Can a former Roman Catholic priest join the Anglican church and get married?

Answer 1

Yes. This happened to a chaplain in a school I taught in many years ago. We were a joint Anglican/Roman Catholic school and had two chaplains, one Catholic and one Anglican. The Catholic chaplain was an assistant priest in a local RC church and was a young man in his 20s, who, like many young men, simply did what was natural and fell in love with a lovely Christian lady. What was worse, his ladyfriend became pregnant. He spoke to his parish priest who was supportive, but firm. The chaplain had sinned and gone against his vows. Termination was out of the question, of course, and so the suggestion was made that the child would be taken into care and adopted and the lady and he never to meet again. his ladyfriend's feelings or concerns were never taken into account. However, he wished to be with her and the child and support them as a loving husband and father. When the story came out, the RC church to which he belonged shunned him totally and would have nothing to do with him. Marriage in that church was out of the question. In desperation, he turned to our Anglican chaplain who realised that his RC friend was sincere, wanted desperately to do the 'right' thing and realised that, in the eyes of the RC Church (what about in God's sight? Or would Jesus have been more compassionate?) he had broken the rules of priesthood, and for that he had repented. The upshot was that our Anglican Chaplain married him and his ladyfriend in church and a few months later his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. They have gone on to have more children, and are now all active members of the Anglican Church where they live. I am not sure if this is the full answer to your question, as the question still arises, however, whether or not the RC chaplain, if he wished, would be able to practise as a priest in the Anglican church. As it happened, this particular person stayed as a layperson in the Church. But that does not mean to say that there would be 'rules' forbidding him to act as a priest in the Anglican Church. The process involved would mean interviews with a diocesan director of ordinands, and from there to chat with the local diocesan bishop, who would make the decision eiither to accept him as a priest straight away, or to recommend that he retrains in the Anglican church. If details of retraining are needed by you as the asker of the question, drop me a message on my message board, and I will fill you in on the processes involved, as I too am training for priesthood (late in life!). I think that the moral of this true story must be placed at the feet of Christ. One must ask: What would Jesus do? In my Bible I am certain that he would have had compassion on a person who showed contrition for what he had done and a willingness of repentance and a need to put things right. And what a loving end to a story that could have been so destructive if the original parish priest had had his (not God's?) way.