Can the catholic church STOP you from becoming a priest?

[Happy Poster]

Does the catholic church have authority to stop you from becoming a catholic priest if you want to be?

[Polycarp]

Define 'catholic'. :D

That's not quite the joke it sounds like. The Roman Catholic Church obviously has the ability to stop someone from being ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

But there have been for nearly a thousand years churches who do not give a whit for the Pope's authority: over 300,000,000 Eastern Orthodox, 90,000,000 Anglicans, several million Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Jacobite Syrians, and Armenians), well over a million Old Catholics in communion with the See of Utrecht, Neth., and 170,000 Nestorians, all of whom have priests -- and the majority of those priests don't abide by RCC standards for becoming and remaining a priest.

[Apocalypso]

I don't understand the question. Being or becoming a priest requires training, study, and supervision under the Catholic Church. It's not ,like you walk into a Church and say "Yo, Father Bob, I think I'll join the flock", and he replies "righto, here's your robe". It's like asking if a company can stop someone from becoming an employee. Please clarify your question.

[Happy Poster]

Say Paddy the Paedophile wants to become a priest, and he does all the stuff the church ask of him - can they still reject him?

[Happy Poster]

Or maybe more prozaically - can a Bishop refuse to ordain you because he doesn't like you.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Becoming a priest is a rite, not a right.

[Chronos]

One becomes a priest through the Sacrament of Ordination, which can only be administered by a bishop. If the bishop doesn't administer the sacrament, you're not a priest.

[JRDelirious]

wants to become a priest, and he does all the stuff the church ask of him

It's not a mechanical, automatic thing. If it becomes KNOWN there is some disqualifying issue about you, the authorities may indeed decide to blackball you, however far along in training you got.

[Kyla]

It's not a mechanical, automatic thing. If it becomes KNOWN there is some disqualifying issue about you, the authorities may indeed decide to blackball you, however far along in training you got.

Not a priest, but two of my aunts entered the convent with the intention of becoming nuns. One of them left of her own volition, but the other was asked to leave. (Probably not because she did anything wrong, but more because they decided she wasn't cut out for it. I don't know the details.) Ironically, she's the only person in the family who's still a practicing Catholic.

[Al Bundy]

Say Paddy the Paedophile wants to become a priest, and he does all the stuff the church ask of him - can they still reject him?

Is this a trick question? In theory yes they could reject. In practice, they would embrace such an individual unless they thought he offered too much competition.

[psychonaut]

Does the catholic church have authority to stop you from becoming a catholic priest if you want to be?They have the authority to stop you being ordained licitly. However, you can still be validly ordained, albeit illicitly, by a renegade bishop acting against the will of the church. Such an ordination would make you a real priest in the eyes of the church; you could still perform all the priestly sacraments, such as communion, marriage, confession, etc. However, your use of these magical powers would be formally condemned by the church.

[aldiboronti]

Define 'catholic'. :D

That's not quite the joke it sounds like. The Roman Catholic Church obviously has the ability to stop someone from being ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

But there have been for nearly a thousand years churches who do not give a whit for the Pope's authority: over 300,000,000 Eastern Orthodox, 90,000,000 Anglicans, several million Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Jacobite Syrians, and Armenians), well over a million Old Catholics in communion with the See of Utrecht, Neth., and 170,000 Nestorians, all of whom have priests -- and the majority of those priests don't abide by RCC standards for becoming and remaining a priest.

Plus of course many of these churches also call themselves catholic. The preamble to the Thirty-Nine Articles (the basis of Anglicanism) is headed 'The Catholic Faith', and all Christian churches worth their salt style themselves 'Catholic and Apostolic', ie their creed is universal and established by the apostles.

[psychonaut]

Say Paddy the Paedophile wants to become a priest, and he does all the stuff the church ask of him - can they still reject him?Why should anyone be denied ordination merely because they are a paedophile? Last I checked it wasn't a crime, either in canon law or any secular legal system I'm aware of. And even if it were—or if the candidate in question had been found guilty of some other secular crimes—I doubt the church would automatically block the ordination on that basis. The Catholic Church teaches that all people, including priests, are inherently sinful, and regularly commit sin; if it denied ordination to all sinners there wouldn't be any priests.

If an admitted paedophile requested ordination and met all the requirements, then the church would probably do what any other large employing institution would (or should) do in this day and age: give him the necessary accreditation and make sure that he is assigned to a position that doesn't bring him in unsupervised contact with children. (You are aware, I hope, that not everyone who is ordianed works as a parish priest or as a teacher in Catholic schools. Some of them are missionaries, some of them are monks, some of them teach at universities, some of them oversee abbeys or monasteries, some of them work in church administration, etc.)

