An issue I've noted before is that in many dioceses, Catholic pastors rotate on six- or 12-year cycles. Fr Phillips has stayed at OLA since its founding. For him to feel entitled to stay there until his retirement, or for the parish to expect it (and expect to get a successor he nominates, if this is the case) doesn't seem reasonable.provoked a great deal of comment. One visitor noted,
How could he "rotate" in the Archdiocese of San Antonio as a married priest? The archdiocese never has accepted "married priests" (last I heard) to serve in any pastoral position in the archdiocese, save for at OLA. [See the update below.] Fr. Phillips could therefore never serve (by "rotation") as pastor of any other parish in the archdiocese. (If the SA Archdiocese has any other married priests, of which I am ignorant, they probably [on the analogy of what happens in other dioceses] serve in "specialized ministries" such as hospital or prison ministry, with perhaps a loose attachment to a particular parish church, where they may get to say the odd weekday Mass, or concelebrate at a Sunday one.)This brings up a cascading series of puzzling questions. Clearly a married Pastoral Provision priest -- or indeed, an OCSP priest -- can serve a diocesan parish in some dioceses. We saw this with Fr Seraiah in Iowa and now see it with Fr Sly in Kansas City. Fr Dean was a married Pastoral Provision priest with a parish in the Diocese of Nashville before moving to St Mary the Virgin.
But whether such priests can rotate brings up trickier questions. I know very little about rectories, but I assume they resemble dormitories and are not set up to accommodate families and children. Having celibate and married priests with families together in such a situation would be awkward indeed. This brings to mind the observation that for some types of women, children are not so much wards as facts on the ground that can be used to manipulate men -- for a married Catholic priest, his family represents just such a fact on the ground.
The visitor above also noted,
I think almost all "Pastoral Provision" (and, maybe, OCSP) priests have served their congregations or parishes indefinitely/long-term until retirement age or illness makes them unable to continue linger (e.g., Fr. Hawkins in Arlington, Frs. Moore and Ramsey in Houston, Fr. Ledkau in Columbia, Fr. Bradford in Boston, etc.; Frs. Moore and Ramsey alternated with one another for nerly three decades in Houston as pastor of OLW, but when one or the other was not pastor of OLW, he served in a "specialized ministry" position - at least Fr. Moore did; Fr. Ramsey [a bachelor/celibate IIRC] served for some decade as a pastor of a "regular" Latin Catholic parish in Houston); I think all US Catholic dioceses would not allow a married priest to serve as pastor/parochial vicar of a "regular" diocesan parish.There do seem to be exceptions, but they clearly must be circumscribed. Another visitor noted,
With respect to your last comment in the subject post, I invite your attention to Canon 522 of the Codex Juris Canonici: “A pastor must possess stability and therefore is to be appointed for an indefinite period of time. The diocesan bishop can appoint him only for a specific period if the conference of bishops has permitted this by a decree.” Here in the States, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a decree authorizing the appointment of pastors for a term of six (6) years. However, it is likely that the appointment of Fr. Christopher Phillips as pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement occurred before the promulgation of that decree, and thus has an “indefinite” term.My understanding of the rotation period is that it is normally for six years, but the bishop can also move a priest at any other time. This probably reduces the need to invoke Canon 1742, which is pretty much the reason I made the initial remark. In a corporation, small personality issues or whatever can also result in transfers that reduce the need for more elaborate remedies.Historically, the concerns that you raise about fiscal management were not an issue because the majority of Catholic clergy would not become pastors until they were about fifty years old (remember that most parishes had 4-6 priests except in rural areas) and partly because pastors were typically “promoted” to larger parishes or to significant assignments in the chancery. The “Anglican Use” congregations erected under the so-called “pastoral provision” were aberrations in this regard — I believe that all of the surviving congregations were still under the pastoral care of their founding pastor when the Vatican erected the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
My regular correspondent noted,
This article makes your point, that regular rotation of clergy is analogous to the situation in the military: "Pastors are now like lower-echelon military officers who are moved every few years 'to keep them sharp.' " (in the section entitled "The new Code of Canon Law and the US Bishops." The writer is not very happy about this development, however.Whatever the circumstances here, it does seem to me that the position of married clergy now represents "facts on the ground", and they apply as well to the OCSP. One can say that placing all the married ex-Anglicans in a separate diocese is a good argument for Anglicanorum coetibus, but (1) there will still be married Pastoral Provision priests in dioceses, (2) OCSP priests now serve diocesan parishes, and (3) probably most important, there are so few OCSP parishes that can support a pastor with family that rotation is not practical anyhow.[Two other articles] also make the case that "term limits" are inconsistent with the traditional understanding of the pastoral role, and that while the change in the US was a response to the necessity to close and amalgamate parishes, it has had unintended consequences.
Thus Bp Lopes may find a need to invoke Canon 1742 when Bp Skirius would simply move the guy. But let's go back to the argument Fr Phillips made a week or so ago: the point of Anglicanorum coetibus is to make us all one. Except that married Catholic priests represent facts on the ground that are stubborn and require many exceptions -- probably more than we've briefly noted here. So the point of Anglicanorum coetibus is to make us all one, except for all the exceptions, which make the Anglicans a special case living in a granny flat.
A situation that the wrong kind of Anglican is free to exploit.
UPDATE: The Archdiocese of San Anotonio almost a year ago placed Fr David Wagner, a married OCSP priest, in the Notre Dame Kerrville parish, describing him as "on loan" from the OCSP. Thanks to a visitor for the info.
