Jeg leste nettopp en artikkel om gifte katolske prester i USA. Over 70 slike er intervjuet til en bok som snart kommer ut, og om noen måneder vil USA få ca 100 nye gifte katolske prester – siden Ordinariatet for tidligere anglikanere nå starter opp der. (Jeg tror forøvrig tallet på gifte prester i USA i dag (ca 80) er satt for lavt, og at det er forvirrende å knytte dette til «the Pastoral Provision» som pave Johannes Paul innførte for anglikanere i 1980 – siden det var pave Pius XII som tillot den første gifte mannen (en tidligere luthersk prest i Tyskland) å bli ordinert allerede i 1950.) Artikkelen svarer bl.a. på spørsmålene om gifte prester arbeider mer eller mindre enn de ugifte, om de kan administrere menigheter og om de ugifte prestene er misunnelige:
… there is the practical belief that “if a man’s not married, he’s able to devote himself more fully and exclusively to his parish.” But he has found that married priests are usually aided, not hindered, by their wives, who are very committed to the parish. And he adds that celibate priests can be less accessible than married priests.
“The truth is that celibate priests often have ways of walling themselves off,” Father Sullins says. “If you call a celibate priest’s rectory in the middle of the night, you’ll likely get an answering machine. But if you call a married priest in the middle of the night, and he is disinclined to go out, he will get an elbow from his life partner, saying, ‘Hey, you committed yourself to this work.’
“I don’t want to say the difference is great, but if there is a difference, it’s in favor of the married priest.”
Since 1980, the Roman Catholic Church has shown a preference for celibate clergymen by preventing married priests from being pastors of parishes, unless circumstances dictated it. The priests entering the church as part of the new ordinariate for former Episcopalians will be exceptions to that rule. And because of a shortage of priests in the United States, circumstances have already put married priests in charge of parishes.
… (AND) … I found no evidence that celibate priests resent their married colleagues. Although a small number of theologians and canon lawyers have been critical of the 1980 Pastoral Provision, it seems that working priests are not troubled.
Even Father Newman, for example, who believes celibacy is an important countercultural statement — a celibate priest “has staked his life on the premise that this life is not all there is, and he is putting his flesh on the line” — says the church can accommodate exceptions. Referring to another married priest he knew in South Carolina, Father Newman said, “there was an intuitive grasp among everybody that this was an exception to the norm, and there was no injustice being done to lifelong Catholics who became priests knowing celibacy was part of that.”