Married Catholic Priests (Take 2)

In September I posted on here word of my forthcoming book, which I will (D.v.) submit to the publisher (the University of Notre Dame Press) tomorrow. After that initial report, several people contacted me on Facebook and via e-mail to suggest additional chapters, and I am grateful to them for their advice, which I happily took. Now the book is much richer, and I am delighted by that. Whereas previously it was almost entirely an "Eastern" book, focusing mainly on Eastern Catholic priests and their families, now it is a genuinely c/Catholic book, with a wide range of contributors: several Eastern Orthodox, a Russian Catholic, Ukrainian Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, two married Anglican clerics who are now married Catholic priests under the Pastoral Provision and later Ordinariate, further reflections from two presbyteras, and a chapter by the young son of a priest, Julian Hayda. With the volume thus strengthened and enriched, its focus is wider, and now the book--and its topic--can no longer be dismissed as merely or exclusively "an Eastern thing." There are now too many married ex-Lutheran and ex-Anglican clerics ordained to the Catholic priesthood to pretend that there are not married priests also in and for the Latin Church.

Fr.Roman and Presbytera Irene Galadza with Children and Grandchildren

A fortiori, then, I repeat what I said in September: this book will be the single-best collection ever published on the topic of married Catholic priests. There is nothing else out there remotely close to what will be in this book. That is a simple statement of facts. I have to say I'm especially pleased with how the essays cohere together. Often collections are very uneven, but many of these essays, even without intending it, build off one another and mesh together in a felicitous fashion.

We're still kicking around titles, though I'm leaning towards something like  Married Catholic Priests: Historical, Pastoral, and Theological Reflections. 

The contents:

I) Introduction: Adam DeVille

II) Historical Reflections:

1) David Hunter (University of Kentucky), "Priesthood and Sexual Continence: the Origins of a Western Tradition."

2) J.K. Coyle (†) (deceased professor of patristics and history at Saint Paul University, Ottawa), "Recent Views on the Origins of Clerical Celibacy: A Review of the Literature from 1980-1991."

3) Patrick Viscuso (professor of canon law at the Antiochian House of Studies and past president of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America, and author, translator, or editor of several important recent books), "Canonical Reflections on Clergy and Marriage."

III: Ecumenical and Pastoral Reflections:

4) Victor Pospishil (†) (a deceased Ukrainian Catholic priest and canonist), "Compulsory Celibacy for Eastern Catholics in the Americas."

5) James Dutko (protopresbyter of the Carpatho-Russian Diocese of the USA), "Mandatory Celibacy among Eastern Catholics: a Church-Dividing Issue."

6) Peter Galadza (Saint Paul University, Ottawa; Ukrainian Catholic liturgical scholar and married priest), "Official Catholic Pronouncements Regarding Presbyteral Celibacy: their Fate and Implications for Catholic-Orthodox Relations."

7) Adam DeVille (associate professor and chairman of the Dept. of Theology-Philosophy, University of Saint Francis), "Ending the Romanticism Around Marriage and Celibacy"

8) John Hunwicke (former priest and scholar of the Church of England, now in the Ordinariate, and author of this delightful blog), “Married Clergy in the Anglican Tradition”

9) Fr. David Meinzen (bi-ritual Byzantine and Roman Catholic priest, formerly of the OCA),  “Reflections on Two Vocations in the Two Lungs of the One Church"

10) Julian Hayda (undergraduate in Chicago and son of the late Fr. Pavlo Hayda), “Growing Up in a Fishbowl: Using Oikonomia to Answer the Tough Questions Posed by the Children of Priestly Families”

11) Christine Hayda (wife of Fr. Pavlo, mother of Julian), "Reflections from the Wife of a Priest."

12) Christopher Phillips (former Episcopalian and one of the first priests ordained in the 1980s under the Pastoral Provision; now rector of  the first parish erected under the PP), “The Peregrinations of a Pioneer of the Pastoral Provision”

III) THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS:

13) Lawrence Cross (a widowed Russian Catholic archpriest and scholar in Australia), “Married Clergy: At the Heart of Tradition”

14) Basilio Petrà (celibate RC priest and scholar in Florence; author of numerous works on marriage and priesthood), “Married Priesthood: Some Theological Resonances”

15) Thomas Loya (celibate Byzantine Catholic priest descended from a long line of married priests; pastor of the wonderful parish of the Annunciation Parish in Illinois),    “Celibacy and the Married Priesthood: Rediscovering the Spousal Mystery”

16) Irene Galadza (retired teacher and catechist, and presbytera at the incomparable St. Elias), “The Vocation of the Presbytera: Icon of the Theotokos in the Midst of the Ministerial Priesthood”

Conclusion:  Adam DeVille