The Catholic Church in Korea has lost four priests to the Anglicans in recent years, with marriage cited as the most important reason. “They want to marry and at the same time serve as pastors,” Anglican Fr Peter Lee Kyong-nae, himself a former Catholic seminarian, told UCA News. Two more Catholic priests are currently preparing to become Anglican priests, he added.
“The priests made an honest and courageous decision to leave the Catholic Church in order to build a family, and they gave up all the privileges they enjoyed in the Catholic Church,” Fr Lee said.
Fr Abraham Kim Gwang-joon, secretary general of the Provincial Office of the Anglican Church of Korea, confirmed that the Catholic Church’s requirement of celibacy was a major factor in the priests’ decision.
“There are various personal reasons, but marriage is the most important,” he said.
It is not difficult for Catholic priests to join the Anglican clergy although they must pass a screening process and study Anglican theology for a year.
“The Anglican Church sees the Catholic Church as a brother Church inherited from the Apostles, so we recognize Catholic priestly ordination as valid as ours,” Fr Lee explained.
Priestly celibacy was a hot discussion topic after Pope Benedict recently made it easier for Anglicans to join the Catholic Church.
In the apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus”, issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Nov. 9, married Anglican priests are allowed to be ordained Catholic priests on “a case by case basis.”
It is generally known that many of those priests making the move from Anglicanism to Catholicism are doing so because they disagree with the ordination of women and the recognition of homosexual priests in the Anglican Church.
The Korean Anglican Church is relatively liberal on such matters, particularly the ordination of women, Fr Lee says. It has ordained 14 women priests since 2001.
“Lots of elderly people are skeptical about the leadership of women priests, but as time goes by, the situation becomes better,” he said. “But on homosexual priests, we do not recognize them yet.”
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