In a rare move that needed the pope's approval, a Lutheran convert
was ordained Tuesday as a Catholic priest in Germany and is being
allowed to remain married to his wife — who has already become a nun.
Harm
Klueting, 61, was ordained by Archbishop Joachim Cardinal Meisner in a
private ceremony at the city's seminary, the Cologne archdiocese said.
Pope
Benedict XVI gave Klueting a special permission to remain married to
his wife Edeltraut Klueting, who became a Catholic Carmelite nun in
2004.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, said the exception is rare but there have been similar cases.
"It doesn't happen every day," he said.
Klueting
and his wife were Lutherans when they married in 1977 and both served
as Lutheran clerics before converting to Catholicism several years ago.
They have two grown children.
The Cologne archdiocese said in a
statement that the couple would not have to take the traditional vow of
celibacy as long as they remain married — a highly unusual move since
celibacy is normally a key requirement for Catholic priests.
Klueting and his family could not be reached for comment, and it was not clear whether they still lived together as a couple.
Lombardi said he didn't have any specific information about the Kluetings, including what the pope said about the case.
Klueting
is a professor for historical theology at the University of Cologne and
teaches Catholic theology at Fribourg University in Switzerland.
From
now on, he also will provide services as a spiritual counsellor for
university students.
The archdiocese published pictures of the
ordination ceremony showing Klueting with short grey hair and a beard,
wearing a simple white priest vestment as he received his blessings from
Meisner, who was wearing a festive yellow embroidered robe and a golden
cardinal's hat.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII first allowed clergymen
who had converted to Catholicism to remain married, the Cologne diocese
said in its statement.
However, each case has to be approved by the pope
himself, the statement said, adding that in the past married priests
also had been ordained in the German cities of Hamburg and Regensburg.
Last
month, three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests
in London, becoming the first ex-bishops to take advantage of a new
Vatican system designed to make it easier for Anglicans to embrace Roman
Catholicism.