The Ministry of Infidelity

Let's say that I get married. I exchange solemn and specific vows with my spouse. We are happily married for a number of years. Then one epiphany-pregnant day I realize that I was actually meant to be with someone else. How do I know? Um. Well, I just know. Besides, my current marriage is too limiting. It doesn't allow me the sort of freedom, expression, and joy that God wants me to have. So I leave my first wife and take up with another woman (or whoever. I hate to be sexist).

Would such an act deserve praise? Sympathy? Respect?

Yes, it's a rhetorical question (or it's meant to be.) And I'm happy to say this is a completely hypothetical situation (for me, at least. I cannot speak for Brad Pitt, Sting, or other Hollywood types.) I bring it up because I am continually annoyed at the sort of media adulation heaped on Catholic priests who, after five or ten or twenty years of priesthood, decide they were actually meant to be married. This article is a perfect example. It begins:

Leo McIlrath wanted to be a priest when he was 7 years old.

He was inspired by the Rev. Paul Dignam of St. Peter Church, who was kind, gentle and caring. He visited parishioners at home, cheered on the school's basketball team and took time with the children.

The 67-year-old McIlrath celebrates his 40th anniversary as a priest this year. He's married, though, so he's not recognized by the Vatican or the Diocese of Bridgeport.

In case you're keeping score at home: McIlrath: 1; Vatican: 0. But let's set aside the theological issues (as important as they are), only note in passing that in the Eastern Catholic churches a married man can be ordained a priest (but cannot marry after being ordained), and make the simple point that for a priest to break his vows and marry is an act of infidelity. Adultery. Cheating. Of course, as is often the case with adulterers (and I worked for a very blatant one for a number of years back in the day), they want it all. And they have no shame in saying so:

"I see myself as a Catholic priest who is called to ministry," McIlrath said. "It's that the ministry is a little broader than what I thought it would be."

Very cute. And if I leave my wife and take up with another woman, shall I also try to "broader ministry" line? And will the local paper write a glowing piece about how I am such a wonderful person and that I have been oppressed by the old-fashioned and rigid standards of our society? How I am a loving, giving, caring, sharing, helping, hoping, and wonderful-smelling human being? I would hope so. After all, if I had that much love to give, it would be a shame for it to go unnoticed.

Comments

[Some Day]

Well, Hell seems big enough for as many "wives" as the Reverend would like to "minister"to.

...
This calls vengeance from Heaven...And it will be answered...
Soon

[Tom Harmon]

I would just like to point out that the Ilwrath were an aggressive race of spider-like aliens who worshipped death as a god and flew around in cloaked starships in service to their Ur-Quan overlords in Accolade's early-nineties computer game, Star Control (and its sequel).

McIlrath. Ilwrath. Draw your own conclusions.

Now that I've elevated the level of discussion, my work here is done. :)

[Les]

McAleer has it exactly right.
"McIlrath has a responsibility not to sow confusion about his status," McAleer said. "He left the priesthood and has no authority to represent himself or function as a Catholic priest. In fact, he is forbidden by church law from doing so.

"To do otherwise denigrates the fine work performed by our Catholic priests in the Danbury area."

It sounds like McIlrath is a great guy. But infidelity is the indeed the issue he will need to answer for. It seems from the article that there are many more like him, all with the audacity to presume that the rule of the Church will be changed by breaking it.
This only serves to re-enforce the need for celibate priests, as a sign of contradiction to the stream of popular culture and disintegrating morality. That discipline comes from a much higher level of understanding and spirituality, and serves in and of itself as a kind of filter.
Perhaps when McIlrath was formed in the priesthood the whole theology and spirituality involved in the discipline of celibate priesthood was not adequately taught. Still, God can provide the grace sufficient for the need. Seeking that grace and having the faith to receive it is part of fidelity.
The recognition of the inability to follow through on one's own strength is not an excuse for infidelity, but rather a reason to seek and find strength in God.
This is the lesson all of us have to learn each day, over and over, as we stumble and sin, seek absolution, and then carry on, asking God for the grace to overcome the temptation the next time we face it. Priests are not alone in the struggle of fidelity, but none of us has the right to expect the Church to change the standards to accommodate our weakness.

