, 50 years later.
There have been some married priests come in through the back door, via the Anglican ordinariate. And I've read that a condition for them coming in is that they have to support the general rule of celibacy.
But marriage for someone who is already a priest seems not to be discussed seriously.
And, as Latin Rite Catholics tend to overlook/don't know about, there have ALWAYS been married priests in the Eastern Rite churches, that are just as Catholic as are the Latin Rite ones.
DeleteMy husband's family had a small summer cabin on the Chesapeake bay - it was made of logs and was quite primitive (no heat, etc). But it was in a lovely, natural community and many families from the DC are had cottages there. Mary and Ralph Dwan were among them. My husband and his family knew Ralph had been a priest and that Mary had been a nun (this fascinated my protestant in-laws) and said that they were very nice people.
ReplyDeleteI read the columns by Fr. Peter Daly at NCRonline, partly because he's my kind of priest, and partly because his last parish was the parish that served this Chesapeake Bay community.
He wrote a column after Mary Dwan died. Nobody in my husband's family had ever guessed that Ralph came from great family wealth. They had lived simply, and were the opposite of pretentious people. Apparently they also used their money to do a great deal of good.
They were practicing Catholics throughout their lives. I never met them - unfortunately. The family cottage was sold in 1992, and we did not go back after that.
Here is Fr. Daly's column
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/parish-diary/mary-dwan-was-best-our-catholic-church-can-produce
Another article by Fr. Daly.
ReplyDeleteI knew a really great young priest who left when he hit his 40s - midlife crisis I suppose. He badly wanted a family but he loved the priesthood also. By 40 he had made up his mind. He had not met anyone, but he requested to be laicized anyway. Apparently he became bitter after the parish had added a married priest to the staff - a former Episcopal priest. His bitterness wasn't directed at the other priest, but at the system.
Fr. Daly argues (and I completely agree), that mandatory celibacy hurts the RCC. (As does denying ordination to women).
https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/priestly-diary/priesthood-being-crucified-cross-celibacy
But, Anne. Don't you realize that the preservation of mandatory celibacy is the end-all and be-all of the Roman priesthood? Although I don't know who will turn out the lights as the last one of these rapidly-depleting celibate priests dies off.
DeleteThere is a theology about celibacy, and then there are all sorts of social and cultural expectations wrapped up in a priest being celibate. I am not talking about the expectations and pressures among the priests themselves, but rather of the people in the pews, especially, to use a term of art we tend to toss around here, the church ladies. I think many of them would be quite shaken if priests could marry. I don't know that it is for any theological reason deeper than, "It always has been this way, and now it isn't." When the language of the mass changed from Latin to the vernacular, many people struggled with that for a similar reason -the mass always had been in Latin; everybody knew that to be true (whether it was historically accurate or not). I'm certain my father was taught by his pre-VII nuns that one of the reasons that Catholics were going to heaven was that the mass was in Latin which was a holier language than what Protestants did. Or something like that.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there is an intergenerational dynamic at play here. Many, perhaps most, of the people who were upset when Latin switched over to English, have now gone to heaven. People like my kids, and even most of my generation, couldn't imagine going back to worshiping in Latin, despite what the neo Latin-mass zealots may tell us. The liturgical reform has sunk in. These days, during the pandemic, our peeps have been instructed not to sing, but I can hear them surreptitiously singing along anyway. That warms the cockles of my little musician's heart.
Anyway: I think the social/cultural taboos that surround priestly celibacy would recede as one generation goes to heaven and other generations take their place. It's quite possible we've reached the critical point already.
To repeat a comment I make from time to time: we have many married clergy in our midst already. They are called permanent deacons. Nobody has a cow over our married state. Of course, we had the advantage of, as we say in business, a "green field": we didn't have to deal with the baggage of prior cultural expectations, as there was no tradition for us until the 1970s - later for some places.
Jim, I think you are right about the intergenerational dynamic. The reason my dad gave for liking the Latin Mass made more sense than it was a "holier" language. He said you could go anywhere in the world and go to Mass, and it would be in the same language. (Equally unintelligible to all?) It was a unifying factor of sorts. However, converts like my mom and my husband appreciated the vernacular of the N.O. Mass.
DeleteYes we have married clergy in the form of permanent deacons. And nobody has a cow about their married state except some persnickety canon lawyers who thought they should observe celibacy after ordination. Thankfully that controversy seems to have gone away.
