Tom Reese makes the argument:
The Catholic-church needs married-priests now
"A 2006 survey by Dean Hoge found that nearly half of the young men involved in Catholic campus ministry had “seriously considered” ministry as a priest, but most also want to be married and raise a family.Having a married clergy will not solve all the church’s problems, as we can see in Protestant churches. Married ministers are involved in sex abuse, have addictions and can have the same clerical affectations as any celibate priest. But every employer will tell you that if you increase the number of candidates for a job, the quality of the hire goes up."
My Notre Dame Experience
When I was at Notre Dame summer school there were a number of students from the Master in Theological Studies (MTS) program in our Master of Arts (MA) program classes. I particularly noticed them in Cunningham's Merton course. The MTS program is the beginning of Notre Dame's Ph.D program. Students who do well go on to finish their doctorate at ND or transfer to other theology Ph.D. programs around the country.
These were extremely bright, mostly male, students, the equivalent of the best and the brightest that came to seminary programs on the eve of Vatican II. At that time the priesthood was one of the few options that inspired idealistic young men. I wanted to be a college professor who taught and counseled students and said weekend Masses in a parish, like the Benedictines that came to my parish. I choose the Jesuits. When I became a college student after leaving the Jesuits, I realized there were fine lay college professors who had a profound spiritual effect upon their students, even more than the priests that taught in those colleges. They just were not very visible.
The extremely bright ND MTS students were pursuing the very difficult path of becoming a college or university professor. Some clearly recognized they were not going to make it in that difficult market and were plotting how to combine their theological interests with other vocations. Clearly these men would have considered the priesthood if celibacy was not a requirement.
An Orthodox Natural Experiment?
My local Orthodox parish pastor recently retired after serving them for more than twenty years. The new pastor is a Notre Dame Theology Ph.D. Although there are many priests in our diocese that have theology doctorates, they are usually from Rome universities. I don't know of anyone who has a theology degree from N.D. although several faculty from John Carroll do, It never even occurred to me to think of how life might be different if my pastor was a Notre Dame Ph.D.
Because of our pandemic isolation, it will probably not be until May that I will be able to meet him. Orthodox Easter is the first Sunday of May, I am already thinking about going to Divine Liturgy on Easter Monday as I did in the past. It is a beautiful liturgy attended mainly by the core of about thirty choir members and others who serve the parish. (Regular Sunday attendance is about 150 adults). I have gotten to know many of them because they also are about the same group that constitutes the regular Saturday Evening Vespers service which starts the Lord's Day.
Already I like what I see from the bulletin and parish videos. I am on the parish e-mail list. He addresses all his communications to the Members and Friends of the parish. I really like the word "friend". When we began the Commonweal Local Community meetings at a local Catholic parish, the bulletin writer suggested I address our announcements to Readers and Friends of Commonweal. I really liked the idea of welcoming anyone I might meet as a friend of Commonweal. Similarly, I like defining my position at the local Orthodox parish as a friend, a social science Ph.D. with a masters in spirituality who loves the Divine Office and Eastern liturgy and spirituality. Although it was an honor that the former pastor thought of me as an 'associate member" of the parish, "associate" might imply that I should want to be a full member, i.e. Orthodox.
From the e-mail introduction of the new pastor by the retiring pastor.
Fr Mark has been married to Olena, a native of Ukraine, since 2015, and they have one child, Maria Iliana. Fr Mark's background is in theology. He received a PhD in historical theology from the University of Notre Dame, specializing in the Greek fathers.
After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Notre Dame, he started a three-year teaching term at the University of St Mary of the Lake. During this time, he taught and researched in the areas of patristics and systematic theology, with a focus on the role of Scriptural interpretation in theology. Through his study of the Church fathers, and through encountering the same faith that they practiced lived in the Orthodox parishes that he attended with his wife, he was eventually received into the Orthodox Church.
