Source: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350085bdc4.html
Another new development is a practice that has become widespread after Vatican Council II, that of ordaining married men to the diaconate, here as well without any requirement of "continentia." Today all around the world there are tens of thousands of deacons with families.
In recent decades, moreover, bishops have repeatedly made the request to compensate for the decline in vocations to the celibate priesthood by resorting to the ordination of "married men of mature age and confirmed probity," here as well with the implication that they would continue their family life. At the synod of bishops in 1971, a similar request was put to a vote and defeated by only a narrow margin: 107 votes against 87.
In short, the new development of the past century is not so much that the number of ordinations of married men to the priesthood or to the diaconate has begun to increase again in the Catholic Church, but rather that they are no longer being asked for the discipline of "continentia," even temporary, in regard to their wives.
The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches also confirms this shift. Canon 374 simply says that "clerics, celibate or married, are to excel in the virtue of chastity," and that "it is for the particular law to establish suitable means for pursuing this end."
And the following canon specifies that "in leading family life and in educating children married clergy are to show an outstanding example to other Christian faithful."
Rarely, and with little effect, has anyone objected that such an abandonment of the discipline of "continentia," in addition to being contrary to an age-old tradition of the Church, was not authorized even by the texts of Vatican Council II.
Another new development is a practice that has become widespread after Vatican Council II, that of ordaining married men to the diaconate, here as well without any requirement of "continentia." Today all around the world there are tens of thousands of deacons with families.
In recent decades, moreover, bishops have repeatedly made the request to compensate for the decline in vocations to the celibate priesthood by resorting to the ordination of "married men of mature age and confirmed probity," here as well with the implication that they would continue their family life. At the synod of bishops in 1971, a similar request was put to a vote and defeated by only a narrow margin: 107 votes against 87.
In short, the new development of the past century is not so much that the number of ordinations of married men to the priesthood or to the diaconate has begun to increase again in the Catholic Church, but rather that they are no longer being asked for the discipline of "continentia," even temporary, in regard to their wives.
The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches also confirms this shift. Canon 374 simply says that "clerics, celibate or married, are to excel in the virtue of chastity," and that "it is for the particular law to establish suitable means for pursuing this end."
And the following canon specifies that "in leading family life and in educating children married clergy are to show an outstanding example to other Christian faithful."
Rarely, and with little effect, has anyone objected that such an abandonment of the discipline of "continentia," in addition to being contrary to an age-old tradition of the Church, was not authorized even by the texts of Vatican Council II.
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