Secular clergy

See also: Diocesan priest

The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.

Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order. While regular clergy take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and place themselves under a monastic rule (regulum), secular clergy do not take vows, and they live in the world (saeculum). They are still bound to Canon law, which for Latin Rite priests means that they are bound to obligations of celibacy and obedience. Like regular clergy, secular clergy are also bound to the recitation of the Divine Office.

Secular priests were historically allowed to get married before and after ordination. Later on, they could only marry before ordination, as is still the practice in Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In 386, Pope Siricius sent the declaration Cum in unum to numerous ecclesiastical provinces, authoritatively interpreting that the Pauline text "a bishop must be the husband of one wife" to mean a cleric must have been married only once and was to live a life of celibacy after ordination. Pope Siricus personal interpretation was widely ignored around the Western Church as evident, for instance, in the biographies of popes, bishops, and numerous priests who were married and begot children after the year 386. Although clerical celibacy had been practiced early in some parts of the Western Church based on local or regional ecclesiastical legislations, it was only in the year 1139 that the Second Lateran Council made it a written universal law for all priests of the Latin rite. The law of clerical celibacy is not a divine law but a church law that can be rescinded by a pope and an ecumenical council.

A number of intra-Church conflicts have occurred due to the tensions between regular and secular clergy. The secular clergy, in which the hierarchy essentially resides, always takes precedence of the regular clergy of equal rank; the latter is not essential to the Church nor can it subsist by itself, being dependent on bishops for ordination.

One of the roots of the Philippine Revolution was the agitation of native secular priests for parish assignments. The powerful religious orders were given preferential treatment in these assignments and were usually Spaniards who trained in European chapters. The agitation led to the execution of the "Gomburza filibusteros."

The secular clergy in contemporary times is referred to as the "diocesan" or (in the case of an archdiocese) "archdiocesan" clergy.

Thomas Becket is a patron saint of secular clergy. John Vianney is patron saint of priests, especially parish priests. Stephen is patron saint of deacons.

Orthodox Church

In the Orthodox Church, the term "secular clergy" refers to married priests and deacons, as opposed to monastic clergy (hieromonks and hierodeacons). The secular clergy are sometimes referred to as "white clergy", black being the customary color worn by monks.

Traditionally, parish priests are expected to be secular clergy rather than being monastics, as the support of a wife is considered necessary for a priest living "in the world".