With a previous background in education and church service, he was given a blessing by Archbishop Paul (of blessed memory) to enroll in seminary. He and his family moved to Yonkers in the Summer of 2022 so that he could begin his work on a ThM at St Vladimir's Seminary. This past January, he was ordained to the holy diaconate by Archbishop Daniel Subsequently, he was ordained to the holy priesthood on July 22, also by Archbishop Daniel, Currently, Fr Mark is finishing his ThM at St Vladimir’s. At the same time, he is also teaching a course at the seminary on the topic of Scripture and spiritual/ascetic life,
His biography is still on the Saint Mary of the Lake Website:
Assistant Professor in the Department of Dogmatic Theology
B.A., Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; M.T.S. in History of Christianity, University of Notre Dame; Ph.D. in History of Christianity, University of Notre Dame. Assistant Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. He teaches and researches in the areas of patristics and systematic theology, with a focus on the role of Scriptural interpretation in theology. He is the author of the study Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria (CUA Press, 2022), as well as individual essays on the fathers and their theology. His on-going research concerns the reception of Origen’s thought in subsequent thinkers, and the place of the fathers in contemporary theology.
Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origin of Alexandria is published by CUA press.
In saying that this may be a "natural experiment" in what happens to Notre Dame MTS students, I am assuming from his biography that he was originally Catholic. If not he certainly has a strong Catholic credentials. What is clear is that he like many Orthodox priests is a convert.
In discussing with the former pastor the importance of the Liturgy of the Hours we agreed that most of the catechesis of the Byzantine Liturgy is in the Office not in the Divine Liturgy which is relatively invariant. Therefore, attendance at Vespers on Saturday Evening is an important preparation for Sunday Liturgy. We also agreed that Saint Nicholas had the only regular vespers service of any denomination in Lake County!
Mark appears to have a similar understanding of the Office. He is promoting the use of the hymns and readings from the Hours in family life especially at dinner. Each feast day has a Troparion (or antiphon) of the day which is sung repeatedly. He suggested that families sing this before the evening meal. What Betty and I did was to put a recording of it on in the background as we are putting together the final touches to our Sunday evening meal. It worked very well.
His approach is similar to my development of the Saint Gabriel Hours to promote the use of virtual resources for the celebration of the Hours anytime anywhere with anyone. I often give their hymns as options on my website. Their office of Vespers is about 45 minutes in comparison to our 15-20 minutes. They do not have a tradition of private recitation of the hours by priests.
The local parish has a YouTube channel which they developed during the pandemic. They still record the Divine Liturgy on Sunday but not Vespers on Saturday evenings. I am going to encourage him to have the choir record many of the hymns from the office using the very beautiful icons of the church as a background for use both by their parish members at home as well as on my website.
I will be encouraging him to think of himself as serving all the people of Lake County not just his congregation especially when it comes to the Hours. If he resumes recording Vespers I would be glad to encourage others to attend them. Remember that Vatican II encouraged Catholics to attend Orthodox services when ours are not available!
Our rules permit us to receive communion in their churches, and for them to receive communion in our churches. However Orthodox churches do not allow Catholics to receive communion, not for their members to receive communion in our churches. However many of their parishes like this one are very hospitable, encourage people to come and sing, and receive blessed bread at the end of the Divine Liturgy, and be anointed at the end of Vespers on feast days.
It will be interesting to see over the next decade what his effect is upon his congregation and the broader Lake County community. It may give us a good idea of what might happen if a married priesthood were to attract similarly talented Catholics.
Apparently Fr. Mark is Orthodox rather than a member of one of the Eastern rite uniate churches?
ReplyDeleteI agree that looking at either the Orthodox or uniate rites (some of which already have married priests) would give us an idea of what it would be like to have married priests in the Roman rite. We do already have some married priests who are crossovers from Anglican or Ecusa. I see in particular two issues which will come up. One is finances, we don't pay priests enough to support a family. The other is the relationship between priests and their bishops. Deacons promise obedience to their bishop and his successors. But the relationship isn't the same. The bishop isn't their boss in the sense that he pays their salary, because most deacons don't get one. And it is recognized by both parties that the deacons' first obligation is to their families. The bishop can't move them around wherever he wants to every six years.
