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He Has Two Wives Catholic Priest Shares His Life with Spouse of Almost 40 Years and Church By Bill Tammeus The Kansas City Star March 18, 2006 http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/14124475.htm FRONTENAC, Kan. — The Rev. Robert McElwee clearly does not meet expectations most people have for Catholic priests. Consider: A married Catholic priest? Kids? Grandkids? Yes, and he even opposes the idea of married priests, though not priests riding Harleys. McElwee is one of about 80 married Catholic priests in the United States who have been ordained under rules the late Pope John Paul II established in July 1980. Like most such priests, McElwee first was an Episcopal minister. He was ordained a Catholic priest almost 23 years ago and has served Sacred Heart for 6 1/2 years, in addition to being chaplain at the Newman Center at nearby Pittsburg State University in southeast Kansas. To gain more understanding of what ministry is like for a married priest, The Kansas City Star interviewed McElwee. His answers have been edited for length and clarity. Q. Tell me about your move to the Catholic Church. A. I left the Episcopal Church (in Fort Scott) to be Catholic, not to be a Catholic priest. I did not know the Holy Father had given permission for that. I found out about it on the radio. I had turned in my resignation (from the Episcopal Church) 24 hours earlier. I remember it was hot. I had the car windows rolled down in my old Pinto. The muffler was roaring. I was talking out loud to Jesus, which is not normally my style, but I was saying stuff like, "What do I do now?" I normally don't talk out loud to Jesus, and I normally don't get answers over the radio, but I stopped the car and turned around and went back to Fort Scott. When I got there my wife, Ginger, came out and said, "Did you hear?" I said, "Yes." And she said, "What are we going to do?" And I said, "I don't think Catholic priests should be married." And she said, "Well, God opened that door, so you ought to at least try to walk through it." So I wrote a letter to Bishop (David M.) Maloney of Wichita, known to be theologically conservative. I was fairly confident I'd receive a letter in a few months saying, "Thanks, but no thanks," and then I'd move to Wisconsin and eat cheese and drink beer and work on Mercedes, which is what I was going to do. But within four or five days I received a letter back saying he'd be happy to support me in this matter. Did you leave the Episcopal Church for theological reasons? Moral reasons. Can you explain that? Well, abortion. They (Episcopalians) dress like the pope and think like Ralph Waldo Emerson, is the way I explain it. Their moral ground shifts all the time. When I left the Episcopal Church, my diocese had joined an organization for abortion rights. I introduced a motion that this membership be withdrawn, and it was literally pushed away. When I turned in my resignation, (someone) called and said, "You can't resign over a small issue like abortion." And I said, "I don't think abortion is a small issue." If I can tell my daughters that they can kill their unborn babies in their womb, how am I going to tell them not to cheat on a spelling test? That was the occasion. The cause was the issue of authority. I do not think moral issues are decided by democratic means. Did you grow up Episcopalian? No. My mother was a nonpracticing Nazarene. My grandmother probably had more to do with what spiritual training I had, which was in the Baptist Church. Southern or American? Southern, in all its pride and glory. I was baptized when I was 10 or 11 and accepted Jesus as my savior at First Baptist Church of Wichita. Both my mother and my grandmother, who didn't like each other and sometimes didn't like me either, did agree on their dislike for the Catholic Church. That's what I knew about Christianity, which is why I became an atheist in my high school days — and remained so until I found my way into the Episcopal Church. I've often thought of the Episcopal Church as kind of my stepmother, leading me to my real mother. It was easy to join because they didn't require much. I joined them for that reason, and I left them for that reason. After the bishop replied to your letter, what happened? It was about a three-year process that I had to go through to be ordained (as a Catholic priest). It was a very involved, complicated and painful experience. It was financially disastrous. I lost insurance benefits, retirement, house, the whole nine yards. Finally I got a job teaching in Wichita at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School for $500 a month, and the rent was $550. My wife has a master's degree in medieval literature, so she got a job teaching at Bishop Carroll, too. Between the two of us we made enough money. I was ordained secretly. I was ordained to the diaconate in Bishop (Eugene J.) Gerber's private chapel. He just called me up one day and said, "If you want to be ordained a deacon, show up tomorrow. You can bring your wife and kids. But come dressed as a civilian, leave dressed as a civilian, and don't tell anybody about it." Then the next month I was ordained to the priesthood in a chapel of a small convent, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters in Wichita, and I was made their chaplain. Does your experience suggest to you that the Vatican should change its rules about a celibate priesthood? No. Is your opposition to married priests based on the divided loyalty issue? Yes, that. You're always cheating somebody. A married priest is a bigamist. The priesthood is not