Catholic Church takes big step toward allowing married priests

Diana Hignutt said:

It's not like they're the biggest money making operation in the history of the world. Oh, wait, yes they are.

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This is the reason why the Benedictines pretty much declared a civil war within the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.

TerzaRima said:

The disaffected Catholic in me sees this as a way to get more (male! at all costs by God!) without appearing to budge on celibacy. These Anglicans are disaffected because of the ordination of women in their own church, and because of the ordination of an openly gay bishop. They're not headed to Rome to sing Kum Ba Ya. This is a step away from ecumenism, not towards it.

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1000% agreement on that. Exactly correct. The article reveals this, but only the true Catholic bullshitometer reads what it actually means.
Folks, who gonna pay for them wife kids of the priest?
Who gonna give away property by state succession rights of offspring?
(ie the kids entitled to the goodies on death of father - by state law)
The Catholic Church? Aint gonna happen.
Not in any lifetime

Paul said:

Who gonna give away property by state succession rights of offspring?
(ie the kids entitled to the goodies on death of father - by state law)

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The priests don't own the rectory. They're merely tennants, so there's no property for them to pass on except personal property.

GeorgeK said:

It's interesting that I spent 12 years in Catholic school and when I read the biography os St John Bosco it wasn't on the approved reading list despite that it was in the school's library and we had been assigned, "Read a book from the school library".

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Huh, imagine that.

. . . I certainly have never admired the Dinosaur Church, but some of the stories in this thread . . . just . . . GAH!

GeorgeK said:

The priests don't own the rectory. They're merely tennants, so there's no property for them to pass on except personal property.

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For a long time, if a family had three or more sons, the third was widely held to be 'for the church'. Whatever inheritance was due that son generally became church property upon his death. Nice way to accrue land, really

If anyone cares, I can try to dig up a link later.

GeorgeK said:

The priests don't own the rectory. They're merely tennants, so there's no property for them to pass on except personal property.

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Yeah, sigh.
Maybe Benedict will understand that beautiful truth. Perhaps he knows there will be no legal challenge to this truth. In fact, perhaps that wouldn't even bother him. In fact maybe the church's concern is to maintain the heightened sense of spirituality which ones derives from celibacy.

And maybe the church will redistribute it's enormous wealth and live by the vows of poverty as well as chasity.

And maybe I'll finally get published.

we already have married priests in the Orthodox Church....

--Matushka Donna Farley, priest's wife.

matdonna said:

we already have married priests in the Orthodox Church....

--Matushka Donna Farley, priest's wife.

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Actually M, out of interest, could you tell me what happens to the wife and kids on the death of their husband/father/priest?

sorry I did not see this before.....

to answer, it varies with the particular situation. Some churches have insurance plans etc. some do not; some have a rectory or parish house where the family lives during the priest's tenure there, some have another arrangement-- as in the priest &/or his wife earning their living another way, or in provision of some kind of housing allowance. So there isn't one answer to this, really.....