I am just guessing that their is an additional reason besides wanting to be married that a lot of men don't enter priestly formation. For better or for worse, they want more say-so over their own lives.
Gah! "there", not " their".
DeleteI know two young men who would have considered the priesthood if they could also marry. I know one former priest who was a great priest who left at around age 40 because he wanted to marry and have kids.
ReplyDeleteMost Protestant congregations are very small compared to Catholic - yet they are able to provide a living wage to their married mi islets with families.
I would not have wanted any of my sons to become a priest. I also would not have wanted them to pledge obedience to another human being - a bishop. Some of the testimony in the big sex abuse trials clearly revealed the dangers of pledging obedience to a man rather than to God. They knew but said nothing because they were obeying the orders to keep their mouths shut.
"I also would not have wanted them to pledge obedience to another human being - a bishop."
DeleteRight, interesting comment. There are other professions, such as military or law enforcement, that also require taking oaths of service. Those aren't for everyone, either. When I was as senior in high school, I was called by a military recruiter. I said no thanks; my life script was far from finished then, but I knew that wasn't in the story.
It is interesting that, among young adults in the US, marriage and even dating seem to be waning at least a bit, yet there is no corresponding increase in vocations.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a young man, I never seriously considered the priesthood. It's not that I had a plan to get married, although in retrospect it seems the most natural thing in the world that I should have married and become a father. It was sort of more basic than that: I didn't want to be celibate. At the time, I didn't really have any specific marital prospects (i.e. I hadn't met The One yet). I wasn't desperate to get married. But I felt the same desperation, or at least yearning, to have sex that I suppose most other humans of that age feel. I know I am of a different generation than some other folks here. When I was a young adult, in the 1980s, the link between sexual activity and marriage was weaker than it was in my parents' generation.
I thought about being a nun briefly in my early teens. And then I thought, maybe I'll seriously think about it if I'm not engaged by the time I am 21. Though even then I recognized that if you were going to give your life to God it shouldn't be "plan B". What I did feel was a heavy pressure to have my life path settled by my early 20s. That wasn't coming from my parents, it was pressure I put on myself. I do think my parents, especially my dad, didn't want me to be a nun. Funny, because he was the cradle Catholic.
DeleteFWIW, there are two young men from our parish who are in the first year of seminary, which I believe is considered a discernment year. Whether they will make it to the priesthood and stick with it, I have no idea. I take the idea of a call to a vocation seriously, but I also understand that it can be difficult to discern, and that we change over time.
ReplyDeleteFrom my Catholic high school class, I know of three men who became priests. As far as I know, they're all still priests. One went into seminary right after high school. Another waited about 10 years or so to start his seminary training; I assume he spent that decade trying to discern what to do with his life. He was a bright kid and, I am told, an excellent pianist. He was ordained as a Legionnaire priest, but is now a diocesan priest. The third waited about 20 years to start seminary - he had a career as an engineer before discerning the call. I knew two of the three fairly well in high school; they seemed like normal kids to me - really, more normal than me - and struck me as presentable-looking. I expect there would have been young women who would have wished to date them. I could have seen those two getting married and having kids, but it hasn't worked out that way.
"I expect there would have been young women who would have wished to date them." LOL Jim, we've all known Father What-a-waste"!
DeleteI have always thought that one practical objection to a married priesthood is that there were so many former priests who had to leave the priesthood because they fell in love and wished to marry. It would hardly seem fair to them to now allow married men to serve in the priesthood. I don't know whether bishops would take their feelings into account, but I suppose that every bishop has multiple seminary classmates who left seminary or the priesthood for that reason.
ReplyDeleteIt did seem unfair to me that the church let some married Protestant pastors who converted, transfer over to the priesthood; but took a pretty hard position against letting any guys back in who left the active priesthood to marry (isn't it the teaching that they are a priest forever?). I do see a big difference, too, between someone who quit honestly before they entered into a relationship, and someone who was leading a double life and got found out.
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