What happens if a catholic priest married

By remaining celibate and devoting themselves to the service of the Church, priests more closely model, configure themselves to, and consecrate themselves to Christ. As Christ himself makes clear, none of us will be married in heaven Mt — By remaining unmarried in this life, priests are more closely configured to the final, eschatological state that will be all of ours.

Canonically, priests cannot marry for a number of reasons. First, priests who belong to religious orders take vows of celibacy. Second, while diocesan priests do not take vows, they do make a promise of celibacy. The background to this is that there is a shortage of clergy, particularly in certain parts of the world, and especially in the Amazon region. Last year, a synod or conference of bishops meeting at the Vatican argued that married men, preferably older, should be ordained where there was a pressing need.

Priests are vital in the Catholic Church, because beyond their pastoral and missionary work, they are also the only people qualified to consecrate the host, the sacrament that is considered to be the body and blood of Jesus and at the epicenter of church worship.

Because of this, 85 per cent of Amazonian villages are unable to celebrate Mass. The synod proposal was condemned by more conservative voices as a first step to allowing widespread acceptance of married clergy—perish the thought!

Progressives and realists were more optimistic, but the recommendation had to receive Papal confirmation if it were to proceed. There are married deacons, but they have to be men. In earlier times the single life was necessary for monks, but not priests.

Even when celibacy was commanded, it was not always enforced. Today, the small numbers of married Anglican clergy who convert to Rome are accepted, and there are entire Catholic rites—Ukrainian for example—where marriage is encouraged and children abound.

For some clergy this is likely true. But as a shortage of priests becomes a crisis in parts of the world, liberal wings in the church have been arguing that it's time to reassess that stance. On Feb. It is "the mark of a heroic soul and the imperative call to unique and total love for Christ and His Church," Pope Paul VI wrote in Whitfield is a husband, a father of four and a relentlessly good-natured priest beloved by the parishioners at Dallas' St.

Rita Catholic Community. His life is spent juggling two worlds. He celebrates Mass, he hears confessions; he drives his son to karate practice, he encourages his oldest daughter's love of baseball.

He is, he says, "an ecclesiastical zoo exhibit," one of the tiny community of married priests — men who slipped through a clerical loophole created 40 years ago — that even most Catholics don't know exist. Here at St. Rita we just get on with it. My job is just to do the tasks the bishop has given me as best I can, and try and make it work," he said in an interview in his book-filled office, where photos of his wife and children vie for space with photos of popes and sketches of his religious heroes.

My job is just to do the tasks the bishop has given me as best I can, and try and make it work. Tweet this. There are around married Roman Catholic priests like Whitfield, an Episcopal convert, across the U. Surveys of Catholics show widespread backing for a married priesthood.

One reason behind that is a church facing an immense, and growing, shortage of priests. In the U. Worldwide, the number of priests has remained fairly stable over the past 50 years — but the Catholic population has doubled to 1.

But there's one very small, very notable Catholic constituency that mostly doesn't support opening up the priesthood to married men: married priests themselves. And I get that it's hard to understand. But that's sort of the irritating beauty of Catholicism. The church persistently thinks theologically, and not sociologically and not politically, at her best," said Whitfield.

The Catholic Church, which includes nearly two dozen rites, allows married priests in its Eastern Rite churches. It also allows in some married priests like Whitfield, a former Episcopal priest who converted to Catholicism with his wife, Alli, in and was ordained as a Catholic priest three years later. While married priests were common in Christianity's first centuries, the Latin Rite — the largest of Catholicism's branches, and the dominant rite in the West — has enforced a tradition of a celibate priesthood since the 11th century, in part as a way to keep priests' assets inside the church, instead of being passed to their heirs.

It's also in part a way to keep down costs, since maintaining a family is more expensive. Francis has walked a careful line on celibacy, noting that it is a tradition, not theological dogma, and as a result is open to change. His statements range from the clear-cut — "I don't agree to allow optional celibacy, no" — to the more nuanced, saying married priests might be allowed "when there is a pastoral necessity" in remote areas with dire clerical shortages.

That possibility worries conservatives and thrills liberals, both of whom believe that allowing married priests in such areas as Amazonia or the Pacific Islands could crack open the door to a married clergy. Whitfield, 41, became a Catholic priest in through the Pastoral Provision, a set of rules crafted by Pope John Paul II in that gives married Episcopal priests who have converted to Catholicism the chance to apply for ordination in the Catholic church.

The process, which can take years, includes everything from psychological interviews to exams on Catholic theology and, in the end, a special dispensation from the pope. The convert priests see themselves as narrow exceptions to centuries of Catholic rules, part of a drive in the Catholic church to reunite with some branches of Anglicanism.