[Superfluous Parentheses]

There's also the complication that the Holy Roman Church doesn't in fact allow/recognize people becoming "non-catholics", so once you're officially Catholic (like me, welcome to the club) you can basically start your own religion and claim to be a priest, while still being technically catholic.

[Canadjun]

See this brochure (http://usccb.org/catholic-church-sxl-ab.pdf) (pdf) from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Admittedly it doesn't say paedophiles can't be ordained, but at least it seems they do check backgrounds.

[Colibri]

Is this a trick question? In theory yes they could reject. In practice, they would embrace such an individual unless they thought he offered too much competition.

[Moderator Note]

Religious jabs like this are out of place in GQ. No warning issued, but don't do this again.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[SandyHook]

Doesn't any club have the right to pick their officers as they choose? And their member for that matter. So I'd say the RC's could stop anyone they didn't care for.

As far as Polycarp's comments on other religious club's the same would go for them in their own club realm.


Just my $.02 worth.

[UDS]

The Catholic church does not consider priesthood to be a job, and it does not consider ordaining someone to be analagous to offer him employment. Being ordained is much more akin to getting married than to being hired.

However well-qualified academically and professionally you may be, a bishop won't ordain you if he doesn't think you're suitable. So, can the Catholic church stop you from becoming a priest? Well, it can certainly stop you from becoming a Catholic priest.

[Krokodil]

Plus of course many of these churches also call themselves catholic. The preamble to the Thirty-Nine Articles (the basis of Anglicanism) is headed 'The Catholic Faith', and all Christian churches worth their salt style themselves 'Catholic and Apostolic', ie their creed is universal and established by the apostles.

"Catholic" has a separate meaning from the RCC, something between "universal" and "eclectic." In this sense, the accent is on the second syllable and it's not generally capitalized. A lot of sects glom onto it.

[Colibri]

Does the catholic church have authority to stop you from becoming a catholic priest if you want to be?

You have the question phrased backwards. No one has the right to become a priest. The church has to permit you to become a priest. As has been said, you have to be admitted to an extensive course of training, and then must be ordained by a bishop. If the church decides at any point that you do not have a proper vocation to be a priest, then they won't admit or ordain you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

[matt_mcl]

all Christian churches worth their salt style themselves 'Catholic and Apostolic', ie their creed is universal and established by the apostles.

When I was baptized and confirmed in the United Church of Canada (a mainstream Protestant denomination), my certificates thereof referred to my joining "the Holy Catholic Church." It was explained that this did not mean I was joining the UCC which for some reason was going by the name "Holy Catholic Church"; it meant I was joining the universal (katholikos) community of all Christians of whatever denomination.

[BigT]

They have the authority to stop you being ordained licitly. However, you can still be validly ordained, albeit illicitly, by a renegade bishop acting against the will of the church. Such an ordination would make you a real priest in the eyes of the church; you could still perform all the priestly sacraments, such as communion, marriage, confession, etc. However, your use of these magical powers would be formally condemned by the church.

I really think this is the answer the OP was after.

[UDS]

I think not. The OP asks "Does the catholic church have authority to stop you from becoming a catholic priest if you want to be?", and not . . . "if a renegade bishop wants you to be".

The individual can always decline to be ordained. But he can't oblige a bishop, regular or, um, freelance, to ordain him.

There's an assortment of freelance bishops out there and, depending on the individuals situation and his reasons for wanting to be a priest, he may well be able to find one willing to ordain him. The key point, though, is that to become a Catholic priest he needs to be ordained by a bishop who, even if he has gone AWOL, is invested by the church with the capacity to act on behalf of the church in this regard. Your own desire to become a priest doesn't make you a priest, and it doesn't enable you to demand that the church call you to priesthood.

[psychonaut]

I think not. The OP asks "Does the catholic church have authority to stop you from becoming a catholic priest if you want to be?", and not . . . "if a renegade bishop wants you to be".

The individual can always decline to be ordained. But he can't oblige a bishop, regular or, um, freelance, to ordain him.

There's an assortment of freelance bishops out there and, depending on the individuals situation and his reasons for wanting to be a priest, he may well be able to find one willing to ordain him. The key point, though, is that to become a Catholic priest he needs to be ordained by a bishop who, even if he has gone AWOL, is invested by the church with the capacity to act on behalf of the church in this regard.It really depends on how you define "Catholic priest". Does it mean "someone who is recognized to be a valid priest by the Catholic Church", or does it mean "someone is who is recognized to be a valid priest by the Catholic Church, and who is employed by them to perform sacraments on their behalf"? If the OP means the first definition, then the answer is, "Yes, provided you bishop-shop until you find one who's will to ordain you." If the OP means the second definition, then the answer is no.

