Blessed is the Kingdom

Seeking The Kingdom In All Things

Sex and the Married Deacon

The commotion among many Catholics who are rattled over the ordination of married men to serve in the new Anglican Ordinariate has continued this week as people have responded not only to this news, but the posting of an article claiming that universal Church law calls upon married deacons to abstain from sex with their spouse once they enter the clerical state. The author of the article, Dr. Edward Peters, claims that since originally publishing his article that no one in the community of canonists has been able to refute him. Just today I spoke with two who do in fact refute his conclusions on the basis of reading more than simply one canon of the law.

Today I also ran across this response by John Martens that is posted on the website of America Magazine. It is a very intelligent response to something that should not, in my opinion, even be a question that needs to be answered. He begins,

Why should a biblical scholar take note of canon law? We might equally ask, why should the blogging son of a canon lawyer suddenly push onto the front stage an article written by his father almost six years ago? Why now? Thomas Peters, who calls himself “American Papist,” published a few days ago a blog post titled “Church Law says Permanent Deacons (and all clerics) are obliged to abstain from sex, notes Canonist Edward Peters {updated}” in which he states he has “been struggling to decide the appropriate way to help bring this issue before the Church’s attention.” After struggling for five years, he decided a post on his blog and a Twitter comment remarking on his “my controversial post showing that permanent deacons (& all clerics) are obliged to abstain from sex” would be best .

(read the entire article here)

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This entry was posted by on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.

Comments

  • http://www.opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com jh

    Well say what you may but a blog post and twitter seemed to get it out there :)

    I actually think Peters main aim here is to get Clarity and have the law changed if needed. As someone trained in the Civil Code I have to admit it would be nice to tidy that up

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    According to our diocese’s newest canonist, just recently back from Rome, the law already gives dispensation to deacons, so there is no issue.

  • http://www.prayingthemass.com/ Jeffrey Pinyan

    I don’t think Dr. Peters is “bothered” by married permanent deacons “hav[ing] sex with their wives,” as John Martens writes. I think it is rather that Dr. Peters notes a discrepancy between law and practice, and thinks one or the other should be clarified or corrected as is seen fit.

    I do not think he is trying to create a problem; I think he is trying to resolve a problem.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    While I would agree that Dr. Peters believes there is a discrepancy between the law and practice, my own belief is that there is in fact none. The bigger question seems to be why the reposting of his article by his son now? I can’t answer that question, but those who wonder if it is connected to the stir over the ordination of this new set of married priests have a valid question, at least in my opinion.

    I should say that I don’t question the sincerity of either Dr. Peters or his son in this matter, but I do disagree with their conclusions.

  • http://www.opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com jh

    Fr. Christian Mathis ,

    I think the reason his son posted it and gave an introduction was to get traffic to his Dad’s blog where he sometimes goes a while without posting so people would see his argument and read his paper. I don’t think there was anything sinister just that Thomas Peters had a prety big audience and the link would spread quickly

  • http://www.opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com jh

    I do think there is a problem that needs to be corrected. I am not buying the argument from silence some have put forth. Also as someone pointed out yesterday the Canon law sort of neglected the roles, RIGHTS, duties , and obligations of Deacons and perhaps this will be a good issue to examine that all and get it up to date

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    I also do not believe there is anything sinister involved with either of them. It is unfortunate that the timing of his post coincides with people’s questioning of the newly ordained married priests in England since people jump to conclusions.

    Once again I should note that I am not a canonist, but those whom I have spoken with about this and trust to be telling me the truth insist that there is no discrepancy in the law as there are other canons that clarify this issue and even if there were a discrepancy the Church has the ability to grant dispensations from the law that do not change the law.

    The way a dispensation works, for those reading this who are not familiar, is that it gives a particular person freedom from a specific law. Perhaps a good parallel in the United States is to someone who has diplomatic immunity from the law. Their immunity does not change the law, it just means that the law doesn’t apply to them.

    A good example of how this works in the Church that is common is the dispensation from abstaining from meat that is often given by bishops when St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday of Lent. The dispensation gives people permission to eat meat, while the law forbidding it remains intact.

