Married Catholic priest ordained

[News]

YELLOWKNIFE, Canada (The Catholic Register) – Hundreds of parishioners packed St. Patrick's Church in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, on Feb. 18 to see Don Flumerfelt ordained as the first Catholic priest married with children in the Mackenzie-Fort Smith Diocese.
After 29 years as an Anglican priest, Father Flumerfelt will now lead a Catholic church in the Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories.

"It's an answer to prayer," said Father Flumerfelt, 59.

Father Flumerfelt made the decision after taking a short break from his Anglican ministry to deal with family issues, including his daughter's illness and mother's death. During the difficult time, Father Flumerfelt said he received a lot of support from the Catholic Church and began to feel a strong connection to the faith.

The Mackenzie-Fort Smith Diocese covers most of the Northwest Territories and small portions of Nunavut, Alberta and Saskatchewan. While it's the largest diocese geographically in the world, it only has seven priests: three are on loan from other southern Canadian dioceses, three are diocesan priests and one is an Oblate of Mary Immaculate order priest.

During the western bishops' ad limina visit to Rome in the fall, Bishop Denis Croteau used most of his 15-minute audience with Pope Benedict XVI to petition for Father Flumerfelt's ordination. After Croteau assured the Pope that Flumerfelt was a suitable candidate and would be accepted by the local community, the pope granted permission on the spot.

During the Mass, St. Patrick's pastor Father Daley read the indult from the pope to assure the congregation that this is a legitimate ordination.

"It's (my wife's) `yes,' along with the pope, that has given me the privilege of standing here today as a Roman Catholic priest," Father Flumerfelt told the congregation in his closing remarks.

Father Flumerfelt's wife of 35 years, Julia, read the first reading and was acknowledged throughout the Mass at different points. She said she felt very included during her husband's formation.

"I try to respond when people have a need when they ask me, but I'm much more of a prayer person in the background," said Julia Flumerfelt, 57, who has also converted to Catholicism.

While many hoped this ordination would be a sign of unity between Anglicans and Catholics, no Anglican clergy were in attendance.

The ordination also caused a sore spot for some Catholics in the diocese

"I've had some very strong statements from Catholics who've said you can't do this, it's just impossible to have two loves, one for the church and one for your wife," said Father Flumerfelt. "I don't honestly believe that's true for all people.

"The bishop has said the discipline of celibacy is a discipline of the church, it's not a word directly from God and that discipline may in time change, but we haven't been in this to try and change anything."

"We are not crusaders," added Julia Flumerfelt.

"It's interesting for myself. They'll let me through the back door, but they won't let me through the front," said James Lynn, the parish leader at the Dettah Mission, a small 30-person mission just outside Yellowknife.

He is one of two men in the diocese who have left the priesthood to marry. In Lynn's case, he left 17 years ago to marry a native woman. He is no longer able to celebrate Mass, but instead he leads eucharistic services, in which the host is pre-consecrated by a priest.

Bishop Croteau has written a pastoral letter to explain these concerns and others.

For a "Protestant minister becoming a Catholic priest there is a continuous march on the journey of faith. With the Catholic priest who has renounced his vow there is a break in the journey of faith to do something else," Bishop Croteau wrote.

Internationally, hundreds of married priests from other Christian faiths have been ordained by the Catholic Church in recent years.

While the Catholic Church only allows married priests in rare instances, the Orthodox Church allows married priests, as do the Eastern-rite Catholic churches.

Sara Loftson
2/22/2007

[Krysostomos]

The latin church should simply allow the ordination of married men - as does the orthodox and greek catholic ones!

[Charlotte]

Krysostomos,

I agree! But the present rules allowing some married men to become priests - but not priests to marry - also has to change to avoid discrimination.

It's very unfair to do as they do now: "reward" some and "punish" others - who wish exactly the same thing - but happen to come from different directions on the same way....

One was married first and gets "green light" right away, and his wife is even invited to share in the liturgy.

The other was ordained first and is met with a "red light" - and has to leave the priesthood to be allowed to marry.

The end result is that the Church "gained" one married priest who will understand married people from within in a way that an unmarried priest with no experiences of what married life demands of a person can do (the majority of Catholics are married - aren't they?) - and at the same time the Church "lost" another priest who finally was strong enough to make the difficult choice to marry the woman he loves - but leave his beloved ministry.

While - in the best of worlds - there could be two married - and active - priests, to the benefit of all.

It's not true that it's not possible to combine - if so - anglican men would have to leave their wives to be ordained as catholic priests.

Two strong loves - for a person and for a ministry - could in fact (which many married priests in different denominations shows), fruitfully be combined so that one love overflows to the other. A married priest might be a happier priest who has more to give the parish. While an unhappy priest may end up committing suicide - it happens quite often, but the Church is silencing it down, saying that they died of a disease or something - but their close friends know of the real reason.... (I'm reading a horrible book about this at the moment).

It's no sin to marry - and promises made in early youth may look very different later on in life - when the person has matured - it should thus be possible for a priest to change state of life - without loosing the ministry!

