Married priest steps up to altar for Catholics
Former Episcopalian uses loophole to continue ministry after conversion
By Brad A. Greenberg
MEDIANEWS STAFF
March 18, 2007

CAMARILLO - When Bill Lowe preaches his first sermon as a Catholic priest in May, he will be the only clergyman in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with his wife, children and grandchildren listening from the pews.

Lowe, 68, is about to become the first married priest in the history of the country's largest Roman Catholic diocese.

"People are ready for this. They are ready for some married clergy," said Lowe, who retired in 2001 after 29 years as an Episcopal priest and converted to Catholicism soon after.

Lowe does not represent a sea change for the centuries-old requirement that priests remain celibate. Instead, he is the benefactor of an obscure order that Pope John Paul II issued in 1980. the rest