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Some monks are ordained but relatively few. Those who are ordained are able to celebrate the Mass.
I used to enjoy watching the Cadfael series with Derek Jacobi. In the story he had been a soldier at the crusades - been married and had a child and renounced it all before taking up his vocation as a monk.
I also enjoy watching Sister Wendy on TV. There was a great programme about her on Christmas day evening. She has aged considerably and now gets about with a motorised chair. She talked about her life and her vows.
Her life has been and still is interesting.......she now spends much of the day in contemplation and lives in a sort of pre-fab which has been specially built for her. She used to live in a caravan in the grounds of a convent but that more or less fell apart.
She goes to bed at 5pm and rises at midnight (which is common practice for nuns) and joins the other sisters for prayer and then goes back to bed.
Actually, she doesn't really join them, she sits on her own round a corner. If I remember rightly she is the last of her Order and the convent she is with is of a different Order.
Yes, she is slightly eccentric, immensely intelligent and extremely devoted. I do wonder if she is on the autistic spectrum but her sheer humility and love of her God absolutely shines from her. I find her a great inspiration.
I love it when she is on the One Show with Phil Tuffnell as he seems so fond of her when they are looking at great masterpieces of art.
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Cynthia's post about Sister Wendy reminded me of that lovely "Singing Franciscan" Father Francis Maple. He was based in Holywell in North Wales from 1975 till 2007 and sang all over the place and was in pop charts ( I think) collecting funds fro CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Aid).
Now appears to have retired to St Walberg's Friary in Preston. A very popular man in Holywell with his guitar and his lovely voice :-) :-)
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A Catholic priest who left active ministry after admitting a relationship with a woman is being replaced by a married priest.
Parishioners at St Thomas More Catholic Church in Coventry were informed in October that their parish priest had decided “after careful consideration and for personal reasons” to step down from his duties in order to consider his future.
A fortnight ago, his departure was confirmed in a statement from the Archdiocese of Birmingham that said: “It is with regret that we must now let you know of the PP's decision to leave the priesthood.”
According to parishioners, the PP – who celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination earlier this year – left after falling in love with a female parishioner.
The archdiocese also announced that PP's replacement would be a 53-year-old former Anglican priest who is set to arrive at the presbytery next week, from his current parish of St Anne’s in Nuneaton, with his wife and three children aged 10, 13 and 16.
“This really points out the contradictions in the Church’s current position on celibacy,” said the chair of the Movement for Married Clergy. “The truth about any law is that it has to be consistent, and here we see an inconsistency.
“Ordaining married ex-Anglican priests is a supreme inconsistency, and it’s becoming more and more widespread. Marriage is an inalienable human right, and it can’t be taken away by anyone; and what’s more, in 40 years of open debate the conservative wing of the Church has failed to come up with a convincing theological argument in favour of priestly celibacy.”
“The PP was a grand chap and he did a good deal of great work in our parish,” said a St Thomas More parishioner. “We were all very sorry to see him go, and we’re all going to do our best to give the new PP as good a welcome as we can.”
Any change to the Church’s teaching on mandatory celibacy for clergy would lead to the permission to marry before ordination rather than the freedom to marry once ordained.
{Copied from 'The Tablet' published on 13th December 2014.}
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The Roman Catholic church is not a cult.
Comments on this subject should be informed otherwise don't post or stick to budgie rustling.
0/20 :-P
Of course they should marry if they wish to. Marriage for priests is not only allowed but encouraged for all other Christian denominations as well as Islam and the Jewish faith.
The long overdue reforms which the Pope is attempting to push through must be encouraged. However several well known popes and cardinals were married and used their office to further family interests ... not what is wanted.
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If I recall correctly from my younger days, the response to "why don't priests marry?", was
"that the parish and parishioners were his family, and as he was supposed to have no wealth in his own right, and as he was also considered to be too poor to support a family of his own he will remain unmarried"
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