[Krysostomos]

[Charlotte]

Yes, why not - since it's totally OK for married converts from other denominations to be ordained - or "reordained" (if they already were priests in their previous denomination).....?

In these other denominations priests can marry after their ordination - so it's only among catholics and orthodox that this isn't possible - yet.

[julius]

This was orinally not so. The celibacy was not a requirement from the start of the catholic church but was introduced much later. Even many popes were married. The first 37 popes were not under a requirement of celibacy and e.g. was pope Hormisdas (a.d. 514 - 523) the father of pope Silverius (a.d. 536 - 537).

The celibacy is a church regulation that it would be fully possible for the vatican to do away with or to modify. Doing so might make it considerably easier to recruit priests and it would also add to the knowledge base of the clergy. But there is one big problem: if this would be done the church would soon face the problem of dealing with DIVORCED priests as well. It would be wishful thinking to assume that the marriages of priests would work much better than marriages among the layity. Statistics from other churches seem to prove the opposite. And this would give the church another difficult problem to handle.

[Charlotte]

Julius,

Why would it be such "a problem" if priests were divorced?

Orthodox priests may marry once (before the ordination) - but other Orthodox (lay persons) may marry twice - so they obviously make a difference.

But why would "priestly divorces" among Catholics be a bigger problem than divorces in general - if that's a problem?

At times it may even be the best possible solution for everyone involved.

I don't think however, that divorces among priests would ever be a larger problem than the problem of forced celibacy is among priests today....

Charlotte

[Julius]

Charlotte, divorces are a problem for the catholic church to handle, not just for priests. It is an area where the word of God comes in direct conflict with the thinking of man, at least many times. The word of God is clear, marriage is a lifetime committment. The thinking of man is that divorce is often a better alternative, either to avoid struggle or to allow for a new partner. Many times unfortunately the welfare of the children is sacrificed in favor of a new love. At the present the rule within the catholic church is that you are cut off from communion if you get divorced and then remarry, unless you have been granted an annullment by the church. Would the same apply to priests ? And if priests would be guilty of something that the church consider as sufficient ground for refusing communion to someone, how can they then serve as priests ? It would be very difficult for the church to preach that marriage is a life-long committment if not even the priests can live up to that.

Of course it is also a problem with priests who accept the celibacy but then do not live up to it. It is exactly the same kind of situation. It is always negative to the credibility of the church if its own priests can not live up to the standards that they tell their parishoners to live by. When it comes to celibacy this may not hit as direct, as the layity has never taken any vow of celibacy. But with divorces it would be a bigger problem as that is a situation that many of their parishoners experience themselves.

I think it is fully possible for the church to abandon the celibacy requirement for its priests but I think it should in such a case be done very carefully and the church should have the answers ready for the new problems that will come up.

[Charlotte]

You're right that a divorce at times may not be the best alternative - it may be a rather selfish act. But it may also be a way to save everyone involved from more suffering. It's not good for children to grow up in a family where the parents hate each other.... Then it may be better to live separately - to spare the children - and also the adults.

If a Catholic priest were divorced - why would he remarry? Cf. what I wrote about Orthodox priests.

One may also turn the thing around.

Does the Church have the right to deny anyone Communion - as some kind of punishment and reward system - for bad respectively good behaviour?

Or should everyone be welcome to the table of Jesus?

(That question may be discussed under that part of this forum. )

Is it the Church that needs to reevaluate some of its rules - or should people keep suffering because of them?

I see the unability of some priests to live up to the celibacy as a sign that they're indeed called to be priests - but married priests. And this rule is easy to change - so why keep "punishing" these priests?

The Church isn't credible in some points - that's right - but the reason isn't because people can't live up to all its rules - but rather because of the rules - THEY aren't credible - they're not compatible with the compassionate and creative love of God.

Charlotte

[Gäst]

Charlotte, it would of course be fully possible to allow priests to marry once and once only. It may well solve some of the problems but on the other hand to debate might come back in a few years time when some of feel that they need to remarry as well. But with proper groundwork and preparation within the church it may surely be quite possible to find a middle way.

As for the churches right to cut off people who remarry from communion that is a separate issue, but surely the church has a basic right to cut people off in certain cases. The question would then more be where to draw the line. That everyone would be welcome to communion regardless or their lifestyle, their beliefs and their intentions seems contradictory to both instructions given in the bible and to the fact that the church has a responsibility to look after that the sacraments are used in proper ways.

As for the rules of the church more in general it is probably true that a number of them could well be done away with or modfied. But if the church was to take away all rules and just start telling people what they like to hear, i.e. live just as you want to, do whatever you feel like, God loves you anyhow, then I think the church would have lost its meaning and also betrayed the task given to it by God.

[Charlotte]

I don't think anyone wishes to take away all rules.

The devil is in the ditches - so to say - in the utter extremes.

Having said that, I don't think the Church has the right to forbid anyone to receive communion - it should be a decision made by each person in front of God, in full awareness of what the eucharist is....

[Krysostomos]