Married Catholic Priest (from my parish) in WSJ

Riss91 · February 2012

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203889904577199012244720988.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#articleTabs%3Darticle

He's truly brilliant in his homilies, so I'm not surprised that this piece is also terrific.

Resa77 · February 2012

That's an intersting piece, thanks for sharing!

What surprised me was how he was told to ge another job to support his family. My parish priests all work probably 70 hours a week, no joke. What's the point of being a priest if you can't do your job as a priest? It'd be like going to medical school to, and then only working 1 day a week as a dr, and working full-time doing something else. That just seems weird to me!

Riss91 · February 2012

I thought it was interesting, too, though I do understand the reasoning behind the Church supporting the entire family's expenses. His "other job" is teaching. Since he isn't Pastor at our parish, he's more "free" to put time in elsewhere, I suppose.

Like he said, it's sacrifice in one way or another.

lalaith50 · February 2012

Great article! Some of it is really sad, I hope it gets better for these men. Reminds me of a Catholic organization called The Coming Home Network, http://chnetwork.org/ , one of whose goals is to help out Protestant pastors who become Catholic...obviously losing ALL of their income and much of their ability to support their families, who are often very neglected by Catholics.

Also, when I was in college, for a few months I dated a guy whose dad was a Roman Catholic priest. It was pretty interesting to go over to their house and see the family dynamic. (He had also been an Episcopalian priest, and they converted.)

I remember his mom saying how she would tell people that her husband was a priest, and people would be like, "No, he's not. You must mean he's a deacon or something." She's like, "um, I think I know what my husband is..." lol.

Resa77 · February 2012

There was an arrticle in the Washington Post recently about married priests, but it was terrible. It really tried to gloss over the sacrifices made by the priest and his family. And of course tons of people commented about how "see, this works! married priesthood would take care of the problem of sex abuse among priests."

OliveOilsMom · February 2012

The priest that was at our pre cana was married! It was great to speak with a priest who had first hand knoweldge about being married. He also offered to speak with any of us anytime we needed to in the future. While I understand that unmarried priests have probably heard it all in their counseling and confession, married priest have lived through some issues themselves.

bibliophile2010 · February 2012

There is a married priest at our "second" parish (not our normal parish, but a nearby one that we attend with some frequency), who seems wonderful. He has great homilies.

I think the understanding of married priests is way more complicated than the popular media wants to acknowledge. I see and contemplate the difficulties they face and it is so obvious to me why is should not be the norm.

divinemsbee · February 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_catholic-weddings_married-catholic-priest-parish-wsj?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:615Discussion:a0be8322-a2ba-4c81-ada1-dbf79ae22bffPost:2a82adb2-b475-48d4-acf4-30f6696f7817">Re: Married Catholic Priest (from my parish) in WSJ</a>:
[QUOTE]There was an arrticle in the Washington Post recently about married priests, but it was terrible. It really tried to gloss over the sacrifices made by the priest and his family. <strong>And of course tons of people commented about how "see, this works! married priesthood would take care of the problem of sex abuse among priests."</strong>
Posted by Resa77[/QUOTE]
That is just...I can't even...ugh. There are married pedophiles. In fact, they are more likely to be white, male, identify as straight, and older by the time they're caught. The only way to solve the problem of pedophiles seeking out jobs where they have unfettered access to children is to screen very carefully, something I think the Church is getting better at. I realize that there are sex scandals that have more to do with the pastor running away with the choir director, but when it comes to the abuse scandals, no, this will not help. It's not like if these men get married that they stop preferring 10-year-olds. Sorry for the rant, I just really hate that arguement (not from you, PP, but from all those people).

ootmother2 · February 2012

You may get some stats from the announcement today that the Vatican is going to host Global Summit on sexual abusein the Church.this year.

The pope will not be participating but there will be some high ranking Church officials that will be.

If anyone wants to throw stats around, perhaps you should accept the fact that appx 10% of the population in this country is homosexual yet only 3% of the population are pedophiles. Someone isn't telling the whole truth here but I would never even try to speculate who it is..

I don't know the answer to this problem but no one else does really. We should be dealing with it better than we are.

(by "we" I'm indicating the entire Catholic Church)

** a correction, sorry, I wasn't paying attention

The stats are correct but it's 3% of the homosexual population who are pedophile, not 3% off all priests. Sorry.

It is not forbidden for a man who is homosexual to enter the priesthood.

Think about FatherJudge, the NYC Fire Department Chaplin who ran into the burning North Tower on 9/11,, knowing he would not get out,, to give absolution to those trapped too high up to get out. HE was a true hero. His innate sexual orientation had absolutely nothing to do with his vocation. He is referred to as "the Saint of 9/11"

I believe that is pretty much the same as a straight person being chaste for religious reasons. regardless of your orientation, sex outside of marriage is forbidden.

lalaith50 · February 2012

I think that "we" now, currently, are dealing with it quite well. A little too well, in fact. I have a priest who I am very close with, confide to me (well, it's not private information, but not something that most priests would talk about in public,) about how terrified he is that someone would accuse him of anything sex-related, because for that to happen to a priest literally means the end of his career/vocation/life. At this point, if a priest gets accused, he is assumed to be guilty.

DH had a wonderful priest while he was in middle school/early high school at his parish. He still talks about how much this priest affected his life, and inspired other young men to be priests. But apparently this priest was accused by a teenager. (DH says that his knowledge of this young man, he was just a jerk and nobody liked him, and DH has theories that he was just "out to get" the priest, after some public incident where the youth didn't get his own way about something or other.) DH says that while the accusations were ongoing, the priest was pretty publicly denying he had done anything, and there never was any actual evidence (at least made public anyway.) Anyhow, basically the priest disappeared off the face of the planet. Well, DH says for a few years he knows the music director said he could be reached through his mother's house, but now he's just gone. His life as a priest, at least a parish priest in this diocese where he had built wonderful relationships, seems to be over. (DH is also convinced that there is NO WAY the priest would have ever done anything innappropriate, and he was an altar server at the time of the accusations, and knew the priest pretty well!)

And that certainly isn't the only situation like that.

Anyhow, so, OOT, I'm not sure what you mean by "the Church should be dealing with this better," or even your mention of "the whole truth," so I think you should explain what you're trying to say. And, if you're saying what I think you're saying, then I think you should substantiate it a little more.

Married Catholic Priest (from my parish) in WSJ

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