Although, now I think of it, that still seems odd, because a priest from a different denomination would not have been married in the Roman Catholic Church, so I would not think the latter would recognize the marriage. Obviously we cannot have priests "living in sin" (i.e. with a spouse to which he was married outside the church.)


Honestly, I think the whole idea of a celibate unmarried clergy a tragic mistake; it is the reason my reaction to the whole pedophile scandal was "well, DUH!" Forbidding priests marriage automatically disqualifies the vast majority of well-adjusted heterosexual men, and the increasing social acceptance of gay marriage places many gay men in the same boat: Both can openly live as they wish with no censure simply by foregoing priesthood. Pedophiles, on the other hand, can NEVER be accepted; exposure means disgrace and imprisonment whether or not they are priests, so ordination changes little: They just continue hiding their desires and predation from the world as they always have, hoping to escape detection.

I do not doubt for a moment MANY decent normal men seek the priesthood from sincerely deep devotion to God, despite having to forever sacrifice any hope of a spouse and children. However, I also believe relatively few men who have that hope in the first place are dedicated enough to sacrifice it for the priesthood; they sacrifice the priesthood instead. That restricts the pool of potential priests to a group with a disproportionate number of VERY undesirable candidates. Worse, their habitual, scrupulous and systematic concealment of their behavior makes them difficult to detect.

Meanwhile, I cannot help recalling the scriptural position is Pauls statement a bishop should be "the husband of one wife." If that is good enough for a bishop, it ought to be good enough for any inferior ordination. Then again, there is a reason I identify as a non-denominational Christian, a "small 'c'" catholic.