just like being a minister. I've been a minister, and I can tell you the difference. It's like the difference between being a baby sitter and a parent. You do the same function sometimes, but you're always a parent. The priesthood is something you are, not something you do. That ontological difference is taxing. The person is in the position of constantly being pulled in two equally powerful, equally demanding directions, and legitimately so. Another reason I'm against it is because it is grossly unfair to the wife and family. It's also about the sign value of the priesthood. The celibate priest has put his life where his mouth is. His very existence is a testimony to supernatural reality. Married ministers never attract the fascination, the anger, the misunderstanding, the whatever that a celibate priest does. That commitment is a very, very powerful witness to the world. It seems to me the priesthood is about mystery. It's about straddling two worlds. For someone whose life is dedicated to connecting those two worlds, being a conduit between those two worlds, the advantage for someone who is celibate is they have a witness with their life and an authenticity and a credibility with folks that others of us don't have. A married priesthood would cheapen that. Priests being married is a bad idea. If I were the pope, I never would have allowed it. If I were my bishop, I wouldn't have permitted it. I certainly wouldn't have taken one on in my diocese. But I've been treated well by the people and by my fellow priests. It's easy to dislike me but not because I'm married. You've been married how long? It will be 40 years in August. Did you find in the scandal of priests abusing children that some of your celibate compatriots got accusatory stares, if nothing else, and you didn't? No, I did, too. I was out swinging my grandkids here yesterday afternoon and thinking, "I hope nobody goes by and sees this." We've been told we can't be seen alone with kids and can't be alone with kids. That whole scandal was awful. I was talking to a girl the other day who is getting ready to join the church at Easter, and her parents are all upset wanting to know what in the world she'd be doing joining a church that has ministers like that. This isn't going to go away for a while. Nor should it. Right. That was so evil and so discouraging and perverted. And would you also say badly handled by a lot of bishops? Gee, yeah. It was horribly handled. In defense of the bishops — which I'm not known for — part of what happened was they fell prey to all the usual things about trying to cover up things. And part of it was the whole seal of confession thing. If I go to my bishop for confession, he can't use that against me. The bishops fell prey to the notion of counseling and psychology. And I'm a marriage and family therapist. But that whole social science, therapeutic world is nuts. The bishops sent them away, and they'd been "cured" and sent back. So now the idea was we just don't say anything about it, we send them someplace else, give them a fresh start, and we can go on with it. It was the wrong thing to do. Tell me about being a Harley rider and why. I never do anything moderately. If something's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. That's why I'm a Catholic. I'm dangerous because I'm restless, and I'm driven to ask the next question. If you got to Catholicism through the Episcopal Church, did you get to Harley's through … Hondas. Yes, I did. I started riding a Honda. That's exactly what happened. I thought if I'm going to ride a damn motorcycle, I may as well go for the real thing. A few months ago you led a funeral for a 16-year-old girl killed in a car accident not far from here. What comfort can you or the church offer to a family grieving that kind of loss? This couple (parents of the girl) the previous August had been riding down the road on their own motorcycle, and suddenly the mom blacked out and almost fell off the motorcycle. They had to take her to the hospital, and they spent two days trying to find out what happened to her. They were already aware of their mortality. So they could deal with that. When you're going down the road 85 or 90 miles an hour about 4 inches off the concrete, and there's nothing between you and the concrete except your T-shirt, you're constantly aware that life is fragile. You are thankful for it, you protect it and you enjoy it, and you use it, but you also recognize that it will come to an end. In this particular instance, the parents loved their daughter, they were happy with their daughter, they liked their daughter. There wasn't any regret about how they should have said this or should have done that. The thing that appeals to me about Christianity is that nobody in the New Testament gets out alive either. Christianity, properly understood, does not promise an antidote to pain or to death. It says there's more. But it makes no claim that you can somehow slide through this world without being touched by it. I think the strongest selling point that the Catholic Church has is our funerals. It says a lot about what we believe, a lot about grief and hope. It doesn't deny the reality of death. That's why Catholicism is so deeply important to me. It's the glue that holds my life together. To reach Bill Tammeus, call (816) 234-4437 or send e-mail to tammeus@kcstar.com . Visit his Web log at http://billtammeus The McElwee file Position: Pastor, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Frontenac, Kan. ( www.frontenacsacredheart.com) More on the Web: marriedpriests.org. |
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