  • http://nowealthbutlife.com Rae

    I don’t worry about whether American priests eat meat on Fridays (though I think there is a traditional Christian ideal) and I don’t worry about whether married deacons have sex with their wives (though I also think there is a clear traditional Christian ideal here). And I simply don’t understand why people put so much effort into responding to certain people online. I do it myself, but that is because I am often roped into silly debates. For fun. Or insanity. I do, however, turn off the retweets from some I follow on Twitter who constantly retweet a certain person referenced here.

    Slightly off-topic, I do think that canon law should always be revised to be self-consistent and clearly state the Church’s expectations. BUT I do not see why we would expect canon law to be a be-all or end-all. There is nothing wrong with a canonist or a biblical scholar only searching through their given areas to sort out inconsistencies.

    Church law can change. At one point we had both men and women ordained to the diaconate with the expectation of celibacy. Now we have only men ordained without it. And somehow the work of salvation continues on. Thanks be to God.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Yeah….I don’t think I have often retweeted anyone mentioned in this article either, including myself!

  • http://www.adorotedevote.blogspot.com Adoro

    Wait – Rae – you can turn off retweets? Really? How? (Those can be SO annoying!)

  • http://happyentanglements.blogspot.com Mark G.

    Which other canons or dispensations, Father? I couldn’t find an article related to this topic on the America site.

    Rae – who can be ordained as a cleric is not a matter of Church Law; Christ Jesus’ own choice of men as clerics is part of the Deposit of Faith. Women will certainly always have a massively important role in bringing about the Kingdom of God, but it never was as you say & never will be. Please read Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican website.

    I’ve found this to be a good rule – whenever my personal views rub against Church teaching, assume the Church is right & then go find out why.

  • http://happyentanglements.blogspot.com Mark G.

    Sorry, Father, I found the link & read the article. I had previously read Ed Peters’ introductory notes on his website, though I did not read his entire article.

    The America article is poorly (hastily?) written, hard to follow, illogical in several places, & very clearly biased, to the point where the author could not see that Peters is pointing out an inconsistency in the law & not arguing for one side or the other. Apparently, even raising the question is arguing for one side! Ed Peters is a canonist, not a biblical scholar, though I think he is probably not as ignorant of the Scriptures as the author thinks. He’s simply sticking to his field of expertise, instead of using wooly arguments pulled from wherever.

    The author can’t understand that Peters refers to the 1917 Law because it deals with clerics, which deacons are, permanent or otherwise. Peters is invoking a continuity of legal tradition, where the current law is either unclear or silent. The author’s inability to see that proves to me that his whole argument begs the question.

    I did not see any refuting or clarifying canons mentioned in the article, only word-parsing of the ones quoted in Peters’ article.

    I always hear that the Church is obsessed with sex (usually from people who would rather the Church remain perfectly silent on sex); I find rather that the world is obsessed with sex in all the wrong ways, & our Holy Mother must continually correct her children out of loving concern for their souls.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Mark,

    I understand that Peters is attempting to point out an inconsistency between the law and practice. However, it seems that many canonists would disagrees with Peters’ interpretation of the law. First, because bishops have the ability to dispense deacons from this practice as it has traditionally been one for Western Rite priests, not for married men.

    The author does argue from Scripture and this seems to me to be an attempt to push us away from simply basing our faith purely upon canon law–our tradition is bigger. It is also his field of primary expertise, so in the same way Dr. Peters is presenting the case from his area of expertise, he is doing the same. It didn’t come across to me that he was doubting Peters knowledge of Scripture but pointing out that if one is going to use Scripture as a basis, one cannot limit the usage to one passage, but the whole of what Scripture says on the subject.

    Peters is also in fact referring to the 1983 code, not the 1917 one. The 1917 code is not in use now. But my own biggest question with this past week’s flurry of activity around this subject is not primarily with Peters’ article, but with the reasons his son may have had for posting a five year old article now. He has said he will give those reasons in due time. I look forward to hearing them.

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