From the Louisville Courier-Journal:
Visit the link for the rest, and more pictures. And let's keep this remarkable man in our prayers. H/T to Crossing 84th Street.David Harris never considered his conversion to Catholicism six years ago to be a rejection of the Baptist faith that nourished him from childhood in Eastern Kentucky.
But as a married man, Harris did think the switch meant he would leave one thing behind -- his status as an ordained minister.
He was wrong.
Early next month, he'll make history as the first married, former Baptist minister to become a Roman Catholic priest in the United States.
He'll also be only the second married man from any former denomination to become a priest in the Archdiocese of Louisville.
Harris, 53, is scheduled to be ordained Sept. 6 at the Cathedral of the Assumption.
He is the only priest being ordained in the archdiocese this year.
His ordination is allowed under a seldom-used exception to the church's requirement that priests be celibate.
Exception to the rule
The exception, which requires case-by-case permission from the Vatican, allows ordination of married converts who had been ordained Protestant ministers.
While about 100 former ministers from Episcopal and other American Protestant denominations have taken that path, Harris is the first former Baptist known to do so, according to researchers and others familiar with the process.
"All I could do is say, 'Church, would you consider this?' " said Harris, now a deacon at St Aloysius Church in Pewee Valley, where he will become associate pastor upon his ordination. "If the church had said no, I would have gone on and enjoyed my faith and done something else."
Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who supported Harris' application to the Vatican, said he's looking forward to the ordination.
"I think the world of him," he said.
Elayne Roose, a spiritual director who has advised Harris, said "we'll all benefit" from his ordination.
She said he blends spirituality with practical experience.
"He understands what it's like to be married, to have children, to have that life, besides being a very spiritual person," she said.
The spiritual journey
Harris, who knew few Catholics in his native Middlesboro, traces his spiritual journey to his upbringing by "good Christian parents."
"I loved the mountains and nature, (which conveyed) a sense of closeness to God," said Harris, whose church office is decorated with pictures of sunflowers -- and a real one from his garden -- alongside icons and liturgical books.
He said he was baptized by immersion around age 10 at his church, beneath a painting of John the Baptist and Jesus at the Jordan River.
Harris later earned an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky, where he met his wife, Pam.
They now have two adult sons.
Harris worked as a design engineer in Lexington, but he said that as he volunteered in his local Baptist church, he felt a call to the ministry.
He earned a master's of divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville in 1987 while pastor of a church in eastern Jefferson County.
Harris said when his second son was born, he "really had to think about spending more time with the family." He returned to engineering in 1992, going to work for the Louisville Regional Airport Authority.
That was when a friend gave him a thrift-store copy of a spiritual classic by the Catholic mystic St. John of the Cross, "Dark Night of the Soul."
Harris said he was captivated by its vision of a deep contemplative prayer life and began reading more of Catholic spirituality, including works by 20th-century Kentucky author-monk Thomas Merton.
He went on retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County, where Merton had lived.
Harris then began attending the Church of the Epiphany in eastern Jefferson County and was confirmed as a Catholic in 2002.
"I love the Baptist faith," he said. "I was not moving away from it or toward something. It's just all part of my journey."
Photo: by Pam Spaulding, The Courier-Journal
Posts
12 comments:
I really don't get how and why the Catholic Church thinks it is such a great idea to let married ministers from other churches become Priests, when a regular Catholic can't be married and be a priest.
How come the Church isn't ordaining them as Deacons?
I believe this is a question that will have to be addressed in the not too distant future, which in "Churchtime" could be decades of course.
I don't know for sure which side of that fence I stand exactly, but it has seemed odd, curious, or perhaps even wrong that one may "convert" into the priesthood, yet we cradle deacons are prohibited.
It's going to be an interesting debate I think no matter when it, if it, occurs.
Thanks Deacon Volker. I appreciate your comments.
It's not so much that I seek absolute rules, or some kind of secular notion of fairness.
Nor do I think there are, or should be, a lot of resentments boiling around about this.
It just seems an inconsistency for no real reason. And I hope that at some point it becomes resolved in a way that allows married men who have been raised Catholic, and whose lives have been dedicated to the Church to have at least the same opportunity to petition for ordination into the Priesthood.
Though I'm sure the Church would protest otherwise, I have a feeling that this loophole was introduced as a way of "testing the waters," to see how married priests would fit in and how they would (or would not) be accepted by the faithful.
But as the good deacon indicated, any other action on this front could be decades away. Unless, of course, the priest shortage becomes so acute that they have no other choice.
God only knows. Really.
Dcn. G.
Baptist? That one shocked me... Having been a former Baptist, I can say that a Baptist Pastor to Catholic Priest seems like a very bold step. I will watch this case with much interest.
I think the same rules that apply to the diaconate could be used for priests (married or not prior to ordination), but that married priests would not be able to advance to the post of bishop for a time as the new statutes were evaluated. We already have a married Cardinal that came from the Church of England.
I have a friend in England whose husband was an Anglican Priest.
He converted to Roman Catholicism, and was ordained a priest and now is the pastor of a small parish in London.
She, however, did not and will not convert. She is a practicing Anglican.
I simply find it astonishing that the Vatican thinks THIS is an acceptable situation for a priest, and yet a couple fully Catholic, married in the Catholic church and supportive of the Catholic Church is NOT fit for priestly service.
It is strange scenarios like this that cause many lay people to try to make sense of things on their own.
I'm sure that it will take a long time for it to sort out - it's just (to me) an odd path to take to the sorting out place.
Cindy...
Another puzzlement to me is the great reluctance Rome has to ordain unmarried or widowed permanent deacons as priests.
I've heard of several deacons who became widowed and wanted to become priests, and their request was denied.
Part of that, as I understand it, is that the Church sees the two vocations as entirely different, with different charisms and different purposes.
But I would think the Church -- given what's happening with vocations these days -- might give some of these men a second or third look.
Dcn. G.
I hadn't heard that! That is rather puzzling given the shortage of priests.
Rather puzzling period. I don't get it.
"Another puzzlement to me is the great reluctance Rome has to ordain unmarried or widowed permanent deacons as priests."
Deacon Greg, check out this link:
http://www.stdominicschurch.ca/stf_6.htm
Thanks, 2430!
I know of just one permanent deacon in the U.S. who, after many years of service, went on to the priesthood. But he was single to begin with.
Dcn. G.
As I grow older, and as I read more and pray more, I am much more comfortable now with these "puzzlements" (I like that word, Deacon Greg!).
When I was younger these kinds of things drove me away from the Church.
I sometimes feel called to reach out to young people, or anyone really, who questions and puzzles because I have done that too.
Today I am peaceful with my decision to remain within the Catholic Church, and to obey and to believe. It is a human choice I make every single day. I don't think it is easy, and I don't think it is supposed to be.
But it is rewarding and it is peaceful.
I look forward to many discussions and hopefully new doors opening on this issue in the Church.
Post a Comment