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So, as everyone knows by now, it’s the Holiday Season and for us just like for everyone things have been a little hectic, what with the end of the semester, preparing to visit relatives, Christmas shopping, and all kinds of odds and ends. I’ve had two longish posts sitting around on my desktop unfinished for days now, but once again I’m going to have to put them off again because we’re having company for dinner tomorrow, and I’d like to put the house in some semblance of order. (This is, of course, one of the benefits of having people to dinner… it finally spurs me into the house cleaning that I should probably do more often.)
So, in the interim, I thought I’d share another brief piece of news that I noticed the other morning in the East Tennessee Catholic (our Diocesan newspaper.) It was a little piece on a local man who is aspiring to become a Trappist monk in the Abbey of Gethsemani (made famous, of course, by its star resident, Thomas Merton.) There was, however, something curious about the story. Let me just quote the first two sentences of the article so you can pick it out.
“After a 25-year marriage and a successful career collapsed in the space of four months, the last place Alan Ross probably thought he’d end up was the Abbey of Gethsemani. But after four years of prayer and soul searching, the parisioner of (name of parish) left Nov. 1 to begin life as a postulant with the contemplative monks in Trappist, Ky.”
Err… sorry to be nosy, but… how can a married man become a monk? I read through the story to see whether perhaps his wife had died shortly afterwards, but it doesn’t seem so. The only other reference to her said that she had “decided to move in her own direction.” Huh. He also apparently has four children, though I presume they must be grown. This man was raised Catholic, but it sounds as though he’d been pretty nominally so for most of his adult life. It may be that he wasn’t married in the Church, in which case the marriage wouldn’t be considered valid anyway. Still, it seems a little odd that the story didn’t say anything about this rather obvious question. Like I say, I don’t like to be nosy, but it would be rather like writing a story about a “new scholarship fund for the children of Catholic priests.” It’s not totally ridiculous — there are in fact some people in the world whose fathers are Catholic priests — but if you’re going to talk about it, you ought to say something to satisfy the enormous question mark that will immediately appear in most people’s minds. Or, if the question mark doesn’t appear, that’s even worse. It reminds me of the movie version of The City of Joy, in which the priest (who is the main character in the book version) is replaced by a nun who tells us straightforwardly that she became a nun after her divorce. “I’m better at loving lots of people than at loving one particular person,” she tells us, or something to that effect. Uh… right. Way to give people a completely wrong idea about what it means to be a religious.
Then again, I know that there have been times when married people were accepted into religious orders. St. Bernard was particularly famous for recruiting among the married, so maybe its appropriate that modern-day Trappists would do this also. I have to say honestly that I have never understood how that worked. I can see how a married man might be made a priest. But don’t religious have to take vows of celibacy? How can you do that if your body already, as St. Paul tells us, belongs to somebody else? And since the bonds of Matrimony cannot be broken except by death, this would mean that the Church would have married monks. Can that be right?
When Thomas Merton became a postulant, he had to reveal that he had fathered an illegitimate child some years before, when he was an undergraduate in England. Apparently they told him that this was not a problem… that seems a little shady to me, though I think there may have been some question as to whether the child and mother were still alive. (It seems they were probably killed in London during the bombings of WWII.) Otherwise I’d think he should be told to go marry the woman and help raise the child. But I don’t know what the usual policy is for such things. How do religious orders normally deal with applications from married people and parents?
Any married man (or woman) may, with the consent of his wife (and the order or congregation) enter religious life. The validity of his marriage is not an issue. Additionally he must have no parental responsibilities and his wife must be provided for (providing for herself fulfills the requirement). This does not mean he can be ordained a deacon or priest. This seems strange and like a conflict of interest. However some legal distinctions must be made.
Religious do not profess a vow of celibacy unless they are also ordained to at least the deaconate. Unmarried men who become at least deacons make a promise of celibacy at their ordination. The promise of celibacy is a promise not to contract a marriage. Nothing more. A priest who sins sexually does so for the same reason as any unmarried man: because sexual expression is reserved for marriage. So, a monk, unless he is also ordained, does not make a promise of celibacy.
Priests and deacons do not profess a vow of chastity unless they are also religious (or do so privately). The vow of chastity is a consecration of the body to God whereby one voluntarily gives up the right to all sexual pleasure whether interior or exterior.
Note however, that priests and deacons who are not married and who have not professed the vow of chastity are still bound to live chastely. Also, those who profess a vow of chastity cannot marry since they are not free to enter a sexual relationship, one of the requirements of marriage. So although apparently celibacy and chastity are the same, juridically they are different.
All monks are religious and profess vows. Some monks are also deacons or priests and promise celibacy.
All priests promise celibacy. Some priests are also religious and vow chastity.
It is rare for a married man whose wife is living to enter religious life but it does happen. Divorce is not an impediment as long as the wife consents and the children are provided for or are adults. Even so, in this case most applicants would be refused.
Should a man divorced wish to be ordained he must have his marriage declared null. Again, this is rare but it does happen.
In the case of the death of a spouse the widow(er) is free to enter religious life and/or be ordained as long as the children are provided for or on their own.
In the case of Thomas Merton he would have had to prove that the child was dead or provided for (adopted or the mother remarried) to enter as a postulant at Gethsemane. If the child’s mother were living and the child dead he would have no obligation to her since they were never married. His moral responsibility might be very different.
It seems to me that there was a grave error of judgement on the part of the editor of the East Tennessee Catholic. If not written to very clearly set out why this is acceptable and show how Church requirements are met there is the great danger of scandal. The article raises many questions which cannot be answered, indeed which are really none of our business. But now the smoke is out of the thurible and the talk has begun.
If Mr. Ross does have a vocation to the monastic life that is, at least until he professes his vows, between himself, his abbot, and God…. and his wife and children. Let us pray that God’s will be accomplished and that Mr. Ross discern his vocation and follow it, whatever it may be.
Well, I just learned quite a number of things that I didn’t know before. Thank you, as always, for clearing things up, Father.
I should say for the record that I don’t actually know if the story as run by the East Tennessee Catholic has led to lots of confusion or talk. I just happened to see it, and it aroused my curiosity because I’ve never understood how things worked for married people wanting to become religious. It was an idle chance, because I don’t even read that paper very much, but you know, sometimes things happen to fall under your eye while you’re eating breakfast.
However, I do think it best to be careful about such things. In my post I mentioned the nun in The City of Joy who blithely announces that she decided to become a nun “after my divorce” when she realized that that life suited her better. I have definitely known this to be a cause of scandal… on more than one occasion people have mentioned this film to me as an example of how the Church really does permit divorce, which of course is not true. Of course the details of Mr. Ross’ life and vocation are not our business, but it does seem a shame to further the already too-prevalent mistake that, at the end of the day, the Church really does allow people to divorce.
Anyway, I apologize if I was nosy. I’ll try to make up for it by praying for Mr. Ross as he discerns his vocation.
Fr. Bailey has given a fairly full explanation, but I’m not sure about part of it, and he left out one possibilty which seems to me to be the most probable explanation in this case.
He mentions how it is possible for a married person to make religious vows with the consent of the still living spouse. This may be the case, but I have always understood it to be necessary for both spouses to e