From a priest's wife's blog Fear Not Little Flock accessed here on March 21, 2017:
One question that has been posed a few times on various sites and which is not answered is- How does marital relations negatively effect an ordained married man's ministry? All married people are called to chastity and occasional continence. Ordained married men are no exception. Of course, discretion and dignity is key, but all married couples should be dignified in their public actions. I feel it is undignified to calculate conception dates and contemplate any person's sex life.
If the Church has allowed married men to be ordained as deacons in the Roman rite and are allowing a 'new wave' of married men to be ordained priests from the Anglican Church for the Roman rite, shouldn't there be new canons to address these issues?
She noted Dr. Peters and Fr. Z who raised the continence post-ordination issue. Yes, dear priest's wife, you do have a say.
(She didn't note that Dr. Peters himself brought up the option of eliminating the continence canon, and that eliminating the continence canon can be done even though there may be no historical precedence in the West for doing so.) The priest's wife brings up a good question about clarifying canonical issues.
According to this position, even if married men were ordained to the priesthood -- and diaconate -- for that matter, Canon 277 in the 1983 Code of Canon Law that calls for clerics to practice continence-- perpetual continence, that is.
Perhaps the simple approach is not so much eliminating the canon but granting simple dispensation from the canon on continence of married permanent deacons and married priests.....
....and there you go: Problem solved!
One question that has been posed a few times on various sites and which is not answered is- How does marital relations negatively effect an ordained married man's ministry? All married people are called to chastity and occasional continence. Ordained married men are no exception. Of course, discretion and dignity is key, but all married couples should be dignified in their public actions. I feel it is undignified to calculate conception dates and contemplate any person's sex life.
If the Church has allowed married men to be ordained as deacons in the Roman rite and are allowing a 'new wave' of married men to be ordained priests from the Anglican Church for the Roman rite, shouldn't there be new canons to address these issues?
(She didn't note that Dr. Peters himself brought up the option of eliminating the continence canon, and that eliminating the continence canon can be done even though there may be no historical precedence in the West for doing so.) The priest's wife brings up a good question about clarifying canonical issues.
According to this position, even if married men were ordained to the priesthood -- and diaconate -- for that matter, Canon 277 in the 1983 Code of Canon Law that calls for clerics to practice continence-- perpetual continence, that is.
Perhaps the simple approach is not so much eliminating the canon but granting simple dispensation from the canon on continence of married permanent deacons and married priests.....
....and there you go: Problem solved!
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