Can Catholic Priests be married?

Question

I have always known they can't be married but recently I talked to someone who referred to a priest and his wife. Are there priests in other religions? Thanks for the help

Answer 1

The Catholic Church does ordain married men to the priesthood. Married priests are relatively rare in the Latin rite, but the Catholic Church has over 20 other rites in which married priests are very common.

Answer 2

There are many married Catholic priests. The entire Eastern Rite, a large branch of the Catholic Church, allows married men to become priests. The main branch of the Catholic Church, known as the Latin Rite, does not ordinarily allow this. But there are even a number of Latin Rite priests who are married, mostly married Episcopalian or Anglican priests who have converted to Catholicism. The Orthodox Churches also have married priests.

Answer 3

Catholic priests, generally, cannot get married, but married people can be Catholic priests.

There are two operative and independent issues here.

First, the Catholic Church is a federation of churches of apostolic origin. Each of these original churches is self governing. Other churches, such as the Byzantine Archeparchy of Pittsburgh became a self governing Church out of necessity due to the cold war. The patriarchal church of Rome is the largest independent self-governing church within the Catholic Church. Others, such as the Church at Antioch or the Church at Kerala are founded by apostles and from them grew daughter churches. Each church sets its own rules as to who can be ordained, within a broader set of theological principles, doctrine, practices and to some extent dogma.

Catholic men of the Roman patriarchal church must be unmarried and remain unmarried in order to be priests, the exception to this are converted Protestant married ministers and Orthodox priests. In the case of Orthodox priests, they are already validly ordained and so are priests by definition. In the case of Protestant ministers, it is a waste of resources to not ordain them to serve if they are capable.

Outside the Roman patriarchal church it is decided by the local church. The tendency in Byzantine rite communities is to ordain married men, but that isn't universal either. Further, as a rule an unmarried priest cannot get married, but this is waived in the special circumstances of a priest with small children whose wife has died as it is difficult to perform presbyteral duties and be a full time dad.

The real proper title for a Catholic priest is a presbyter, the name for a priest's wife is a presbytera. Presbyter means "old man," some women may not like the parallel.

Answer 4

In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church a married man can become a priest but a priest cannot become a married man.

Answer 5

No, and yes.

+ Married Priests +

In the last twenty-five years at least seventy-seven married men have been ordained as Catholic priests in the United States.

All were ordained ministers in other Christian denominations.

Sixty-six of these married priests are former Episcopalians, seven are former Lutherans, three are former Methodists, and one is a former Presbyterian.

Here is an interesting article: http://www.corpus.org/Page.cfm?Web_ID=577

Every religion's doctrine on whether their ministers should marry vary somewhat.

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 6

no.
unless they were married before they became a priest then they can stay married.

yes there are priests in other religions
in Judaism it is a rabbi
in Islam it is a sheik
there are more in other religions, they are just spiritual leaders basically.

Answer 7

Up until the Protestant Reformation, priests were only able to fulfill the seven sacraments (including baptism, being a cleric, communion, and marriage) because, as a rule, they could not be married. Some clerics ignored that rule and had sex with women anyway, though. Eventually Catholicism decided to reform and it was decided that Catholic clerics could marry, following the example of practically every other Protestant or Nonchristian religion.

The priest position actually began thousands off years earlier when the middle eastern pagan religions began. This includes Judaism, where all priests (as far as I know) are from the linneage of Aaron, its first high priest.

Answer 8

some other religions do have what are called priests..... also in the catholic church, they have been known to allow eastern orthdox priests (who can be married) convert and remain married....

Answer 9

Sure. They can marry whoever they want.

However, the Catholic church, because of its superstitious sexual repression, will probably ex-communicate them. Though, in modern times, I'm sure they've figured out some loopholes, especially realizing how that job description attracted so many pedophiles.