Most individuals are not used to being the focal point of attention in a large gathering.

They may need help with their words; the Best Man might forget to bring the rings; unexpected delays of one or both parties can cause anxiety.

But most people anticipate that a least the marriage celebrant will be organised and efficient.

However, in this particular scenario, a priest officiating a wedding needed to be reminded by the bride to include a crucial element of the ceremony.

The situation was made more complex because he appeared to have difficulty hearing.

You will sometimes hear people say that priests could be married up to the 12th century. Others say that celibacy was imposed on the clergy by Gregory VII or that celibacy was promoted "because they hated the body". These are familiar statements, but they are all untrue.

The history is complicated, but well documented in studies such as Stefan Heid's Celibacy in the Early Church. Yes, indeed, during the first millennium it was perfectly regular for married men to be ordained deacon or priest, but they had to separate from their wives beforehand.

Technically not celibacy, but continence: sexual abstinence by formerly married men. They never pretended they had not been married. Their wives enjoyed status, and their children often followed them into the ministry. The sons, incidentally, could be ordained to minor orders before their teens, up to acolyte.

It was never forbidden for acolytes to marry, and still be clerics, and they easily found employment as clerks. We seem to have forgotten that minor orders existed (they were reformed in 1972), but many "married clergy" were in minor orders, who often decided later to proceed to major orders - though only if their wives were happy about it.

True, we know little of the early period, though St Peter boasted, "we have left our homes and followed you", when Our Lord commended leaving house or wife (Luke 19:28-9), and St Paul says bishops must be "self-controlled" (Titus 1:8; in Greek "continent" or "abstinent"). But from the 4th century, legislation, and writings of popes and bishops, make it clear that they believed the discipline of clerical continence went back to the Apostles.

From then onwards, there are innumerable decrees of local councils, circulated throughout the Church. It would be tedious to record them all, and councils only needed to repeat the law because it was not always kept. (I discovered all this while preparing for my little book on community life among pastoral clergy, Vita Communis, which was published by Gracewing in 2009.) Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald article by Fr Jerome Bertram, a priest of the Oxford Oratory and CTS author.
• Image: Crisis Magazine

She strongly questioned Pope Francis calling a synod later this year on family life.

Ms McAleese said there was "just something profoundly wrong and skewed" about asking clergy for their views on this subject, when most are celibate.

"The very idea of 150 people who have decided they are not going to have any children, not going to have families, not going to be fathers and not going to be spouses - so they have no adult experience of family life as the rest of us know it - but they are going to advise the Pope on family life; it is completely bonkers," she said.

Ahead of the synod, the Vatican sent questions on the family life and church teaching to bishops' conferences.

In some dioceses, lay people were invited to submit their views.

Some bishops have made the feedback public.

Ms McAleese said her response was: "I've got a much simpler questionnaire and it's only got one question."

"How many of the men who will gather to advise you as pope on the family have ever changed a baby's nappy? I regard that as a very, very serious question."

She acknowledged the Pope has said he wants a new role for women in the Church.

But discussion of women priests is off the table, and other senior roles in the Vatican continue to be filled by men in a manner which lacks transparency, she said.

"You don't need a new theology of women, you just need to end the old boys' club," she added.

While she hoped the October synod "will be a process of real introspection and debate", she said she had not yet moved "from hope to expectation".

Ms McAleese is living in Rome, where she is studying canon law.

Ireland's Association of Catholic Priests said women should have a "huge involvement" in the synod.

Association spokesman Fr Sean McDonagh, SSC, said "it doesn't make sense" for them to be excluded.

"I believe that women should have a huge involvement in all of these issues. These are moral issues about family and sexuality," Fr McDonagh said.

Sources

• Belfast Telegraph
• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Independent