[Brian John Schuettler]

It looks like someone has been drinking the Kool Aid.
Some Day...I am going to have to ask you to surrender your guns before you enter town. I certainly am not making excuses for Father McIlrath, but I would think twice and pray a bit before I start calling down the thunder on him. After all, we are all sinners. What he has done and the bad example he has given will be addressed by Our Lord at his particular judgment. I suggest the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

[Carl Olson]

Priests are not alone in the struggle of fidelity, but none of us has the right to expect the Church to change the standards to accommodate our weakness.

Well said. There is a fine line between calling a spade a spade, and simply mocking or attacking the spade. There is, I think, a clear connection between the rise of divorces over the past 30-40 years and the laxity with which people approach nearly any sort of vow or solemn promise. When one's word can be revised, updated, or modified at a moment's notice, upon what basis can relationships be founded?

[Brian John Schuettler]

"Priests are not alone in the struggle of fidelity, but none of us has the right to expect the Church to change the standards to accommodate our weakness."

Perhaps I am missing something here but the Church has not nor will it ever change the standards of either of the two Sacraments we are talking about here...Matrimony and Holy Orders. The situation with this priest is sad and unfortunate but I cannot see any logical progression toward deep sixing two of the essential and immutable teachings of the Church nor do I see any jeopardy occurring due to isolated individual occurrances of abuse. There are abuses of just about everything inside the Church right now, especially with the Liturgy. Is the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist therefore threatened with extinction? Of course not. One of the best things we can do, as I stated in my earlier post, is to pray. Obviously,we have no control over civil divorce and the increase in divorce withing this context in unfortunate but, as Carl says, definitely related to a breakdown in the value given to any oath in our society.

[Carl Olson]

It's good to keep in mind that the Western discipline of non-married clergy is just that: a discipline. A very serious and important discipline, but not a dogma. Western Catholics should know, if they don't already know, that the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Eastern Orthodox Churches allow married men to be ordained as priests. This fact, I think, highlighs the hypocrisy/true motives of those who are constantly harping about wanting a "married priesthood" -- as if there aren't any married Catholic priests. If they really wanted that and that only, they could become Eastern Catholic. But in many, if not most, cases the final goal is the ordination of female priests (aka, priestettes).

[Deacon John M. Bresnahan]

I have absolutely no sympathy for adult men (most priests aren't ordained until in their late 20's) who choose to ask to be ordained to the priesthood. Then a sexual epiphany supposedly takes place and they now want to marry. Next they get angry at the Church for taking them at their word and telling them to keep their word or say good-bye to exercising priestly ministry. In my book a spoiled brat who can't or won't keep his word has no business in ANY vocation where personal integrity and strength of character are supremely important--and that clearly includes the priesthood.
There are many of us who, when young, wanted to be priests, but chose otherwise because we believed that whether in priestly ministry or marriage a "man's word is his bond" and realized that whatever road we chose was final.
Now since Vatican II the way has been opened for a married clergy in the Catholic Church-- the diaconate--something we never envisioned as young men. It is up to us deacons to now give those priests who have kept their word all the support and encouragement we can while serving the Church officially in many time-consuming ministries that heretofore had been the exclusive province of ordained priests (marriages and baptisms and preparation, wakes, funerals and graveside services, homilies and their conscientious preparation --many Protestant ministers spend most of their week preparing for the Sunday sermon.)
It is time to look forward to make those ideas genuinely promoted by Vatican II become a living reality in the Church and stop concentrating on those whose complaints are the result of their own choices in life.

[Brian John Schuettler]

The discipline of celibacy can, of course, be changed and having a background in Eastern Rite Catholicism I know that the options mentioned do exist. I think that there are priests in the Western Rite who sincerely believe that they could be better priests if they were married, a very self serving proposition I admit. But you are right, Carl, and I tend to be naive at times in seeing beyond to the greater agenda for ordination of priest-ettes. Thanks for your observation.