TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012290/0122610.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.5 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                RELIGION, Page 72

Can a Priest Be a Husband?


Yes -- if he is a Catholic convert from Episcopalianism

By RICHARD N. OSTLING


    No one could accuse Pope John Paul II of being soft on
celibacy. The Roman Pontiff frowns upon even hypothetical
discussions about relaxing the church's centuries-old ban on
married priests. Yet this is the same Pope who in 1980 approved
an experiment in which 43 married men have become Roman
Catholic priests in the U.S. The most recent was ordained in
New York just last week. (Some 20 married converts have become
priests elsewhere in the West since Pope Pius XII allowed the
first such dispensation in 1951.) Although church officials have
sought to avoid publicity about the unusual American program,
it has been chronicled in a new book, The Pastoral Provisions:
Married Catholic Priests (Sheed & Ward; 152 pages; $13.95), by
priest-sociologist Joseph H. Fichter of Loyola University in
New Orleans.

    Not surprisingly, the influx of married priests has met
resistance within the ranks of the Catholic clergy. Some of the
loudest complaints have come not from traditionalists who think
celibacy might be undermined but from liberal priests and nuns.
One reason: the U.S. converts are mostly theological
conservatives who left the clergy of the Episcopal Church
because of that denomination's leftward drift on liturgy,
doctrine and discipline -- particularly the Episcopalians'
decision in 1976 to admit women priests. Also the wife of one
priestly convert told Fichter she had run into resentment from
nuns who wanted to become priests.

    Many Catholic clergymen are especially hostile because they
find it unfair for the church to cut a special deal for these
43 while it bars the return of thousands of men who left the
priesthood to marry. San Antonio's Father Christopher G.
Phillips, the first married priest to head a U.S. parish,
rejects the double-standard complaint, noting that the
ex-priests have broken vows taken voluntarily to observe
lifelong celibacy. Phillips reports that reactions he has
received from Catholic colleagues run the gamut from "great joy
to utter disdain."

    Fichter thinks that the number of married priests might have
been greater had Catholic bishops proved to be more
encouraging. As it is, a candidate for reordination as a
Catholic priest must undergo an arduous process. Besides filing
13 documents, the prospective convert must take additional
theology instruction and endure detailed inquiries into his
psychological makeup and the health of his marriage. One
requirement, controversial to Episcopalians, is that each
clergyman convert must undergo ordination at the hands of a
Catholic bishop, an unwanted reminder that Rome rejects the
validity of Episcopal priestly orders.

    "They sure don't make it easy," remarked one of the priests
interviewed by Fichter, who quotes all of his sources
anonymously. The various steps took one of the candidates 6 1/2
years. And the living is not easy either. Recalled a convert
who had earned $50,000 a year in the Episcopal clergy: "I went
into debt and lost my credit rating" while awaiting
reordination. "For the first time in our lives," said one of
the priests' wives, "we knew what it means to live on the edge
of poverty."

    Nor does the money flow in after reordination. The
Phillipses support their family of five children on the
standard priest's stipend of $500 a month plus the husband's
pay as part-time chaplain of a Carmelite convent. Cash is not
the only problem in making the adjustment. One wife told
Fichter that parishioners, accustomed to celibate clergy, are
very demanding and "don't really give much thought to the
priest's family." One convert admitted he favors retaining the
celibacy rule because "quite honestly, I think that the
personal difficulties and family pressures outweigh the
benefits" of the married priesthood.

    Although most lay Catholics are accepting of married
priests, Fichter writes, the Vatican skittishly restricts their
contact with ordinary U.S. parishioners. Most of the 43 work
in such careers as teaching or chaplaincies and perform regular
parish work only on temporary weekend assignments. That means
that a priest's wife and children do not live in a regular
parish rectory and usually do not attend the church where he
celebrates Mass. Nonetheless, when families do mingle with
parishioners, said one wife, "people get used to you after a
while."

    Phillips is among the handful of married priests who work
in far different circumstances. He is assigned full time to Our
Lady of the Atonement Church, one of six special U.S. Catholic
congregations originating with groups which, like the priests,
left the Episcopal Church. In these so-called Anglican-Use
parishes, ex-Episcopalians are permitted a Mass that is almost
identical with one in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

    Although the U.S. bishops appear to play down the
Anglican-Use arrangement for fear of fraying ecumenical ties
with the Episcopalians, this is, in Fichter's view, a "liberal"
step that amounts to a Vatican "admission that the beliefs and
practices of traditional Anglicanism have been basically the
beliefs and practices of the Roman Church." Fichter considers
the Anglican-Use parishes a far more important innovation than
married clergy. This development, he contends, "may be called
the first significant ecumenical breakthrough in the relations
between Anglicans and Romans."