His Excellency's statements don't give confidence that he has a firm grasp on the issue beyond some sort of vague, emotional egalitarianism.
The question has never been if the Church can ordain married clergy. It is a question of the (I would argue) apostolic practice of clerical continence that manifested itself in the Western church specifically as mandated celibacy as the most effective means to achieve this. The Eastern canons still mandate partial continence for their married clergy.
I pray that Pope Leo address this quickly. One doesn't have to wonder why the diocese has no vocations.
I don't understand what this sentence means; if someone could decode ty: “If it is true that women do not have a right to the ordained ministry, just as men do not, the ordained ministry has a right to women”
He's saying that even if no one (woman or man) has a right to be ordained, the Church has a right to the contribution that ordained women would bring. In other words, he grants for the sake of argument that an individual can't determine that he or she is called to Holy Orders (since the Church needs to confirm that decision), but says that that the Church has a right to improve itself (or respond to the signs of the times) by changing the criteria for ordination.
I'm struck by how pessimistic he is about remaining faithful to tradition, saying that "The number of unmarried men who want to become priests has fallen to just above zero." May God bless the faithful of Antwerp, Belgium, and the increasingly secularized West. Lord, send laborers into your harvest.
For the last 10 years at least, +Bonny has been engaging in unorthodox, divisive, and renegade agitations. He eventually got a form (and in Belgium especially, an avant-garde form) of long-awaited same-sex blessings.
I don’t know where this goes, but +Bonny does not seem to be a man who has yet been subject to any correction.
Any correction for +Bonny? Surely he has received explicit encouragement for gay blessings by the publishing of Fiducia Supplicans. Just keep pushing at some other weak spot until it collapses.
“I will approach them personally and ensure that by then they have the necessary theological training and pastoral experience, comparable to that of other priest candidates." In two years?
Two years is less than half of what permanent deacons get in my diocese much less priests who, at least going forward, in the US will have no less than 7 years.
Perhaps it is time that Bishop Bonny is relieved of his "share in both the pastoral and administrative service of the Church," as he put it, as he seems to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be a priest, much less a bishop.
Having been around married Byzantine Catholic clergy for a while, I can think of some questions.
First, a married priest requires *two* vocations as the priest's wife is a large part of parish life, and the pressure of having a bishop and parish council having power over your family's well being definitely requires a particular charism.
Other governance issues arise with a younger priest who has to put kids in school, and worries about a safe neighborhood. And are they going to live in a creaky rectory, or do you have to put them up in a separate home? Married priests are quite a bit more expensive to maintain, and stingy Catholics might get sticker shock to their money with their mouth is on married clergy.
Ordaining older "viri probati" can potentially simplify some of those things, especially if you are ordaining men who were already made deacons, and who are retired from secular work.
On a grimmer note, one must also take into account that domestic abuse will be a disciplinary issue that one needs to be ready to address.
An Eastern monk had remarked to me before that some men in Greece were becoming celibate secular priests because they could not find wives as seminarians, even though in Greece, priests are tax-payer supported (as may be the case in Belgium?). Presumably this is due to Greek women having more economic and career options of their own without the duties and expectations of being a priest's wife.
I think Roman Catholics in the US have grown up with a lot of assumptions about married clergy being somehow a solution to our vocations crisis, so it pays to look realistically at Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic examples. I know some beautiful families of clergy, but it's not an easy fix, nor something that a bishop can quickly knock together for his diocese.
Worries about a safe neighbourhood? A married Canadian vicar brought his wife and four children to my town forty miles west of London. The good news? Fast trains to London and Oxford. Beautiful town center 19th century High Anglican church. Bad news? On major road, 100 yards from town's inner ring road, 24/7 traffic. 21st century needles discarded by the local junkies among the historic gravestones.
If it is a matter of "conscience" that he can no longer comply with the practices of the Church, and I take him at his word, a person of integrity would offer his resignation.
As a former Anglican priest who is open to the possibility of being ordained as a Catholic priest (if the Lord wills), this bishop inclines me to withdraw from the process entirely and live out my life as layman, battling towards holiness. But connecting it to the abuse crisis is particularly infuriating. Marriage doesn’t prevent abuse of all sorts. The Anglican ‘Communion’ is proof of this…
Yes perpetuating the disgusting notion that if a man only had a woman to have licit sex with, THEN he wouldn’t rape small children or teenagers of both sexes is … disgusting.
It’s deeply offensive to the sacrament and nature of marriage and disturbing willful (and frankly dangerous) ignorance of pedophilia and a whole host of other upsetting illogical premises.
If you want to argue for the ordination of married men and women on theological grounds, OK. For married men at least you can also find historical precedent.
But if the bishop is imagining that this is the best way to solve a clergy shortage, he should look carefully at all the Protestant churches which do currently ordain married men and women. I don't think he'll discover that they have a considerably easier time recruiting clergy. Adding married men and women to the ordination pool might net you a small number of additional candidates in the short term, but you still have to deal with the fundamental difficulty of getting people interested in taking on the responsibilities and challenges of religious vocations.
It's the same issue that arises when you say "we have to change our view on X to match what most people today believe or everyone will leave the church." You can see how successful that's been in liberalized Protestant denominations that continue to sharply decline. The "practical" argument doesn't hold water.
I went to read the article and received the error message “Something went wrong”. Could not agree more.
His Excellency's statements don't give confidence that he has a firm grasp on the issue beyond some sort of vague, emotional egalitarianism.
The question has never been if the Church can ordain married clergy. It is a question of the (I would argue) apostolic practice of clerical continence that manifested itself in the Western church specifically as mandated celibacy as the most effective means to achieve this. The Eastern canons still mandate partial continence for their married clergy.
