On Married Priests: Our Sunday Visitor Looks at the new reality

On the web site of Our Sunday Vistor there's a long article that looks at married men who are priests; most of these, of course, being Pastoral Provision and Ordinariate priests. The article begins:

Understanding married priesthood
Since the pastoral provision, the Roman Catholic Church has permitted some men with wives and families to become priests. Here’s an in-depth look at the issue.

By Brian Fraga - OSV Newsweekly, 11/18/2012

There are widened eyes, some confused looks and questions.

Many knowledgeable, faithful Catholics are taken aback for the first time when they meet a Catholic priest — and his wife.

“For some, it’s a surprise. For others, I think, there is a sense that this is something they have thought is a direction the Church should head in,” said Father John Lipscomb, a former Episcopalian bishop who entered the Catholic Church five years ago with his wife of 44 years.

“I think people see this as something very positive in the life of the Church,” said Father Lipscomb, 62, the spiritual director of the Bethany Retreat Center in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla.

Father Lipscomb is one of about 70 married Catholic priests in the United States. Most of them were ordained priests in the Episcopal Church, but eventually left that denomination and were allowed to become priests in the Catholic Church, thanks to a 1980 pastoral provision approved by Blessed Pope John Paul II.

Earlier this year, the Vatican expanded the provision by creating ordinariates — similar to dioceses — where entire Anglican parishes can enter into communion with the Catholic Church. In the United States and Canada, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter includes 18 parish communities...

Read the rest at the OSV.

Hat tip to Deacon Greg Kandra at the Deacon's Bench.