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{"id":2223,"date":"2009-01-05T22:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T22:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/married-priests-2\/"},"modified":"2009-01-05T22:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-05T22:05:00","slug":"married-priests-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/married-priests-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Married Priests?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"The$ <\/a>
Mrs. Longenecker has an inadvertently ironic news headline clipped out and stuck to the fridge. It comes from a Catholic paper and says, \u201cMarried clergy Argue for Celibacy from Personal Experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

As a married former Anglican priest who is now a Catholic I sometimes hear Catholics say things like, \u201cExcellent, and it\u2019s about time too! I hope all our priests could marry. That would solve a lot of the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

What they mean is that relaxing the celibacy rule will solve the priest shortage, solve the problems of pedophile priests, solve the problem of loneliness and \u2018difficult\u2019 celibate priests.<\/p>\n

I can tell you from being in a church with married clergy that you would only exchange one set of problems for another. Here\u2019s a story f<\/a>rom England about a married priest who ran off with his female assistant. I am not relishing the problems outlined in this article, nor am I tut tutting and pointing the finger at the Anglicans.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m simply pointing out that having married clergy would not necessarily solve any problems.<\/p>\n

Marriage has problems too. It was all best summed up by an old Irish priest I met in England. \u201cWhat do you think Father,\u201d I said, \u201cAbout all of us married men becoming Catholic priests?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said with a twinkle in his eye, \u201cI expect sometimes we\u2019ll be jealous of you\u2026and then again, I expect sometimes you\u2019ll be jealous of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"