My favorite preoteasa posted her thoughts on being a priest’s wife and had some fisking to do of a comment to this article. The comment read:

I once went to a talk given by a married priest who was refreshingly honest. He said that he doesn’t work on weekends or after 8PM. If you call his house after that time you better be almost dead because his wife will be mad.

Uh… no. The “refreshingly honest” married priest was either lying or the commenter was. I can’t think of any pastor’s wives (or pastor’s husbands or priest’s wives) who would be mad if someone called after 8 p.m. That’s considered fair-game! If someone calls at 3 a.m. and it’s not an emergency, that’s a different story. If someone calls on Jon’s day off (the existence of which is mandated by the denomination AND the congregation) and it’s not an emergency, I’ll generally tell them that he’s unavailable and will call them back later. (We had someone who did this weekly in Montana. We just screened calls on that day.) In both of those cases, I will move heaven and earth to get in touch with Jon if it’s an emergency.

Another comment with which I took umbrage was:

I think the priest is just acknowledging the obvious: if a priest has a wife and children, he cannot give priority to his priestly ministry; it must, naturally, come behind his duty as a husband and father. It is self-evident.

No, it isn’t self-evident. He can give priority to his priestly ministry while also honoring his commitments to his family. I can’t think of anyone who married a priest or pastor who didn’t know that their spouse would have evening meetings or have to be at church an hour before worship on Sunday. I can’t think of any of my clergy spouse colleagues who bats an eyelash when their spouse gets a phone call, tosses on clericals, and runs out the door. Does it impact our lives? Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a surprise. I also can’t think of any parish who doesn’t give their priest/pastor a day off. Jon’s is Friday and we do family stuff that day and also on Saturday if there isn’t something that comes up. If it’s important enough, you make it work.

The issue behind all of this is priests being married in the Latin rite of the Catholic church. I know for my preoteasa friend, this is an issue that is frustrating because she, like, has a husband who is a priest (Eastern rite) and they make it work. I think that it’s one of those things that will be allowed to happen in the West on a case-by-case basis and isn’t going to be a sweeping change that happens all at once. I can’t imagine that priests currently serving would be amenable (well… some might be) to marrying and parishes would have to get used to “sharing” their priest with someone else. (We clergy spouses are nice about sharing though… most of the time.)