[BigT]

All I know is, when I ask question asking if something is possible, I want all the niggling exceptions. I would think it obvious that the Church can discourage a priest from practicing. The idea that a bishop can ordain someone the Church would not want ordained is far more interesting.

[UDS]

Well, remember that priests ordained in the Orthodox and Oriental churches, and a number of other churches, are all recognised as having sacramentally valid ordinations by the Catholic church. They're not, though, "Catholic priests" in the usual sense of being priests of the denomination that is commonly known as the "Catholic Church".

An Orthodox priest could, in principle, become an entirely regular Catholic priest by entering the Catholic church, and then getting faculties to minister from a Bishop of the Catholic communion. He would not need to be re-ordained.

I think the position of someone ordained by a "freelance" Catholic bishop would be similar. with the added complication that it might not be entirely clear whether the freelance bishop was simply a Catholic bishop proceeding irregularly, or a bishop who had effectively cut himself off from the Catholic church to establish (or join) an independent church. Either way, the ordination would be valid, but you might be slow to describe the priest so ordained as a "Catholic priest" unless he regularised his position with the official church, and sought and obtained faculties to minister as a priest.

Bottom line: "Catholic" in the denominational sense indicates someone who is in communion with the Bishop of Rome. There are many priests whose ordination is valid in Catholic eyes, but who are not in communion with the Bishop of Rome; they are not "Catholic priests" in the denominational sense. If they are formally members of another denomination, this is clear enough. If they aren't, the question may not be quite so clear. Their view as to whether they are in communion and Rome's view may not entirely line up. It may well be that Rome doesn't make an official pronouncement on the matter; if asked, they'll simply say that the priest concerned doesn't have faculties to minister, and that Catholics shouldn't seek or accept his ministry except in cases of necessity - which is pretty much what they would say about an Orthodox priest.

(Further complication: being excommunicated doesn't in itself have the effect that you are no longer in communion with the Bishop of Rome.)

[Northern Piper]

"Catholic" has a separate meaning from the RCC, something between "universal" and "eclectic." In this sense, the accent is on the second syllable and it's not generally capitalized. A lot of sects glom onto it.

"Universal" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic) is the meaning of the term both in Roman Catholic and Protestant theology - the disagreement is about what counts as "universal". :)

With respect to the different accent - do you have a cite for that? I've never heard it pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. In the Anglican church recitation of the Creeds, it's pronounced the same way as in Roman Catholic.

[md2000]

The few cases of "renegade bishops" that I recall (archbishop Lefebvre of France comes to mind) generally are due to some difference between them and Rome - In this case IIRC, he was a traditionalist who wanted to perform latin masses and roll back some other Vatican II reforms. Odds are these guys are more committed (Fanatical?) than the Vaican, and unlikely to be selling off free priest documents. He was ordaining candiadates of a like mind to himself.

If you want to try and fake the "hallelujah! I've seen the light!" for the several years of training it takes to get into the preisthood (IIRC, 7 years?) then why go illegitmate? It's not a simple process of applying like a Baptist getting a divinity degree then looking for a post. They are especially today watching to see if the person is suited for the life of a priest.

It's not a job, it's the dedication of your life. the training is a lot of work on behalf of the church, so they want to weed out the freeloaders and the unsuited before they discover after 7 years of training and a year or two of service "oops, I changed my mind!" When I was in college there were huge numbers of priests leaving; the rumour was that some had signed up on the expectation that by the time they were 30 (say, in the 1970's or 80's) marriage would be allowed... Also, some found it a cheap way to get their college degree, so the seminaries basically said no more college education, come to us once you have your degree. In high school, we had several ordained teachers who went from the "vow of poverty" working for the parish in the school for nothing, to full union teacher status. As I heard, several of the nuns did the same. Losing faith was quite lucrative.

There was also a bishop in the Ukrainian Catholic rite in the 1990's who was in a spat over ordaining priests. The Roman rite, the majority of the (real) Catholic church, does not allow married priests but the some other rites, or divisions, of the Catholic church do. The Vatican had a tacit understanding with the Soviets to permit a certain number of priests to train, and a limited number to be ordained each year. After 1989, that agreement and the soviet empire fell apart and this bishop was ordaining several Canadian priests as Ukrainian rite, meaning they could be married. The pope ordered him to stop... Touchy! Not sure what the final outcome was...

