Greater Leniency In Priestly Vows

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30541, 9 September 1964, Page 6

Greater Leniency In Priestly Vows

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

VATICAN CITY, September 6.

The Roman Catholic Church is following a new practice of greater leniency in dispensing priestly vows of celibacy in certain cases, a high Vatican official said today. The policy has been adopted so as not to force wayward priests to live a life of sin outside of the Church, but as yet it entails no modification of the Church’s law on the celibacy of priests.

However, such modifications might be written into the code of canon law when planned recodification and reform takes place the Ecumenical Council, the official said. The French priest allowed to drop his vows and marry within the Church illustrated the new official practice, the official indicated. Pope Paul already has given other such dispensations, the official said. “It is a new practice of the Church to be more generous in contrast to the old rigid discipline of celibacy,” he said. Under the old practice, a priest who broke his vows to marry was not only suspended from his priestly functions, but also refused the sacraments, including those of marriage and communion. What to do about the children of such couples constituted a considerable problem for the Church. Not Re-admitted A priest was not re-admit-ted to the life of the Church unless he renounced living with his companion. The vow of celibacy for priests is a point of discipline in church legislation, not a point of unchangeable dogma. The Pope, therefore, can dispense with the law if he sees fit. The Vatican official said the new practice is to give this dispensation “in cases

where there are serious motives.”

Where a priest struggles sincerely with the moral problem and his conscience, the dispensation is thus a possibility, the official said. It would not be given to a priest who elopes on the sly, for instance. A priest who marries with a dispensation from his vows is, of course, suspended from his priestly functions under the new practice as under the old, but he marries within the church, and he and his children live in tranquility. Technically, he remains a priest. Not even the Pope can annul the sacramental character of ordination any more than he can dissolve a marriage.

“The dispensed priest thus lives with one sacrament on the other,” the official said about the “dual marital and priestly state.” In “cases of emergency,” the married man could administer sacraments such as Extreme Unction, because the sacred character of his ordainment is, by dogma, indelible. Milan Statement

While still Cardinal-Arch-bishop of Milan in 1960, Pope Paul expressed hope that the Vatican Ecumenical Council would consider freeing former priests of their perpetual chastity vow if they had been allowed to revert to the layman’s life. The council in its 1962 and

1963 sessions did not take up topics dealing with the priestly life. A topic on the priesthood is among 12 topics remaining for the council. A vow of perfect chastity is taken when a student priest reaches the level of subdeacon, a short time before ordination as a priest. Under the 1917 code of canon law, dispensation from the vow can be granted to subdeacons and deacons.