File this under, "Item found while looking for something else." In September, America Magazine reported that Jonathan Goodall, the Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet in England, has resigned from his office in order to become Catholic.
A couple of items which may be of interest: the America article refers to Goodall as a "flying bishop". Here is how Wikipedia defines the term:
The Church of England ordained its first women priests in 1994. According to acts of the General Synod passed the previous year (Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993), if a parish does not accept the ministry of women priests it can formally request that none be appointed to minister to it. Via the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, if the local bishop has participated in the ordination of women as priests, a parish can request to be under the pastoral and sacramental care of another bishop who has not participated in such ordinations.[4] In such a case the parish still remains in the diocese of the local diocesan bishop, at whose invitation the "flying bishop" makes his visitation.
Whether Goodall himself is one of these traditionalists isn't explicitly stated, although it seems a reasonable inference.
I suppose we're all aware that priests in the Anglican communion may marry, and indeed Goodall is married. His Wikipedia entry notes he has a wife and two children, one of whom would be a young adult now and the other a teenager. If Goodall wishes to be a cleric in the Catholic church, and if the church authorities agree, he'd join the smallish group of married Roman Catholic priests, all of whom have converted from the Anglican Communion or a Protestant denomination. (Are Anglicans Protestants? I understand that's somewhat of a debated question.) (At the risk of consecutive parenthetical observations: I think - but am not certain - that priests of some Eastern churches in communion with the Roman Catholic church also may be married.)
It's my understanding that these married convert priests typically are not given parish assignments, or that was the case some years ago; I don't know whether the Catholic authorities have become more flexible in that regard. I suspect there is some pastoral wisdom in not giving them parish assignments, as probably there is no shortage of Church Ladies (of any sex or gender) who would find a married parish priest to be both a scandal and an outrage.
Of course, Goodall wasn't just a priest; he was an Anglican bishop. I don't know of any instances of married bishops in the contemporary Catholic church. I'd guess Pope Benedict, were he still seated in Peter's Chair, might have enumerated any number of learned and considered reasons it would be imprudent to ordain Goodall as a Catholic bishop, but of course Francis tends to trust to the Holy Spirit in these matters. So who knows. It's possible that Goodall wants nothing more to do with clerical life and simply wishes to live out his days as an anonymous Catholic layperson.
Goodall released a statement in which be expressed nothing but gratitude to the Anglican Church for nurturing his faith life up to this point in his life. His now-former boss, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, similarly expressed gratitude for Goodall's faithful service.
Deeply embedded in our American Catholic souls (or mine, at any rate) is a sort of residual Reformation/pre-Vatican II desire to see "our side" win. This expresses itself in matters as trivial as rooting for Notre Dame football, or as important (and regrettable!) as the incessant sniping one sees online between Catholics and members of other churches and denominations. So I think there would be a tendency among some Catholics to cheer this development. For myself, I think this "us-vs-them" instinct is one which must be resisted. It seems to me that the right posture and attitude with which to receive this news, or to witness anyone's faith journey, is respectful silence. We can't know what induced Goodall to make this decision. We must hope that it's the right one for himself, his family, the Catholic church and the Anglican Communion.
Most priests who convert from an Anglican tradition do so because, like the current RCC, they do not believe that women should be eligible for all the sacraments - they agree that women should only be allowed by the men in charge to serve in supporting roles, subservient to men. The " flying bishops" are all anti-woman priests serving anti- woman priest parishes..
ReplyDeleteThe RCC does not really need any more misogynist clerics.
My former RCC parish had a priest who had previously been an Episcopal priest. I believe that this assignment was the straw that finally led the associate pastor to leave the RC priesthood ( with permission) and, eventually, the Catholic Church. He had struggled for years, torn between his love of being a priest and his strong desire to marry and have a family. When a married priest from another Christian church was virtually instantly accepted for ordination as a Catholic priest and assigned to the parish it seemed to be so demoralizing for the always Catholic priest that eventually he couldn't remain in the RCC. It reeked of the hypocrisy that drives so many away from organized religion. He was a wonderful priest, the kind of priest the RCC needs more of. Instead it closes the door in the face of young men who also wish to marry, just as it slams the door in the faces of women called to the priesthood.
BTW, since you are keeping score in the typical triumphalist Catholic tradition, you might be interested in knowing that several bishops in the ECUSA were once RCC priests.
I didn't see Jim's post as being triumphalist. But definitely there is a fairness issue here, and I understand how Anne's associate pastor felt that it was demoralizing to accept a married clergyman from another denomination as a priest when regular Catholic priests can't marry. I think the church needs to accept reality and drop the celibacy sacred cow. Because that's what it is.
DeleteAbout married bishops, they had some in St. Augustine's time. He had a rancorous argument with one of them over it. Unfortunately the church has absorbed some less than healthy or coherent attitudes about sex and marriage over the centuries.
Well, Jim can be forgiven his instinctual triumphalism ( which he concedes is there) because at least he admits that he should TRY to resist gloating. Even if not fully succeeding.
DeleteAnne, thanks for your forgiveness! I'll continue to work on the gloating. It's not easy for an old gloat like me to change his stripes.
DeleteGreg and I were married by a retired Episcopal Suffragan Bishop who started out as an RC priest in the Archdiocese of Boston. Decided celibacy wasn't for him and left. Married 3 times: 1 divorce; 2 deaths of wives.
DeleteOh, Jim. Can forgive the gloating but maybe not the joke....
ReplyDeleteWhile accepting former Anglican priests as married Roman Catholic priests has been done occasionally for some time, B16 made it a formal policy with the establish of the Ordinariate, a diocese like organization that serves former Anglicans. They have their own ritual books which preserve some characteristics of the Book of Common Prayer.
