Archdiocese of Milwaukee to get its first married priest

Tom Heinen reported in the July 26, 2008 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. As of this writing, there's nothing on the Archdiocese of Milwaukee or Milwaukee Catholic Herald websites but our Archbishop did supply the Journal Sentinel with this Q & A: How married clergy become priests.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan asked his priests and deacons this week which of them would be willing to accept the man - a former Lutheran minister - as an associate pastor at their parish.

It would seem this priest thinks there's such a significant difference that he gave up his career as a Lutheran minister to become a Catholic.

That being the case, a good assignment might be St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Waterford. It's pastor, Father Eugene Doda, has a letter in the July 10, 2008 Milwaukee Catholic Herald (print only), that includes this.

My mother was born and raised in the Lutheran church and was forced to convert to Catholicism in order to marry my father.

Meaning by "forced", apparently, that she had to make a decision. That's part of a prelude to an extended critique of Church teaching on contraception. Father Doda closes by quoting Luke 12:46,

Woe to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to teach them.

Which raises the question of what his parish teaches the students in its school and Christian Formation program. If his letter contradicts what's taught, Father Doda is undermining the work of his own parish. If his letter is what is taught, the parish undermines the work of the whole Archdiocese.


Update: Archbishop Dolan's Q&A cites Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, the Encyclical of Pope Paul VI On the Celibacy of the Priest.

(via Dad29)


P.S. Fr. Doda is using a variation of the my-poor-mother argument used by Father Ken Smits, OFM Cap., at the February 25, 2006 meeting of the local chapter of Voice of the Faithful (see this earlier post).