OK, so what happens if the Cardinals elect a married man Pope?
I know they’ll hardly ever do so, but it is possible, at least theoretically, so there ought to be regulations on what to do in this case.
The Pope is a priest, so he cannot be married due to the celibacy dogma. They can’t divorce him either because the Catholic Church regards marriages as unsolvable. Annul it? Need a reason for that.
I suppose they’d give him a waiver in this highly hypothetical scenario, but are there any canonical regulations about this?
I don’t think there’s a rule about being Catholic to become Pope. Those wacky Cardinals can pick anybody. But since their choice is directed by God, or his Junior Partner, The Holy Spirit (who used to be a Ghost, but got better) only the Right Guy gets the nod.
Don’t get started on the whole Pope Joan angle. It never happened . Unless it did. But it didn’t, so don’t sweat it.
-Rue.
On a side note, you would think that after a couple of thousand years of electing his infallibleness, they would figure out how to make a decent white or black smoke. Every time we go through a papal election, we get such a lovely gray.
(For all you heathens out there, papal elections are held behind closed doors. Tradition dictates that after a vote, smoke is released from a special chimney to indicate the results. Black smoke means that there wasn’t a sufficient consensus to elect a new poobah, white smoke indicates that Florida voted for Bush).
I think that there are a few married Roman Catholic priests. Married priests who left the Church of England in protest at the ordination of women were allowed to be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church and I think there might be some other categories of married priest as well.
There are priests who were married - they are widowers. I know there are a few of them around. I would think divorced men would not be welcome but I don’t know for sure.
Yes you do have to be Catholic (and an adult male) to be elected Pope.
In actuality, tradition limits the “real” candidates to the College of Cardinals…so the chances of having a married Pope are quite slim…kinda like the chances of an American Pope…or, these day, a Pope to the left of Joseph Ratzinger.
Since there is no requirement for the Pope to be a priest, there is evidently no requirement for him to be unmarried either.
Also, note that there are several Eastern Rite churches that recognize the Pope’s authority, but do not require that priests be celibate. Therefore there are Catholic priests who are married. Celibacy is only required for priests in Latin Rite Catholic churches. It would be possible for the Church to elect a married priest Pope. However, within the Eastern Rite churches themselves, bishops must be celibate.
Bishops must be celibate in Eastern churches? I was under the impression that a man may be ordained to the priesthood if he is married, but may not become married after being ordained?
I read a news story about a guy who was married about to become a priest. The way I undersood it was if you are married, then converted to Catholicism then took a vow of celibacy but remained married, you were eligible.
Married men consider marriage unsolvable. The Catholic Church considers marriage insoluble.
Interesting words, though. The most common definition of ‘insoluble’ is ‘difficult to dissolve’ but it does have a secondary definition of ‘difficult to solve’. ‘Unsolvable’, OTOH, means only ‘difficult to solve’. So while the words can be synonyms, they’re not in this case.