The future of the Catholic Church: Will celibacy be a sticking point?

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The AP has a story about what the Catholic Church might look like now that it has invited conservative Anglicans to join it. Reporter Angela Brown profiles Saint Mary the Virgin Catholic Church in Texas, a former conservative Episcopal Church that converted to Catholicism years ago.

The 75-year-old priest is married, members sing from an Episcopalian hymnal and parishioners kneel at the altar to receive Communion.

Brown reports that since 1980, the Catholic Church has allowed U.S. Episcopal churches  to join it on a case by case basis.

The latest move by the Vatican — directed at those upset by the ordination of women, openly gay clergy, or the blessing of same-sex unions — takes that decision one step further…

The new effort by Pope Benedict XVI to make it easier for Anglicans worldwide to convert to Catholicism is considered part of his overall aim of unifying the church and putting a highly conservative stamp on it.

Although details have not been finalized, the U.S. bishops are expected to create the equivalent of a nationwide diocese with one leader to oversee Anglo-Catholic parishes. Currently, each parish answers to a local Catholic bishop.

What’s interesting, though, is that Italian journalists are reporting that the Catholic Church is delaying the publication of the apostolic constitution, the document detailing Anglicans’ conversion to Catholicism, because they’re still ironing out one issue: priestly celibacy.

“Everything suggests” seminarians in these future Anglo-Catholic communities “will have to be celibate like all their colleagues in the Latin Catholic Church.”

Earlier, I had blogged about the Vatican’s announcement and what it might mean for priestly celibacy. Married Anglican priests have been allowed into the Catholic Church for years, though they are few in number. I, along with other journalists, assumed the Church’s latest announcement could only mean that the number of Catholic married priests would increase — that priests in this new Anglo/Catholic diocese would be allowed to be married, much like the priest in the Texas church profiled by the AP. But, perhaps, this won’t be the case?

Well, maybe, maybe not. What I suspect will happen is Anglican priests already married will continue to be allowed into the church. Others, however, will be expected to remain celibate.