My editorial provided in the brackets.
Married [former] priests call on pope to end celibacy rule
WIESBADEN, GERMANY - Some 80 Catholic former priests ended a four-day meeting in Germany Monday by issuing an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI calling for an end to Rome's nine-century-old policy that forbids priests to marry."We want the practice of the married priest in the Eastern Church to be implemented in the Western Catholic Church," said conference spokesman Heinz-Juergen Vogels.
[And we also want to have our cake and eat it too! We want Christmas in July! And we want a pony!]
The irony shouldn't escape anyone. If one's vocation is abandoned, one shouldn't petition Rome to make disciplinary changes - as if that was the problem in the first place. There are plenty of former priests who are living quiet, holy lives in support of the dogmas of the Church and the disciplines of each vocation.
Celibacy and the married priesthood each have their pros and cons. I seriously doubt changing the rule will be the panacea its supporters claim. How many married priests would follow the Church's teaching on contraception? Have large families? Truly live out the marriage vocation to the extent of being a shining example for the parish? Being a priest is a difficult enough vocation without adding the baggage that comes from a second vocation (marriage).
Regardless of whether or not celibacy should be mandatory, these priests knew what they were getting into when they sought ordination.
Really, they should stop whining.
Somewhere in my files I have a quote from a Russian cleric. His opinion is that the West should stick to a celebate clergy. His point is that our views on marriage and sexuality have become so distorted that we couldn't handle a married priesthood. We'd mess it up and it would be a disaster for the church.
When disgruntled Roman priests point to the East they forget how much the celebate monastic life is valued and revered and seen as the model Christian life in the East.
I wonder how many of these married ex-priests could survive the fasting discipline and pay check of a Russian Orthodox priest from the woods outside Irkutsk? They'd crumble trying to stand for an entire 4hour Sunday Matins/Liturgy. "Bishop, give us a chair to sit in like the Romans!"
Following the Eastern Tradition will get them back into serving as priests they seem to think Shows how much of the East they really know. You have to marry before ordination. You want to marry after ordination --find another job, just as in the West.
I think that it's about as fair to question a married priest's vocation absent any evidence as it is to question an unmarried one's vocation. In other words, it's not fair at all. I'm a Byzantine Catholic so the problems of supporting a priest who has a family he must support do come up both in council and out.
One of the most memorable bits of priestly outrage I've ever personally witnessed was a priest complaining about his flock at a retreat when, after the arrival of his fourth child, some idiots suggested that a bit of birth control might control parish expenses in future. Morons abound in every rite.
Eastern priests in my diocese officially get $1600 a month (no pension, no healthcare). All the priests with family have a 2nd job and charge for things they'd prefer not to, like prayer intentions.