...said our big placard, and with a cheery crowd of young people from St Patrick's, Soho Square, and a great team from the Association of Catholic Women, we greeted priests of the Westminster diocese as they arrived for the Chrism Mass this morning at the Cathedral. It was glorious: a chance to greet so many priests personally and exchange news and greetings, a joy to see the genuine pleasure given by our small holy cards - bearing a verse from Scripture and the thanks of women in the diocese for the service given by priests - and all in the wonderful setting of the great Cathedral at the start of Holy Week.
And...the ladies campaigning for the ordination of women, who used to hold a campaign at this event, calling for the Church to create priestesses, weren't there. That chapter is over.
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9 comments:
Great news!
I was sorry to see that the campaigning ladies were not there. I wonder why? Thank you for the leaflet - our priests need all the prayer they can get as they are so often living very lonely lives. When will Rome wake up to the need for married clergy so that the People may have communion?
Thank goodness that Rome certainly is 'awake' regarding 'married clergy' - I find it amusing to hear peoples sweeping statements that binding a priest to a woman is the grand solution to everything - the spiritual marriage to Our Lord is a higher goal and how freeing to be mystically married to the Church!
There are already married Roman Catholic clergy, of course - the converts and the Eastern Rite priests who married before their ordination.
John..you surprise me! That's all I'd need to know that ALL our priests had wives & families in the background! We do actually have married priests anyway like Fr Dwight..but celibacy just as Jesus was a celibate is always the higher gift.
And of course, having married clergy has solved all the problems of the Church of England too...
When people advocate married clergy do they realize that their giving will have to increase substantially to pay for them and give their children a decent life? On current clerical stipends it would be impossible to maintain a wife and children and the dioceses simply do not have the funds. It is the congregations that would have to pay. When this argument is made the conversation usually falls silent. Only the most belligerent say that priest's wives should take jobs in order to support their husbands. They would be the last to give more. Do we really want that?
As for the Church of England, the divorce rate among clerical marriages is high. Do we want divorced married priests and wives who will automatically be debarred from saying Mass and receiving Holy Communion until annulments are obtained to regularize the situation? The problems are endless.
It is true that there are married convert clergyman ordained as priests to serve the Church in the UK and Sweden and excellent they are. But their marriages were tried before they were received and their wives and children are dedicated Catholics. But there is no guarantee that Catholic clerical marriages will be as stable. One of the problems in the Church of England is that increasingly clergy wives say that they married the man, not his job, and this introduces tension from the start that often ends in tears. This is bound to occur in a Catholic setting.
Among the Orthodox women who marry priests have to show that they have a vocation to that state of life and their place is closely ordered.
I think your idea of thanking the priests is a lovely one, would love to do something similar next year (here in the states). Could you tell a little more about the holy cards you gave out? By the way, we love your "Feasts and Seasons" on EWTN.
Joanna,
Thank you for sharing this story via an article on Inside Catholic.
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