[Chronos]

An Orthodox priest could, in principle, become an entirely regular Catholic priest by entering the Catholic church, and then getting faculties to minister from a Bishop of the Catholic communion. He would not need to be re-ordained.In fact, there have been a handful of such cases where the priest in question was already married (which is allowed in most of the Orthodox churches), with the result that there are a very few Roman Catholic priests who are recognized as licitly married by the Church.

[clairobscur]

There has been (more numerous) married anglican priests who joined the catholic church recently.

[UDS]

At various times in history whole chunks of Orthodox Churches have aligned themsselves with Rome, bringing large numbers of Orthodox priests, many of them married, into the Catholic church. That is how the Eastern Catholic rites (with I think one exception) all got started, and of course Eastern Catholics continue to ordain married men.

So, historically, being validly (in Catholic eyes) ordained, and entering the Catholic church, in that order, is a well-trodden path.

But I don't think that that's what the OP had in mind when asking about becoming a priest without the assent of the Catholic church.

[Chronos]

There has been (more numerous) married anglican priests who joined the catholic church recently. Yeah, them too. What the Orthodox and the Anglicans have in common is that both follow the Apostolic Succession: That is to say, and Anglican or Orthodox priest (or Catholic, of course) was ordained by a bishop who was ordained by another bishop who was ordained by yet another bishop, and so on, all the way back to one of the original Apostles. That's the key feature that allows clergy of those churches to convert and keep their ordination, while, say, a Baptist minister who converted would not.

[Little Nemo]

They have the authority to stop you being ordained licitly. However, you can still be validly ordained, albeit illicitly, by a renegade bishop acting against the will of the church. Such an ordination would make you a real priest in the eyes of the church; you could still perform all the priestly sacraments, such as communion, marriage, confession, etc. However, your use of these magical powers would be formally condemned by the church.Are you sure? I would think an ordination performed in knowing defiance of church law would be considered invalid by the church. For example, if a renegade bishop decided to ordain a woman, would the church then recognize her as a valid priest?

[matt_mcl]

Are you sure? I would think an ordination performed in knowing defiance of church law would be considered invalid by the church. For example, if a renegade bishop decided to ordain a woman, would the church then recognize her as a valid priest?

I imagine there's a difference between ordaining someone who, canonically, cannot be a priest (such as a woman or a non-Christian) and ordaining someone who is able to be a priest but doing it in an illicit way.

[congodwarf]

According to my father, the RCC refused to allow him to become a priest because he was divorced with 3 children. They had no problem annulling his 10 year marriage (or his second marriage to an ex-nun) but they still didn't want him becoming a priest.

My mother thinks he's lying and that they refused him because he's a total loon.

[UDS]

Chronos, the Catholic church does not recognise the validity of Anglican ordinations – a sore point with some Anglicans, naturally. This is due to a theological difference between the two churches about the nature of priesthood, and therefore about what is intended by an Anglican ordination. An Anglican minister who enters the Catholic church and wishes to serve as a priest has to undergo Catholic ordination.

Little Nemo, in the Catholic church’s theology of priesthood, a woman simply cannot be a priest, and so no ordination, however celebrated or by whom, would be valid. But an ordination which the church could authorise can be valid (but illicit) if done without authorisation – e.g. ordinations by Lefebvrist bishops. Or it can be valid, and neither licit nor illicit, if done in another church – e.g. the ordination of an Orthodox priest by an Orthodox bishop.

Congodwarf, he could well have been rejected both because of his two marriages and because he had dependent children and because he was – if such be the case – a loon. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. However the two attempted marriages and the dependent children would in themselves normally be a bar, even without any loonery.

[Jormungandr]

Are you sure? I would think an ordination performed in knowing defiance of church law would be considered invalid by the church. For example, if a renegade bishop decided to ordain a woman, would the church then recognize her as a valid priest?

Someone has and it wasn't recognized. Rómulo Antonio Braschi, a Independent Catholic Bishop, whose own ordination is valid but illicit, "ordained" seven women. Collectively, they're known as the "Danube Seven," as the "ordination" took place on a boat on the Danube River. For the violation of Canon Law and refusal to repent, all seven were excommunicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Seven

[congodwarf]

Congodwarf, he could well have been rejected both because of his two marriages and because he had dependent children and because he was – if such be the case – a loon. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. However the two attempted marriages and the dependent children would in themselves normally be a bar, even without any loonery.

At the time it was just one marriage. He married the nun after the RCC denied him. I used to think that the RCC had strict guidelines for annulling marriages. My father and his current (3rd) wife have caused me to rethink that.

Anyway, whether it was because of the marriage, or the kids, or the mental issues - yes, the RCC will stop a person from becoming a priest.