At Rorate there is a bit of alarming but, giving the player involved, not surprising news.
Bp. Bonny of Antwerp, Belgium, said “I will make every effort to ordain married men as priests for our diocese by 2028.”
He claims that he is doing this “out of pastoral necessity.”
It will be interesting to see what Rome does about this.
Answering the question “Aren’t you being a lone rider?” He answers:
Johan Bonny: ‘Not at all. In football terms, I consider myself a midfielder. I want to bring the ball forward so that a striker can kick it into the goal. We have been in extra time for too long. There are regions where there are no priests left. We are entering a situation of pastoral emergency. For many bishops, ordaining married men has become a matter of conscience. The way things are going now, we really won’t make it anymore.’
And now look at this through the lens of the SSPX.
This crazy Belgian bishop says that they are in a state of pastoral emergency.
The SSPX could look at him and what he intends and conclude exactly the same thing.
Again, it will be interesting to see what Rome does about this.
About 30 years ago, I concluded that, since the rest of my family had not joined in my conversion to the Catholic Church, it was not fair for me to spend all Sunday morning driving to Dickinson, Texas to attend Holy Mass at Queen of Angels Catholic Church, one of the premier SSPX chapels, so I elected to go to the personal parish of Our Lady of Walsingham, under the Pastoral Provisions of Pope John Paul II, offering liturgy in the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite. In my then thinking, I figured that the liturgy was the next best thing to the TLM, and that while I was opposed to married priests, I would tolerate the fact that the pastor, Fr. James T. Moore, who had been the Episcopal Church chaplain at Texas A&M before he and his family converted and he was reordained.
The parish was so small that it could not afford to pay Fr. Moore a stipend,so he had to teach history at a local community college to support his family. Nevertheless, he and his wife and children were always cheerful and kind and really gave a great witness to the joy of the Faith, so my opposition to the concept of married clergy began to soften. Then I went to Confession to him, and when I confessed that I had given in to anger at my wife, he said, “well, I know about that”, and offered very good advice, as well as penance. That, and many other similar things, made me change my mind about married priests.
Over the years I have experienced other situations with married priests, especially in the Byzantine Catholic Church, to which I took a sabbatical for several years before returning to Walsingham and the Ordinariate. I found the general atmosphere in regard to the married clergy to be the same, and in that context, as “Orthodox in communion with Rome” observed more generally the role of the priest’s wife in parish matters. As your readers will know, in the Orthodox and Greek Catholic worlds, the priest’s wife has her own vocation and role in the parish, and her own title, Pani, in Ruthenian and Ukrainian terms, presbyteress in Greek, etc. I forget the Russian term.
So I have ceased to view this issue as a simple Traditional/Conservative vs. Progessive matter. Indeed, one could argue that with married clergy and all, the Orthodox, whether in communion with Rome or not, can and in many cases do, claim, to be more traditional (I.e. First Millennium) than Rome itself (to digress, I would note that in my own experience, Greek Catholic priests, married or not, will happily embrace and explain feasts such as the Nativity of Mary, or her Presentation, or entrance, in the Temple, while Latin Catholic ones will do their best to ignore them, presumably because they lack scriptural support, and this is not even to get into other equally edifying matters, such as Saint Photini,or Photina, the woman at the well, who, even though in the Roman martyrology, never seems to have her life after her encounter with Jesus mentioned in sermons, in the Latin church, that is).
So, while I consider myself to be at least Conservative/Traditionlist as anyone, I favor the married clergy, if well formed, of course.
It probably seems like a pointless, arbitrary rule.
Many bishops treat their priests like employees. Seminaries have laughably low standards for education and formation. The liturgy is conducted in a perfunctory manner in most places. Why would this office be reserved for celibate men?
I don’t even think it’s in bad faith at this point. My cat can’t figure out how to use a doorknob, and I don’t think that’s malicious either.
I honestly wonder if married clergy & ordaining females (I am aware this isn’t possible) isn’t the long term strategy of some in power at the Curia.
Which leads me to wonder, what do Cardinals/Bishops really care about more, the salvation of souls or the worlds view of dignity of man?
This Bonnie Belgian must be a genius, it has always been my understanding that it takes eight years to make a priest but he seems to have found a way to do it in two! Or perhaps the Church in Belgium is brimming with well-formed Permanent Deacons… mature, well-educated men; pious, pastoral, and practical; happily married, and cheerfully observing the Church’s teachings on marital chastity! How is it possible that Francis didn’t make this man a Cardinal? And to think I’ve heretofore had a rather negative impression of the Church in Belgium… perhaps we need to take a closer look!
Odd.
As it happens, I was in Antwerp a few months ago, and by accident learned that that Sunday, there would be a priestly ordination in the cathedral. Now these are admittedly not every day events, even less so if they coincide with room in my agenda, and I decided to attend, partly curiosity, partly because I had to fulfill my Sunday obligation while away from home anyway.
