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Document Details : Title: Celibate and Married Clergy on a Par in the Eastern Code Author(s): NEDUNGATT, George Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 21 Issue: 1 Date: 2015 Pages: 24-42 DOI: 10.2143/INT.21.1.3087664 Abstract : To exalt clerical celibacy as the peak glory of Catholic priesthood, as is sometimes done even by popes, is to ignore that in the Eastern Catholic Churches, except two out of twenty-three, there are both lawfully married priests and celibate priests. Although these Churches constitute a small minority, in their common canon law there is legal parity between the celibate and the married priesthood. Canon 373 of the Eastern code establishes this canonical parity for the first time in the history of the Church. This parity, however, is not absolute but relative in that the married clerics are barred from certain offices such as that of the bishop or syncellus (vicar general). However, the differing canonical disciplines of the East and of the West are to be regarded as complementary, so that it would be aberrant to absolutise celibacy as configuring the priest to Christ. Apart from all theory, we still lack sociological surveys and interdisciplinary studies about the way the two canonical disciplines are received by the Christian faithful and the comparative pastoral efficacy of each. |
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