Opening Long-Closed Doors
Through the years, some colleagues of mine who were ordained as priests left the active ministry to get married. When they told me their decision, I was sorry to see so many capable priests and close friends leave. I surmised that good priests likely would make good husbands as well.
The priests who left to marry were among the most competent Scripture, theology, and philosophy professors in my seminary formation. Some had spent years learning their specialized areas of expertise, including such biblical languages as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These often-published professors—who were highly respected by their peers for contributing important scholarship—were effective educators who had the ability to impart their considerable knowledge.
How can the Church make better use of the talents that dispensed priests are able to offer the people of God through their specialized formation and pastoral experiences? Their gifts in service of the Gospel often include a love for the Church, preferential option for the poor, and competence for ministry.
Many men who left the active ministry to marry had to put aside the significant abilities they brought to the Church as priests to take up occupations like selling real estate or life insurance. Their livelihoods sometimes depended on this course of action. Nevertheless, when their priestly talents and academic training are not maximized for the greater good of the Church, both the Church and the dispensed priests lose.
To be clear, my focus in this column is about laicized priests and the recent changes in how the Church relates to them, which I will get to shortly. I am not devaluing the discipline of celibacy, nor do I favor abolishing celibacy to allow all priests to marry. Married priests do serve in the western Latin rite of the Catholic Church as an exception to the rule of priestly celibacy. They are known as former Protestant ministers or priests—primarily from the Anglican and Episcopalian communions—who were married at the time they became Catholic priests.
In the past, when a cleric sought laicization and dispensation from the priestly vow of celibacy, it was typically granted only for the most serious reasons. There were instances of the Vatican failing to acknowledge receipt of a petitioner’s request for dispensation and withholding it from men already married, sometimes even until they were aged and close to death.
For example, the widow of a laicized priest said it took her husband eight years and three negative replies to receive his dispensation in the 1980s: “Fidelity to the institutional Church” was a challenge in this matter, she told me. “It may have taken fewer years if we had decided to just move in together or be married by the civil court. But because we both wanted to do things the right way, it was a more difficult road.”
When the Vatican granted a petitioner a “rescript of the Apostolic See” for laicization, the laicized priest was allowed to participate fully in the sacramental life of the Church—a right of all the baptized—but the Church was careful to avoid scandal or confusion regarding the recipient’s status. Consequently, the rescript prohibited him from celebrating Mass, delivering homilies, wearing clerical garb, and holding titles, of course. But the rescript also kept him from teaching theology or working in seminaries or similar institutions. These prohibitions still apply today to petitioners seeking a dispensation.
Previously, the rescript further banned laicized priests from teaching or being an administrator in other schools and universities. Plus, they were not permitted to serve as an extraordinary minister of holy Communion, have a directive function in pastoral activities, or maintain contact with the parish where they formerly served.
However, in the last few decades, the Vatican has been more receptive to reexamining the restrictions it had normally placed on laicized priests and has taken steps toward decentralizing the process. For example, some limitations now may be relaxed at the discretion of the local bishop. For instance, the bishop may allow laicized priests to teach theology in both Catholic and non-Catholic schools and universities, maintain contact with the parish where they once ministered, and serve as an extraordinary minister of holy Communion.
The Vatican has also expedited the laicization process by eliminating the waiting periods and minimum ages of petitioners before it grants dispensations. Previously, priests usually had to be over forty and wait a minimum of five years from their initial petition to be granted laicization.
In other words, the Church’s reputation—earned or not—that it was punitive toward laicized priests is being revisited as it takes a more compassionate approach on this issue. Greater efforts to incorporate laicized priests sensibly into the full life of the Church without confusion or scandal benefit everyone and are the proper thing to do for a Church that follows, worships, and glorifies Christ!
