Another Stadium Church?

In a move that rivals Lakewood Church's recent conversion of the Compaq Center in Houston, Texas for use as a megachurch building, the Kingsway International Christian Centre in London, home to some 12,000 congregants, proposed this week to solve two problems at once by building a stadium for the upcoming 2012 Olympics in London and then moving into the facility themselves once the games are over.

The church's land is on the site of a proposed Olympic complex and the senior pastor said he believes the congregation was denied permission to build an arena on the land earlier because of London's plans for the Olympic bid.

Rebecca Barnes, editor

Not only is the church willing to build the Olympic arena on their land, they will pay for it at an estimated cost of 36.2 million GBP (US$65.3).

Renovating the Compaq Center also sounded outrageous when first proposed.

The husband of but one wife—married priests convert to Catholicism

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported today that The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., may soon have its first married priest.

According to the story: "Jeffrey Hopper, a former Episcopal priest who converted to Catholicism in 2003, is a newly ordained Catholic deacon who is on track to be ordained a priest next May …"

Reportedly, Pope John Paul II approved a little-used provision in 1980 that allows former Episcopal clerics, who may be married, to become Catholic priests. Of course a married priest stands out among centuries of tradition dictating that priests be celibate.

That makes it even stranger that I found two oddball stories about married priests, within a week.

Reuters reported Aug. 22, that Spain's Roman Catholic church has for the first time allowed a former Anglican minister to be ordained as a priest.

David Evans, 65, from Zimbabwe is married with two children. He converted to Catholicism and the Vatican approved his ordination.

I did a little digging and found others in India, England, Indiana and California.

Of course there have always been priests who leave the priesthood to marry, and there are also those who stay even though they are no longer recognized by The Vatican. These men insist they are not invalid as priests simply because they marry and according to a Los Angeles Times report, more and more Catholics are accepting them—apparently especially when these rebel priests will marry people entering second marriages or gay marriages (both still big no-no's in the Catholic Church.)

Married Catholic priests who come to the church as converts from other denominations are more likely to be conservatives—citing the ordination of women or other liberal decisions within their own groups as a reason for leaving.

Although a Red Wing, Minn., woman may challenge not only the celibacy mandate for Catholic priests, but the men-only mandate as well. She was ordained a deacon this summer, the last formal step in the process of becoming a Catholic priest. Of course this gender bender will not be recognized by the Catholic Church—at least not this year.