I was quite an experience, over 2,5 hours in total, and as far as I can tell, was fully by the book, and nothing objectionable in the bishop’s sermon either. The new priest, being an academic, would remain within the academic community.
But here’s the rub: there were over 60 priests from the diocese in attendance, and all imposed hands on the new priest. Bp Bonny explicitly remarked on this, saying he was very happy with the turnout, but that one shouldn’t draw the conclusion the diocese had enough priests!
Now 60 priests is not an awful lot for a diocese with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,5 million people (certainly not all catholic) spread over 270 parishes (though one may assume the attendance among priests was far from 100%, but at least a minimum was established), but it certainly is enough to function. Many dioceses in western Europe would have to make do with fewer priests. The idea that Antwerp is singularly devoid of priests is clearly nonsense.
I indeed cannot help the thought that there is some ploy intended around the concept of “state of necessity”, as that is what +Bonny is claiming, if not using that phrase. But to state the obvious: I very much doubt that the purpose of Bonny is to provide the SSPX with support for their arguments.
Unless he plans a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome and ask the Holy Father for dispensation and thus set an example, but somehow I don’t see that happen.
Maybe Belgium will get a “temporary” indult, but with reassurances that tradition won’t be undermined.
The tragedy here is that your analysis regarding this renegade bishop and the SSPX is backwards.
I’m sorry, but as much as I love and revere the SSPX, and am grateful to them for what they do, this is PRECISELY why I’ve been desperately uncomfortable with their stance regarding consecrating bishops without permission from Rome. What they have done, essentially daring the Holy Father to stop them or discipline them (and not caring a fig if he does), is to invite others to do the same…
So we shouldn’t be surprised, and our ability to object has been severely compromised.
Both situations violate canon law and place men in ecclesiastical roles illicitly. And both situations betray a willingness to put the souls of the faithful who follow them at risk.
Yet we overlook one of these situations because we agree with the conditions of the “necessity.”
I imagine others will attack my position on this and accuse me of being hostile to Tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth. I simply believe that obedience matters.
I pray with all my heart that the SSPX might use this opportunity to reconsider.
Ahh, the old “we are losing money on every item we ship, so we will make it up by shipping more of them.”
I doubt Rome will do anything about this situation or other disobedient situations such as some heresies in Germany. A priest who raped nuns is still active after all and his awful ‘art’ is still present in many places. These things push the envelope until those in power throw up their hands and say okay. Okay to sin. Okay to disobedience. Okay to this or that innovation. All can be permitted in the new upcoming “sin-nod-all” church. But true Roman Catholics? Get them out!
@roma247 voices an understanding of the Church and the Faith based entirely on obedience to authority being the sole defining criteria.
Somehow, from this perspective, one can do any number of things that contradict the teaching, Tradition, and tenants of the Catholic Faith, and that’s understandable so long as the authorities don’t express their discontent. However, if the authorities express their discontent, regardless if one is doing something manifestly and obviously against the Faith or if one is doing something manifestly in keeping with and in support of the Faith, it makes no difference.
It’s like saying that on a sinking ship, if the Captain foolishly ordered all passengers to stay in their cabins while he tries to figure out what to do, one guy who goes down to try to help man the pumps is just as guilty and wrong as another guy who goes out to light dynamite and blow holes in the hull. The Captain said they shouldn’t have left their cabins, so they’re both equally wrong. It’s absurd, as if there is no objective measure for the morality of an action except for obedience to authority.
It’s not to say that obedience doesn’t matter. But it’s important to understand that obedience isn’t the ONLY thing that matters.
While both are bad, I dare say ordaining married men to the priesthood is on a very different level than consecrating bishops without a papal mandate.
For the sake of thoroughness, this from Dr. Bonny’s English Wikipedia article as of the Feast of St. Mark:
“In December 2014 Bonny called for Church recognition of gay relationships. He said: ‘There should be recognition of a diversity of forms. We have to look inside the Church for a formal recognition of the kind of interpersonal relationship that is also present in many gay couples. Just as there are a variety of legal frameworks for partners in civil society, one must arrive at a diversity of forms in the Church….The intrinsic values are more important to me than the institutional question. The Christian ethic is based on lasting relationships where exclusivity, loyalty, and care are central to each other.’ In September he wrote a letter in preparation for the Synod on the family that October. He stressed that the Church urgently needs to connect with contemporary society, showing more respect for homosexuality, divorced people and modern kinds of relationships. In January 2015 he received an award from çavaria, the association of Flemish LGBT organisations, for his call for acceptance. Bonny however said the award was unnecessary. Bonny had said that because Pope Francis did not voice specific opposition to the Flemish bishops’ decision to bless same-sex unions, he has taken that as tacit approval. Bonny said he had ‘two conversations’ with Francis from which he inferred he knew that the Flemish bishops were ‘not going against the Pope’. Bonny said Fiducia supplicans ‘helps us move forward.'” His Dutch Wikipedia article mentions his favorable stance toward IVF and ‘unmarried cohabitation’ as further details of that September 2014 letter.