ReplyDeleteOne of the provisions of the "married priest" concession is that it only applies to people who were not raised Catholic. So if you were born Catholic then became an Episcopal priest, you cannot return to the Catholic Church and become a Catholic priest.
Another provision is that the Ordinariate cannot ordain married men who were not former clergy as priests. So essentially it is a transition favor to former Protestant clergy, not the establishment of a Western Church with married priests.
Yes Eastern Rites can ordain married men as priests. Up until recently that was not allowed in the United States for fear of scandalizing Latin Rite Catholics. Francis has quietly changed that.
Like Benedict's policy on the Latin Mass, I don't think Francis is very much in favor of this policy. Francis had a good relationship with an Evangelical pastor who confessed his desire to become Catholic. Francis told him he thought he could better serve the cause of Christian unity by not becoming Catholic.
I understand why Pope Francis might not be so much in favor of a policy that is "through the back door". But it is a fiction that the RC doesn't have married priests, because obviously they do. I can't understand why they are dithering about allowing it in places such as the Amazon, because otherwise they are going to lose those people as Catholics. There is no one to minister to them on any kind of a regular basis.
DeleteJack, there have been a number of married Episcopal priests in the US who have been ordained as RC priests who were not members of the Ordinairiate. There have also been at least a couple of married ministers of non- episcopal Protestant churches who have been ordained as RC priests, even though married. The married priests in the Catholic Church from a Church of England background in the Ordinariate may not become bishops.
DeleteYes, there have always been accommodations to Protestant clergy outside the Ordinariate; I sure those who have found positions as priests in dioceses don't have to join the Ordinariate. As for the bishop issue, well ordaining a married man as bishop isn't against divine law, Peter and most the apostles were married. There are however centuries of practice now in both the Roman and Orthodox churches against ordaining married men to the Episcopate. However some married Orthodox priests whose wives have died have been Orthodox bishops. So if this guy's wife died, there would be precedent for ordaining him a bishop if they needed a bishop.
DeleteI have a very good friend who is Orthodox. Her priest from years ago really wanted to be a bishop. His wife died and he was made a bishop a few months later. (My friend didn’t think he was as mournful after his wife’s death as he should have been.) He didn’t get to enjoy it for long though because he died too about a year after becoming bishop.
Delete"Yes Eastern Rites can ordain married men as priests."
DeleteThanks Jack. I had said in the original posts that priests in these Eastern churches "may marry". But the way you put it is more accurate: if they already are married prior to their ordination, they may be ordained as a married man; but if they are ordained while unmarried, they may not subsequently marry.
FWIW, the same rule applies to deacons in the Roman Catholic church. I wish those who would be freaked out at the prospect of married Catholic priests would simply look around at the legions of married deacons already in their midst. It's really not some new, strange thing.
As for Anglican priests and ministers in many other Protestant denominations, they can be ordained as single persons and then marry. As I'd guess anyone who watches Grantchester on PBS would understand immediately.
I guess if they opened up the priesthood to married men, the ones who had to vow celibacy as a condition of ordination would think it was unfair. It would make for a different relationship with their bishop, if priests had families. Now they pretty much get moved around every few years. Don't know how that works with the ones who came in as previous Protestant clergy. As Anne pointed out, there is more than a hint of misogyny if they converted because they didn't approve of women in holy orders.
DeleteYes most married priests would probably want to serve in their home parishes just like deacons. So that means the bishop would have to move celibate priests to other maybe undesirable locations.
DeleteRelocating married priests is a major problem. Easter Rite bishops often have a tough time reassigning priests. They have warned that Latin Rite colleagues of what difficulties they will have if they adopt a married priesthood.
The notion that a married priesthood would solve the priest shortage has one major problem. There are clergy shortages in most Protestant denominations even though they have married clergy.
ReplyDeleteThe shortages are occurring in rural churches and inner city churches. Why? Because most clergy either don't want to live there, and/or don't want to take their families there, or simply don't want to engage in parish ministry.
Most denominations including Catholicism have enough clergy. We have plenty of religious order priests who could serve in rural and inner city parishes. Most religious order priests don't want to be pastors. They want to engage in other types of ministries and live in places other than parishes.
The best solution for serving rural and inner city parishes would be to ordain women religious as priests or at least deacons. You would not likely have the problem of having them them go to undesirable places. In some cases you will find they are already there serving as pastoral associates or parish administrators.
When it comes to women deacons, I don't think that ordaining the many women pastoral ministers as deacons would have that much impact upon our parishes. However if we ordained women religious as deacons and sent them to share their experiences by preaching in parishes on weekends, it would be real wakeup call for our people. Our priests and deacons might have difficulty in challenging our people because they have to live with them. Women religious would not have any difficulty bringing our people to face many of the problems of the world.
Women religious have a great deal of respect not only from Catholics in the pews but also from Catholics who rarely go to church and from non-Catholics. Want to bring some of them to our churches, put a nun in the pulpit.
Jack, why is sending women religious to serve rural and inner city parishes the “best” solution to the shortage?
DeleteYou have explained that these are “undesirable” assignments, so your solution is to send the women - who, after all, are meant to be the subservient supporting cast for the important male clergy, right?
There is a Benedictine monastery about 20 miles from where we live. Those priests often fill in at area parishes if there is a need. Same goes for Creighton University Jesuits in Omaha.
DeleteI think the problem isn't that priests don't want to do parish ministry. Many, perhaps most, don't like being administrators. Which shouldn't be surprising. Administration a different skill set, and doesn't necessarily fit seamlessly with being a shepherd of souls. That's an area where lay people could be a lot of help.
Jack: most married priests would probably want to serve in their home parishes
DeleteEpiscopal priests are not usually allowed to serve in their home parishes, or even to join a parish they were once assigned to after they retire.