Anglican Rite and married priests
Q: Now that Anglicans will be welcomed into the Church with their married priests, does this mean that the Church’s rule on priestly celibacy will change? Also, will Catholic priests who have left and married be able to join the Anglican rite and return to the ministry?
Since the announcement that groups of Anglicans will be welcomed into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining their own traditions, many questions have been raised about what this means for the tradition of clerical celibacy in the Church in general and in the Latin Rite in particular.
First of all, we should remember that the Church has had married priests for a long time. The Eastern Catholic Churches, or rites, such as the Maronites, Melkites, Ukrainians, etc., allow married men to be ordained priests and many married priests from these rites are ministering to their faithful in Australia.
In addition, some married ministers from other denominations such as the Orthodox and Anglicans who have converted to the Catholic Church, have been allowed to function as priests in the Latin rite.
So the fact that there will now be some married priests in the Anglican Rite as well is nothing new.
In spite of the presence of these married priests, the Church’s general rule on clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite remains firmly in place. This is clear in Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus (AC), dated November 4, 2009, which puts restrictions on married clergy in the new Personal Ordinariates – similar to dioceses – to be established for the Anglican Rite.
While those ministers who are married at the time of entering into communion with the Catholic Church may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church, those who are unmarried must remain celibate (cf AC VI, 1).
In order to preserve the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule the Ordinary is to admit only celibate men to the order of priesthood.
Nonetheless, he may petition the Holy Father for the admission of married men to the order of priesthood on a case by case basis (cf AC VI, 2).
As regards their seminary formation, candidates for ordination in an Anglican Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside seminarians in the Latin Rite, although they may also receive formation in the Anglican patrimony in houses of formation of their own (cf. AC VI, 5). In view of their studying side by side with Latin Rite seminarians, the question has been raised as to whether this may not lead Latin Rite seminarians to wish to join the Anglican Rite in order to be married priests.
As mentioned above, this is not possible since as a rule only celibate men are to be promoted to Holy Orders in the Anglican Rite. But more importantly, those who were baptised as Catholics are not eligible for membership in an Anglican Ordinariate unless they are members of a family belonging to the Ordinariate.
This is laid down in the Complementary Norms issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in conjunction with the Apostolic Constitution, and also signed on November 4, 2009 (cf Art 5, 1).
The Norms also establish that the Ordinary may accept as seminarians only those men who belong to a parish of the Ordinariate or who were previously Anglican and have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church (cf Art 10, 4).
Would a Catholic priest who has left the Church and now ministers as an Anglican priest be allowed to serve as a priest in an Anglican Ordinariate?
This possibility is dealt with expressly in the Complementary Norms and the answer is no (cf. Art. 2).
In view of this, it is also clear that Catholic priests who have left the ministry and have married would not even be allowed to join an Anglican Ordinariate, let alone serve as priests.
Many other practical questions remain to be answered, but we give thanks to God for this new initiative which can bring a large number of people into communion with the Church.
– director@caec.com.au