I pray that Pope Leo address this quickly. One doesn't have to wonder why the diocese has no vocations.
I don't understand what this sentence means; if someone could decode ty: “If it is true that women do not have a right to the ordained ministry, just as men do not, the ordained ministry has a right to women”
Maybe he is asserting his right to a "sister wife" like St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:5 - but I have my doubts. (It's just word salad).
He's saying that even if no one (woman or man) has a right to be ordained, the Church has a right to the contribution that ordained women would bring. In other words, he grants for the sake of argument that an individual can't determine that he or she is called to Holy Orders (since the Church needs to confirm that decision), but says that that the Church has a right to improve itself (or respond to the signs of the times) by changing the criteria for ordination.
I'm struck by how pessimistic he is about remaining faithful to tradition, saying that "The number of unmarried men who want to become priests has fallen to just above zero." May God bless the faithful of Antwerp, Belgium, and the increasingly secularized West. Lord, send laborers into your harvest.
Belgium really is an ecclesiastical Chernobyl, isn’t it?
For the last 10 years at least, +Bonny has been engaging in unorthodox, divisive, and renegade agitations. He eventually got a form (and in Belgium especially, an avant-garde form) of long-awaited same-sex blessings.
I don’t know where this goes, but +Bonny does not seem to be a man who has yet been subject to any correction.
Any correction for +Bonny? Surely he has received explicit encouragement for gay blessings by the publishing of Fiducia Supplicans. Just keep pushing at some other weak spot until it collapses.
Nope.
“I will approach them personally and ensure that by then they have the necessary theological training and pastoral experience, comparable to that of other priest candidates." In two years?
Was wondering the same thing...could he have men who are currently permanent deacons in mind? Still, two years seems like a very short time.
Two years is less than half of what permanent deacons get in my diocese much less priests who, at least going forward, in the US will have no less than 7 years.
Brussels sprouts heterodoxy and heteropraxy.
...and taste bad.
Perhaps it is time that Bishop Bonny is relieved of his "share in both the pastoral and administrative service of the Church," as he put it, as he seems to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be a priest, much less a bishop.
Having been around married Byzantine Catholic clergy for a while, I can think of some questions.
First, a married priest requires *two* vocations as the priest's wife is a large part of parish life, and the pressure of having a bishop and parish council having power over your family's well being definitely requires a particular charism.
Other governance issues arise with a younger priest who has to put kids in school, and worries about a safe neighborhood. And are they going to live in a creaky rectory, or do you have to put them up in a separate home? Married priests are quite a bit more expensive to maintain, and stingy Catholics might get sticker shock to their money with their mouth is on married clergy.
Ordaining older "viri probati" can potentially simplify some of those things, especially if you are ordaining men who were already made deacons, and who are retired from secular work.
On a grimmer note, one must also take into account that domestic abuse will be a disciplinary issue that one needs to be ready to address.
An Eastern monk had remarked to me before that some men in Greece were becoming celibate secular priests because they could not find wives as seminarians, even though in Greece, priests are tax-payer supported (as may be the case in Belgium?). Presumably this is due to Greek women having more economic and career options of their own without the duties and expectations of being a priest's wife.
I think Roman Catholics in the US have grown up with a lot of assumptions about married clergy being somehow a solution to our vocations crisis, so it pays to look realistically at Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic examples. I know some beautiful families of clergy, but it's not an easy fix, nor something that a bishop can quickly knock together for his diocese.
Worries about a safe neighbourhood? A married Canadian vicar brought his wife and four children to my town forty miles west of London. The good news? Fast trains to London and Oxford. Beautiful town center 19th century High Anglican church. Bad news? On major road, 100 yards from town's inner ring road, 24/7 traffic. 21st century needles discarded by the local junkies among the historic gravestones.
If it is a matter of "conscience" that he can no longer comply with the practices of the Church, and I take him at his word, a person of integrity would offer his resignation.
As a former Anglican priest who is open to the possibility of being ordained as a Catholic priest (if the Lord wills), this bishop inclines me to withdraw from the process entirely and live out my life as layman, battling towards holiness. But connecting it to the abuse crisis is particularly infuriating. Marriage doesn’t prevent abuse of all sorts. The Anglican ‘Communion’ is proof of this…
Yes perpetuating the disgusting notion that if a man only had a woman to have licit sex with, THEN he wouldn’t rape small children or teenagers of both sexes is … disgusting.
It’s deeply offensive to the sacrament and nature of marriage and disturbing willful (and frankly dangerous) ignorance of pedophilia and a whole host of other upsetting illogical premises.
Defrock this man immediately. What absolute lack of faith.
What's the Mass attendance rate in Belgium?
My sense is that it's pretty low, which means that there is actually no clergy shortage there at all.
Priests work almost 100% with Mass goers and others receiving the sacraments, not "nominal Catholics".
Do the math. There's 173,000 Mass goers in Belgium. There's 3,441 priests there.
That's around 1 priest for every 50 Mass goers. I'd say right now that they are more in danger of running out of laity than running out of priests.
There's not a single thing I want to say that won't land me in the confessional.
If you want to argue for the ordination of married men and women on theological grounds, OK. For married men at least you can also find historical precedent.
But if the bishop is imagining that this is the best way to solve a clergy shortage, he should look carefully at all the Protestant churches which do currently ordain married men and women. I don't think he'll discover that they have a considerably easier time recruiting clergy. Adding married men and women to the ordination pool might net you a small number of additional candidates in the short term, but you still have to deal with the fundamental difficulty of getting people interested in taking on the responsibilities and challenges of religious vocations.
It's the same issue that arises when you say "we have to change our view on X to match what most people today believe or everyone will leave the church." You can see how successful that's been in liberalized Protestant denominations that continue to sharply decline. The "practical" argument doesn't hold water.