Katherine - yes, I actually think there is something to the idea that you could go anywhere in the world and participate. That probably resonated greatly with our forebears who came here is immigrants; I'm sure it was a great source of comfort that they could come to this strange and hard country and be able to worship. Of course, we do our best with vernacular these days to accommodate the immigrants of our day. And for better or worse, English is the lingua franca of our day.
DeleteOne evening at one of our local Commonweal Community meetings the half dozen men that showed up all happened to have spent some time on the way to the priesthood. My two years of Jesuit novitiate was at the low end; others had gone on to philosophy, and theology; one had left after being a pastor for many years. Someone summed up the experience well, “sooner or later, you either had to spit out clericalism, or it spit you out.”
ReplyDeleteThis short film summed up how difficult clericalism makes it to live fully as a gifted human being. Terrence not only had to leave the priesthood to marry, he also had to leave his job at Fordham. The clerical system only allows men (and women) to develop fully within the church in ways that support rather than undermine clericalism.
All of us men in the Commonweal group had experienced the hardship of not being allowed to fully use our talents within the Church, although several of us had experienced the blessing of exercising spiritual leadership in our professional lives.
Unfortunately that night there were not many women present. Women deacons were the hot topic then, before Francis failed to do anything. I would like to have said to women. “Be careful of what you wish for. Look at us men. Our spiritual giftedness was given by God. Look at how difficult a time we had at finding a place for it with the clericalism of the church. I doubt whether women will do any better as clerics unless we deal first with the disease of clericalism.”
The same is true for married priests. Unless we get rid of clericalism it is not going to be very good for married priests or their wives. We can only get rid of clericalism when we value lay spiritual leaders equally or even better than clerical leaders. When clericalism first arose in the early church, monasticism provided the church with spiritual leaders who were not clergy. Their spiritual leadership proved so strong that the men were eventually coopted into the clergy as bishops and priests. Full spiritual leadership for laity has to come before married priests and women clergy
"Full spiritual leadership for laity has to come before married priests and women clergy." That's an interesting thought. And if it did come first, it would likely avoid the problem of married priests being considered second class.
DeleteJack, how does clericalism play out in the married priesthood in the eastern rite Catholic Churches? I know you spend a lot of time with the Eastern Orthodox - who have a married priesthood. Is clericalism as bad in the Orthodox churches as it is in the RC church? In eastern rite Catholic Churches?
DeleteUnrelated, please pray for the priest in my hometown, Fr. Brian. He is positive for Covid, and has pre-existing CHF. He nearly died of pneumonia two years ago.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, so sorry to hear that. I'm praying now. Priests, like health care workers, first responders and even retail workers, are vulnerable because the nature of their job requires much interaction with other people. The situation at our parish is the same as many/most others these days: we have one priest, and if he has to go into quarantine or the hospital (or worse) because of COVID-19, we're kind of screwed while he's out, at least for the Eucharist.
DeleteThanks Jim. The people in that parish are on their own until their pastor recovers. The nearest priest in their diocese is 50 miles away. Laypeople had been doing Communion to shut-ins, but they can't do anointing of the sick. That might have been where Fr. Brian picked up the virus.
DeleteIt seems like a priest in quarantine wouldn't be able to consecrate hosts at a private Mass (for a Communion service) because of danger of contagion. The parish does have a deacon now, it would be nice if deacons would be given faculties for anointing of the sick.
Katherine, I'm sure you're right. The priest at that parish 50 miles away would need to consecrate a week's worth of communion for your home parish, and then a deacon or someone needs to transport it to your home parish. Then I guess that deacons or laypersons can host communion services.
DeleteI'm a little foggy on what is going on with bringing communion to the sick. Around here, our ministers of care haven't been permitted inside institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes. 'Spiritual communions' are doing a lot of work these days. I guess some home visits could happen.
Prayers for Fr. Brian. I am sorry I didn't see your message. I wasn't following this topic. Any word on how he is doing?
DeleteThanks for the prayers. There was an update on Facebook yesterday that he was having mild symptoms and was recovering at home. Which was good news, the guy has a bunch of health problems even though he isn't that old, fifty-something.
DeleteI got the feeling from listening to Netter that St. Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises were important in every bend of his arc from philosophy to art to marriage. As a Jesuit, he followed where the boss led him.
ReplyDeleteTom, great insight. There is a certain spiritual integrity about that. I am sure that process of following the boss was accompanied by much doubt and anguish - in 17 minutes, it's hard to dwell much on that.
DeleteThanks to Jim and Gene for the post. I had noticed the article in the Times but did not view it. I am glad I did; it was well done with a great amount of depth to the story in a short time.
ReplyDelete