The Rev. Rudolf Goethe was ordained a Roman Catholic priest last week, and the news raised something of a stir throughout the Christian world. The stir was not because Goethe* had been a German Evangelical pastor for more than 40 years, nor because he is 70 years old, though ordinations of septuagenarians to the priesthood are relatively rare. What caused all the flurry was that the Pope had granted Goethe a special dispensation to continue living under the same roof with his wife.
Pastor Goethe's interest in Catholicism began in 1940, while he was serving a prison term for speaking out against the Nazis. He began reading Catholic literature, later joined a study group. In 1949, shortly after his wife became a Catholic, Goethe entered the church himself. His bishop, the Rt. Rev. Albert Stohr of Mainz, asked special permission from the Pope for Goethe to become a priest while continuing to live with Frau Goethe, "as brother & sister." The Goethes, who are childless, expect to live in Mainz, where Goethe will do organizational work with groups of converts.
Though married men are permitted to become priests in most Eastern Rite Roman Cathohic churches, such permission has been otherwise extremely rare since the 12th Century.
The present Pope seems to be shaping a less categorical policy. On the heels of the news about Rudolf Goethe, it was announced that a papal dispensation is in process for another elderly German Protestant pastor who wishes to enter the priesthood while remaining married. Since he still must complete three years of study before being ready for ordination, the second pastor's name was not disclosed.
*Distant kin of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.