Eastern Catholic Churches
In general, the Eastern Catholic Churches allow ordination of married men as priests. Within the lands of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest Eastern Rite Catholic Church, priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing a tightly-knit hereditary caste. In North America, for fear that married priests would create scandal among Latin Rite Catholics, Eastern Catholic bishops usually ordained only unmarried men; but since the Second Vatican Council called for restoration of Eastern Catholic traditions, some of them have returned to the elsewhere traditional Eastern practice of ordaining married men to the presbyterate. A condition for becoming an Eastern Catholic bishop is to be unmarried or a widower.
Read more about this topic: Clerical Celibacy (Catholic Church)
Famous quotes containing the words eastern, catholic and/or churches:
“Your Beauty, ripe, and calm, and fresh,
As Eastern Summers are,
Must now, forsaking Time and Flesh,
Add light to some small Star.”
—Sir William Davenant (1606–1668)
“Go, you are dismissed.
[Ite missa est.]”
—Missal, The. The Ordinary of the Mass.
Missal is book of prayers and rites used to celebrate the Roman Catholic mass during the year.
“He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas trees.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)