Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A New Blog For Wives Of Priests

I have long looked for a ways to share, listen and hear the voices of other women married to Catholic priests. Now I am happy to report that I hope to have found a way. I want to share information about a blog for priests' wives. It is called The Apostles Wives' Club http://theapostleswivesclub.wordpress.com/ . The author has chosen to to keep her identity private on the blog for many reasons which she address in her post To Be Or Not To Be Anonymous. The site can challenge our beliefs about ourselves, but it passes no judgement. The author is a wife of a Catholic priest and is looking for a place were we can all have a voice.

She started the blog because being married to a Catholic priest brings with it a lot of baggage and challenges that most marriages don't struggle with. The biggist challage of all is dealing with the fact that the Catholic Church believes that women married to priests are not wives at all and will never recognize their marriages.

There are many sites for married priest, but I have never seen a site or blog for wives of priests. I agree with the author that "the telling of our stories even bit by bit, and listening could bring tremendous healing" where it is needed and a stronger sense of the right to be who we are. Priest wives have long been ignored in the celibacy discussion. We have had no voice or power. The blog is new and I certainly hope it would grow because there is a need for it.

3 comments:

Rebel Girl said...

Marcella, I'm glad you started a blog for priest's wives but I suspect it would be more effective to just come out and say "this is who I am and this is what it is" than being an anonymous "Eve" -- unless you are working for the Catholic Church and would lose your job.

Marcella Paliekara said...

Hi Phoebe,

I wanted to contact you, and hoped I would find an email, but I couldn't. I haven't seen any evidence on The Apostles Wives Club that an anonymous author has bothered anyone, but maybe saying who you are is important.

Anonymous said...

I'm a writer in Montreal working on a story on married priests. If you could, or any of your readers could, help me contact married priests, it would be greatly appreciated.

I am specifically looking for Angligan/protestant converts who have been recognized by the Vatican.

geobou@rocketmail.com