A Historic Day
Glory to Jesus Christ! It seems that the long standing prohibition on the ordination of married men to the Eastern Catholic priesthood in the diaspora is finally, officially, coming to an end. The prohibition came about because of two separate papal letters, Ea Semper and Cum data Fuerit . These two documents caused much turmoil in the Byzantine Catholic Church in America and lead to many Byzantine Catholics returning to the Orthodox Communion of Churches. Since Vatican II, the Eastern Catholic Churches have been working to restore, in the diaspora, the tradition of married clerics. Married Eastern Catholics priests have been slowly growing in the United States but officially the ban was still in place. With the upcoming publication of Acta Apostolicæ Sedis, vol. CVI, no. 6, June 6, 2014, a terrible wrong will be officially off the books and the Apostolic Tradition of the Eastern Catholic Churches to have both a married and celibate priesthood will be ...