Married Priest Will Be the First in Diocese

Gregory Elder, an Episcopalian turned Catholic priest, is poised to become the first married priest in the million-member Diocese of San Bernardino.

Elder and the diocese were informed Friday of the decision. Elder said he was told that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, personally presented his application to the dying Pope John Paul II.

Elder, who has two children ages 16 and 18, was an associate pastor at Trinity Episcopal Church from 1991 until he converted to Catholicism in 2003. Before Pope John Paul died on April 2, he allowed Elder to be ordained into the Catholic clergy through a rarely invoked exemption to Canon Law. An ordination date has not yet been set.

Since 1983, about 80 former Episcopal priests in the United States have been ordained as Catholic priests through the exemption, said the Rev. William Stetson, director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. To be eligible, a candidate must convert to Catholicism and find a bishop to sponsor him. Then the applicant undergoes theological and psychological evaluations.