DALLAS — The priest wakes up at 4 a.m. on the days he celebrates the early Mass, sipping coffee and enjoying the quiet while his young children sleep in rooms awash in stuffed animals and Sesame Street dolls and pictures of saints. Then he kisses his wife goodbye and drives through the empty suburban streets of north Dallas to the church he oversees.
Surveys of Catholics show widespread backing for a married priesthood. A series of reports in recent years by the Pew Research Center showing 62 percent support among U.S. Catholics, 56 percent among Brazilians — the world’s most populous Catholic nation — and 63 percent in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Catholic Church, which includes nearly two dozen rites, allows married priests in its Eastern Rite churches. It also allows in some married priests like Whitfield, a former Episcopal priest who converted to Catholicism with his wife, Alli, in 2009 and was ordained as a Catholic priest three years later.
Whitfield, 41, became a Catholic priest in 2012 through the Pastoral Provision, a set of rules crafted by Pope John Paul II in 1980 that gives married Episcopal priests who have converted to Catholicism the chance to apply for ordination in the Catholic church. “We are these very conservative men who have left the Episcopal church and now meet all these left-wing Catholics who are celebrating our presence,” said Father Paul Sullins, a married priest, father of three and longtime professor at Catholic University. “It can be uncomfortable at times, but we try to love each other.”“Whatever their politics on marriage, by the way they live their lives they show it’s entirely possible to have a married clergy. They are effective in their ministry.
Whitfield is a gentle-spoken man who beats himself up over his bad Spanish and wonders sometimes if he spends enough time with his children. He’s a relentless reader — his shelves hold everything from Jane Austen to Dickens to Ta-Nehisi Coates to treatises on Catholic theology and a biography of St. Benedict.The demands on Whitfield are relentless: Masses, confession, church administration, counseling, bureaucratic issues with the church’s school, regional clergy meetings.
Religion should be illegal.
It isn't a biblical requirement. It's foolish and for centuries, has done more harm then good. Irritating beauty? Nah, try molesting and rape.
pontifex wrecked the ChatholicChurch. Christianity needs to be reunited with OrthodoxChurch & Christian evangelicals & copticchurch & 2 a powerful modernized Christianism movement to attrack Millennials & females 2 defeat heretics like POTUS & Merkel. Islam alliance?
He wants a monopoly on these hoes.
I find it inhumane that they are forced to choose between having a family and their faith.
The CatholicChurch is the single biggest child raping syndicate that has ever existed. If you support it, you are complicit. Pontifex
So how long will your wife stay faithful? fuckinstupid hypocrite
1 Timothy 4:1-3 (NLT) Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead. Read to know!
How very 'Do as I say, not as I do'! Even if he wasn't married, his opinion would be equally ridiculous. Expecting solid advice on human sexual relationships from people prohibited from engaging in them is like asking the Amish for help with laptops!
Many had became disenchanted w/ Episcopal church as it grew increasingly liberal amid battles over women priests & homosexual 'marriage'. Ironically, they often find themselves heroes to liberal Catholics “We are very conservative men who meet all these left-wing Catholics'
They make Viagra for that now. You don’t have to be ashamed.
Ironically he chose the word “hard”
Let's start w all the pedophile priests first 🙄
There's so much wrong here.
Magic-believing magic-believer believes in magic, but also believes magic rules magically don’t apply to him. More at 11.
I am sure the long history of children abused by the Catholic Church would like that to be the case too.
The reason they can’t marry is because when they could, the widows were suing the church because they would be evicted once the priest died. Kids and all were put out and had nothing left and no where to live cause the church owned their home. It was always about money.
“So many of the married priests, like myself, hold this sort of strange, almost contradictory position.“ No, you’ve achieved full contradiction.
You dopes really believe that the priesthood is a 'celibate world?' Where in God's name have you been for the last two decades? CatholicChurch
Another example of religion causing more problems than it solves.
Practicing celibacy within marriage?
He is an hypocrite and a selfish.
Just divorce her already 🙄
Purity of the cloth on the outside, perverts on the inside.
Shouldn't he be practising what he preaches?
I think he mispronounced 'hypocrisy.'
Proving, once again, the total idiocy of religion, but especially Catholicism. Elated to have escaped!
How 'bout we stop all religion and worship the planet. Organized religion is bad for the planet.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Of course the married guy wants others to be celibate.
Religion is a mental illness
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