Joseph P. Duggan: An Eastern Rite Pope as a Catalyst for Christian Unity

Joseph P. Duggan (archive)
April 18, 2005

Chroniclers do not record whether the 58th pope, Silverius, called his father by the nickname “52” (or LII in Roman numerals). Be that as it may, Silverius was the legitimate son of a married man, Hormisdas, who had served as the 52nd pope. Both Hormisdas and Silverius, who lived in the 6th century, are canonized saints in the Roman Catholic Church.

Hormisdas most likely was a widower when he became Bishop of Rome. Ancient church discipline did not allow married men to become bishops. Married Catholic priests, however, were common during the first millennium.

St. Hormisdas was a great pope. His pontificate was eventful and very positive for Christianity. Under his patronage, the great St. Benedict established Western monasticism. In 519, Hormisdas reunited the Churches of Constantinople and Rome, which had been in schism for a generation because of both theological issues and imperial political intrigues.

Hormisdas’s legacy as a leader and uniter, and his association with the tradition of married clergy, are relevant to this month’s conclave to elect the new pope. Pope John Paul II had attempted the most serious endeavor in centuries – perhaps the most intense effort since that of Hormisdas -- to reconcile, once again, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, now separated since the 11th century. John Paul’s unfinished work for this reconciliation should be an important priority for his successor.

John Paul visited numerous countries where the Orthodox Church is dominant and spoke of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as equals, expressing hope that Christianity once again may “breathe with both lungs.” He implored Orthodox Christians to forgive and set aside the schisms of the second Christian millennium and take inspiration from the first millennium, when the Churches of East and West were united. John Paul’s encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint (“That All May Be One,”) offered a bold invitation to all Christians for their ideas on how the papacy might be transformed to be more effective in promoting Christian unity. Even before Pope John Paul, some four decades ago, Orthodox and Catholic prelates rescinded their mutual excommunications, and the churches recognize the full validity of one another’s ordinations and sacraments.

What if John Paul’s vision of East-West Christian reunion were realized? One important component of a reunited Greco-Roman Orthodox-Catholic Church would be thousands of married priests from Siberia to the Aegean. Are Roman Catholics ready for this? It is open to question whether John Paul himself, visionary though he was, was ready for this.

Leo IX, history’s only Alsatian pope, mandated celibacy for priests in the Western church during the 11th century. It may be more than mere coincidence that Leo’s reign also precipitated the final break between Constantinople and Rome. Leo’s rule in any case was not a judgment about the worthiness of married men to administer the sacraments. It was largely a disciplinary action to protect church property and insulate the church from some elements of mediaeval politics.
If a feudal chieftain had a nephew with a wife and kids and no great skills in commerce or the military, that young man was the just the sort who ended up with a cozy sinecure as a parish priest. When a married priest died, often his children would struggle with the church over the property left behind. This was a key problem that led the Catholic Church of Western Europe to mandate celibacy for priests.

Having married priests is not the same as allowing priests to marry. The Orthodox Churches ordain married men but do not allow unmarried or widowed priests to marry. The Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite, Maronite and other Greek or Eastern Rite Catholic churches, in full communion with and obedience to the Roman pope, also have married priests according to the same rule as the Orthodox. In Jesus’ own land of Israel and Palestine today, for example, Greek Catholics in communion with Rome greatly outnumber Western Rite Roman Catholics, and about half of the Greek Catholic priests are married. Both Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox churches promote only unmarried priests to the rank of bishop.

Even in the Western Rite Roman Catholic church in the United States, there are some married priests. Pope John Paul authorized the ordination of married former Anglican and Protestant clergymen to the Roman Catholic priesthood as an incentive to their conversion.
A heavy-handed approach to priestly celibacy did great harm to the Catholic church in the U.S. during the late 19th century and early 20th century. At that time hundreds of thousands of Greek Catholics from Ukraine, Slovakia and other Slavic countries immigrated to the U.S. They brought with them some of their married clergy.

The U.S. Catholic bishops, dominated then as now by Irish-Americans, somehow took this as a threat to the discipline of their celibate priests. The bishops asked the Vatican to ban married Greek Catholic priests from the U.S. At first the Vatican sided with the Greek Catholics in favor of their married clergy serving in the U.S., but after intense pressure, the Vatican gave in to the Irish-American bishops’ demands. As a consequence, about a century ago, more than 250,000 Greek Catholics in America, feeling deeply hurt by the action against their priests, quit the Catholic church for the Orthodox church. There would be many more Greek Catholics in the U.S. today had it not been for this unjust interference with their tradition of married clergy.

Some laity in the Western church today would welcome more married priests, while others would not be so receptive. Many Western Catholics might be apprehensive that married clergy in their parishes would represent a “modernizing” break with tradition. Eastern Catholics and Orthodox would see the same phenomenon as a restoration of ancient tradition. I do not regard married priests as a panacea for the vocations shortage, but still I think they should be accepted in the context of seriousness about reunion with the Orthodox.

Not many Vatican-watchers expect this conclave to elect an Eastern Rite prelate as pope. But surely such a choice would shake the complacency of both East and West concerning the centuries of Catholic-Orthodox division. If the cardinals attach a high priority to achieving John Paul II’s goal of reunion with the Orthodox, they should consider just such a bold move. A pope who could celebrate the divine liturgy in Byzantine or Syriac rituals and vestments as well as in those of the Western Rite would be an impressive symbolic bridge connecting the ancient communities of Christianity. An Eastern Rite pope might make stunning changes to accelerate ecumenical progress. During the first Christian millennium, there were a number of Eastern Rite popes, from Greece, Syria and other Eastern countries. What a gift to Christ and to all Christians it would be if the great schism of 1054 were healed before reaching the dubious achievement of a 1,000-year anniversary.

Joseph P. Duggan, of Washington, D.C., writes frequently on topics of international relations and religion. He was a White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. His previous article on the papal succession was in OpinionJournal.com, January 24, 2002, “Is the Pope Italian? And Why Should the Next One Be?”