The Rev’d Father Husband

The Rev’d Father Husband October 10, 2005

[T]he first collective meeting of 256 bishops representing the Catholic world in four years, and the first presided over by the new pope inevitably brought out the major problems facing the episcopates – terrorism, Islam, and the issue of married priests.

Vatican experts were making the point this week that the church has recently removed the celibacy rule for individual married Protestant clergymen wishing to become Catholic priests. An undisclosed number of Anglican and Episcopalian priests with families have turned to Catholicism because they opposed the introduction of women clergy in their own churches. The Orthodox church separated from Rome operates a ‘dual track’ system for its clergy in which married priests are excluded from becoming bishops.

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VATICAN CITY (AP) – A top cardinal from an Eastern rite church that allows married priests cautioned Friday that allowing Roman Catholic clergy to marry might resolve the shortage but would create new and ”equally serious“ problems.

Lebanese Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir, patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, told the Synod of Bishops that married priests have to divert their attention away from their parishes to their wives and children, assuring their care and education.

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