I think we must be careful comparing the two situations. On its face they both appear to violate canon law but we can’t just assume from that they are the same. That’s what modernists do to win their point as they accompany the faithful.
Two men each shot their neighbor. Seems like murder. But one was in self-defense and the other was in anticipation of another argument. You do have to apply the law correctly.
One is violating canon law to do something not permitted -ordain married priests. One is violating canon law to do something that is permitted -consecrate bishops. Is the canon law controlling in both situations when one wants to violate a Church decision and one wants to continue what the Church has always done?
I learned during the final period leading towards my Baptism that the Pope, John Paul II, had quietly told those responsible for the viri probati programme to be receptive to requests from married men to enter the Seminary in view of priestly ordination.
And what happened ? I have heard of about a mere handful of dispensations of celibacy granted to married Catholic men over more than a quarter of a Century ; because, as explained in an article I read at the time, the candidates for it simply do not exist.
And as to the priestly ordination of married deacons ? Well, pretty much NONE of them want to become priests either, as shown in poll after poll.
@JWDT wonders whether “ordaining females” is the ultimate goal. At the end of the Rorate article, this Flemish bishop makes his agenda clear on that topic too:
“For our diocese, I will take further steps in the development of an ecclesial ministry that is equally accessible to men and women, and that gives them an equal share in both the pastoral and administrative service of the Church. Terminologically, we can best speak of the ministry of ‘pastor’, as is customary in Dutch language. The Final Document provides for the possibility that bishops may work on new ‘formally established ministries.”
I’m watching a Mass at an SSPX seminary for today’s feast and can see they have 50+ candidates for the holy priesthood. That’s about one-third of the total diocesan priests in Antwerp.
Imagine a world where the SSPX is reconciled with Rome, where the TLM can be celebrated without restriction, where married couples have multitudes of babies, and where the Church preaches the unvarnished Truth at all times.
Its an unfortunate sign of the times that the church or a nation would be run by polls. Popular opinion changes by the day and imagine what we’d have if over 1500 years or so prevailing opinion changed the way things are done in either. Horrors. The best way to arrive at an unholy mess is to turn thing over to themob. Fr Z I think you’ve pointed out the camel is a horse made by committee.
Bishop Bonny (is he not the bishop who likes to take photos of himself in muscle gear showing off his biceps?) has no aurhority at all to do this, but Synodal church loves innovation! Its tradition they don’t tolerate. Bishop Bonny will be fine. Or maybe he will get a no but a pat on the muscled…er, back, for putting the issue out there. Catholics who participate in Synodal Church will never be bored.
There are serious historical reasons why the Roman Church does not have married priests as a norm, whereas the East does. It simply is not a charism of the Roman Church to have married priests, if I might be so bold, something that is born out when one discerns the evidence of history. It is not exactly a matter of human law, even as it is a matter of human law that married priests are not the norm in the Roman Church. Conversely, the issue of married bishops (where this is really heading) is a matter of divine law.
The matter of the SSPX ordaining bishops is strictly a matter of human law, even while we recognize that the Pope, as sovereign, has the ability to decide who is and who is not “his friends.” The decision to hold one excluded is not “ipso facto” but is personal of the sovereign, and he cannot simply hide behind the law because, as sovereign, he is above the law and its master — who his “friends” are is his will, not the will of the law. It is not official until an official document is chosen to be signed — the “recognition of a state….” language shows the will of the sovereign to recognize or not recognize the existence of the excommunication. The Pope doesn’t have to recognize a state of automatic excommunicable schism if he doesn’t want to –the law doesn’t bind the lawgiver, and the sovereign gets to choose who his friends are.
Having married priests as the norm does nothing to help the situation in the Church — as a convert from a Protestant denomination, married protestant clergy hasn’t helped things from the time of Luther forward. It introduces a slate of new problems while driving away those called to celibacy. It also does not suddenly infuse the Church with a bunch of priests. Short term perhaps, but long term no. Have married decons helped anything? No, not at all.
@Woody — Said with charity, I would argue that the experience that you had in confession is the priest mistaking the sacrament for therapy. A priest’s personal life experiences should not be a factor at all in the sacrament — it is a juridical action of Christ, not an opportunity for a priest to bond with his paritioners over shared life experiences. If that were the case, women should confess to women priestesses.
@JWDT, @Loquitur — the “final goal” is a “married” homosexual episcopate. Those that is not the final final goal. Much more forced acceptance of depravity after that — pay attention to the trends in the out edges of Protestantism.
“and he was reordained.”(sic) Woody
No, Woody, James T. Moore was never ordained in the first place. That’s why he had to be ordained after he converted.