Father Josh: A married Catholic priest in a celibate world
DALLAS (TX)
Associated Press
February 14, 2020
By Tim Sullivan
The priest wakes up at 4 a.m. on the days he celebrates the early Mass, sipping coffee and enjoying the quiet while his young children sleep in rooms awash in stuffed animals and Sesame Street dolls and pictures of saints. Then he kisses his wife goodbye and drives through the empty suburban streets of north Dallas to the church he oversees.
In a Catholic world where debates over clerical celibacy have flared from Brazil to the Vatican, Joshua Whitfield is that rarest of things: A married Catholic priest.
The Roman Catholic church has demanded celibacy of its priests since the Middle Ages, calling it a “spiritual gift” that enables men to devote themselves fully to the church. 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 Wednesday, Pope Francis sidestepped the latest debate on celibacy, releasing an eagerly awaited document that avoided any mention of recommendations by Latin American bishops to consider ordaining married men in the Amazon, where believers can go months without seeing a priest.
Even the most liberal of popes have refused to change the tradition.
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 1967.
Then there’s Josh Whitfield.
Associated Press
February 14, 2020
By Tim Sullivan
The priest wakes up at 4 a.m. on the days he celebrates the early Mass, sipping coffee and enjoying the quiet while his young children sleep in rooms awash in stuffed animals and Sesame Street dolls and pictures of saints. Then he kisses his wife goodbye and drives through the empty suburban streets of north Dallas to the church he oversees.
In a Catholic world where debates over clerical celibacy have flared from Brazil to the Vatican, Joshua Whitfield is that rarest of things: A married Catholic priest.
The Roman Catholic church has demanded celibacy of its priests since the Middle Ages, calling it a “spiritual gift” that enables men to devote themselves fully to the church. 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 Wednesday, Pope Francis sidestepped the latest debate on celibacy, releasing an eagerly awaited document that avoided any mention of recommendations by Latin American bishops to consider ordaining married men in the Amazon, where believers can go months without seeing a priest.
Even the most liberal of popes have refused to change the tradition.
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 1967.
Then there’s Josh Whitfield.
This article ran in the Hartford Courant today. My Letter to the Editor read:
ReplyDeleten response to the article [Feb 18, “Married Priest in a Celibate World”], it should be said that married priests are found not only in Dallas. There are many married Catholic priests in the New England area—perhaps 30,000 nation-wide—many of whom are available for various services, including weddings, funerals, and pastoral visits to family members in hospitals and nursing homes. And they would gladly serve in parishes if asked. Catholics should know that twenty one Church laws allow them to utilize services by married Catholic priests. And there are a number of national organizations, including CORPUS, dedicated to informing Catholics deprived of pastoral services, because of a lack of clergy, where they can find a married priest to serve their spiritual needs. While the work of the married priests welcomed from other denominations is gratifying, the utilization of priests from “outside” would be unnecessary if Church leadership would at least discuss the possibility of a married priesthood. There is no lack of vocations to priesthood; rather there is a lack of listening on the part of Church leadership to the Spirit’s call to ordain married people and women, creating an inclusive priesthood: men, women, married and celibate.