The
Wife of a Former Protestant Pastor Speaks Out
Patricia Dixon
Patricia Dixon is a freelance writer and the mother of four. Her
husband was a Protestant pastor before the family entered the Catholic
Church.
Why A Married Priesthood Won't Remedy the Priest Shortage
Would the Church be better served if priests were married? Those who
propose lifting the celibacy requirement claim that this change would
bring about a great increase in vocations, would provide parishes with
priests who better understand the problems of family life, would make
the priests themselves happier, and would generally improve the Church
all around. It sounds lovely. But the advocates of a married clergy
need to give a little more thought to the real consequences of their
blithe slogans. Perhaps they will listen to a wife who has been there.
Let us consider a typical, moderately large parish in an affluent
American community, in which three priests live in a rectory that also
houses the parish office. What changes would have to be made if the
priests of this parish were married?
First, there would have to be many more priests at the parish. A celibate
man can give all his time to the parish; a married man must give priority
to his family. So these three priests must become five or six, leaving
the "priest shortage" right where it was, even if the removal
of the celibacy rule doubles the number of priests in America.
But that's only the beginning. The stipend of a priest is nowhere
near enough to support a family; it's not even half enough. The salary
of a married priest would have to be about three times the current
stipend in order to keep a priest's family
above the federal poverty line. (Would young men flock to the priesthood
so they can support their families in near-poverty?) If the parish
does not want the priest and his family to be the poorest family in
the neighborhood, probably unable to afford even to send their children
to the parish school, the salary would have to be higher still. Now
figure in health insurance premiums for a wife and several children
per priest.
And, of course, those six families can't all live in that rectory,
and the parish offices can't be in the home of just one of them. So
we now need six houses, and extra space somewhere else, to replace
the one rectory. If the priests are expected to furnish their own housing,
their salary will have to be increased even more.
Thus, supporting married priests will cost that three-priest parish
more than six times what it now spends to support its priests. Does
any parish consider itself that affluent? Is the average parishioner
willing to multiply his offering by six? In all likelihood, the priests
will have to work outside the priesthood to bring in income. Of course,
their time for the parish and parishioners will decrease. So the parishioners,
even if they could somehow support their six priests, would still find
themselves short of priestly attention.
The financial burden is one thing, but there is also a very heavy
emotional burden to be borne by priests - and their families. One hears
the argument that "Protestant ministers can marry, and it works
well for them," but the fact is that it doesn't work well. How
many of the advocates of a married priesthood are truly aware of the
struggles of a Protestant clergyman's family?
Every married pastor faces, throughout his career, the tension between
the needs of the church and the needs of his family. Some find ways
to resolve it to their satisfaction; most do not. Both church and family
require more than half of a man's time and energy. Both can be demanding;
and churches, which generally have no interest in a pastor's emotional
health, are particularly demanding. The effects of this tension show
up in families in various ways. Some wives - and many children - of
pastors blame the church for depriving them of husband or father and
leave the church, and even Christianity, altogether. One pastor said
he expected his tombstone to read "Daddy's Gone to Another Meeting. " Another
came home from a trip to find that his young son didn't even know he
had been away - he was home so rarely anyway. Many a pastor's wife
considers herself the next thing to a single parent.
On top of this, a pastor's wife and children are themselves without
pastoral care. No man, however talented or dedicated, can be pastor
and husband or father to the same people. The objectivity required
of the pastoral role is missing. But the minister's family cannot seek
spiritual direction and sustenance elsewhere; loyalty and the need
to avoid the appearance of a split in the family require that they
remain at his church. When the father's career and the family's spiritual
life are one and the same, the spiritual life suffers badly.
A priest or minister is seldom off duty. Any family activity is likely
to be interrupted, often for the most trivial of reasons. A vacation
at home is impossible for a clergyman's family; if he's around, he's
assumed to be available to his flock. The bum-out rate among Protestant
pastors is very high. If relaxing the celibacy rule increases the number
of priests, it will have to increase it enough to make up for the large
number who will leave the priesthood when they, like so many of their
Protestant colleagues, find the toll it takes on the families impossible
to accept.
Or if a priest's wife leaves him, and the priest wants to continue
functioning as a priest, what is the bishop supposed to do? Pretend
everything is fine? What sort of message would that send? Would many
parishioners be scandalized? Would others feel they now have permission
to dump their spouses? And how well would any of them be pastored by
the priest going through this private anguish? Or should the bishop
quietly and quickly ship the priest (and his children?) off to a remote
outpost in the diocese, hoping no one will be the wiser? This tactic
has not won the hearts of Catholics where the problem has been pedophilia
or some other violation of the vow of celibacy.
Or should the priest be laicized? Many would see this as the only
solution that fully honors the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Could the
institution of marriage, already stretched to the breaking point and
denigrated to the point of virtual irrelevance, survive the spectacle
of separating and divorcing priests who are allowed to continue functioning
as priests? But others would feel that automatic laicization would
punish the priest for transgressions that were, in most cases, not
entirely his own or for a tragedy that was not entirely his fault.
And is any of us ready to hear this announcement from the pulpit: The
special third collection today will be for our Alimony Fund?
It is a fact that most Christians see their clergy as men set apart,
not quite "real people," regardless of the steps the minister
or priest takes to counteract that view. This impression, strong in
Protestant churches, is even stronger among Catholics, because Catholic
priests are set apart by their ordination in a way Protestant ministers
are not. This sense of separateness extends to the pastor's family.
A minister's wife who is pregnant may find that church members are
uncomfortable with her as a living symbol of the pastor's active sexuality;
a minister's children often find the expectation that they will be
models of good behavior, piety, and academic achievement a crushing
burden. Close friendships within the church can prove impossible to
establish, depriving the pastor's family of the bonds with other Christians
so important to spiritual growth. The difference between the Protestant
and Catholic understandings of ordination means that a priest's family
would suffer this isolation to an even greater degree than a Protestant
minister's family does.
In discussing the need for more vocations, it is easy to offer facile
solutions, to say that many more young men would become priests if
priests could be married. There is little evidence to support this
contention; but even if it were true, the cure would be worse than
the disease
The unmarried man cares for the Lord's business; his aim is to please
the Lord. But the married man cares for worldly things; his aim is
to please his wife; and he has a divided mind. 1 Corinthians 7-32-33,
NEB
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