Question about Catholic priest

Is he leaving just the priesthood or leaving the Church altogether? If he's leaving the Church altogether because he's angry, bitter, or for whatever reason, he probably would not be concerned about following any sort of Church rites.

Back several years ago, the priest who married my husband and me decided to leave the priesthood and marry a woman he met. Not only did he leave the priesthood, he left the Catholic Church completely. As far as I know, he merely turned in a resignation to the Bishop, married the woman in another church, and he eventually became a Lutheran minister.

Another priest that I know of did break his vow of chastity and got "caught," i.e. the woman got pregnant. He, too, was forced to resign from the priesthood. In his case, however, I believe he and his new wife remained Catholic. He just could not remain a priest.

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The Catholic Church's policy is "once a priest, always a priest." Even if you get the boot you're still techinically considered an ordained priest, since you've recieved the sacrament of ordination. But a priest can be laicized, which means he's no longer permitted to perform any priestly duties. But he'd still be a Catholic. Laicized priests can also get married.

A priest who's been laicized can theoretically be reinstated upon appeal. And if it's a dire situation - like they're the only priest available to a dying person - they can still hear confessions and do last rites and so forth. But it's gotta be an emergency.

I believe either the priest's direct superiors in the church hierarchy (so definitely his local bishop, or if he's part of a religious order, the superior general or whatever...probably some other people too) or the Vatican itself can laicize a priest for misconduct. A priest who want to quit I believe has to request to be laicized.

As far as breaking vows, it depends on the situation, and whether he intends to continue his misconduct. If they've stopped doing whatever it is and haven't hurt anyone in the process, they probably wouldn't be laicized.

Joining the military I think automatically gets you laicized...

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It really depends on what vow he broke and how seriously he broke it for what kind of trouble he'd get in.

Diocesan priests technically don't make vows, they make solemn promises of celibacy and obedience to the diocesan bishop. Breaking the latter, unless it's something very serious, is likely to incur less punishment than breaking the former. (The kind of priests who take vows are those in religious orders - Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, &c.)

Suppose the bishop forbade his priests from writing guest editorials or letters to the editor or whatever that were critical of a particular diocesan policy, for whatever reason, and the priest wrote one anyway. Canon 1371 #2 suggests that disobeying his bishop and persisting in doing so would result in "a just penalty" - probably public censure, in modern times, but maybe being reassigned to a convent or a nursing home somewhere. For something as minor as the example I gave, a reprimand might be all that he got.

Suppose instead the priest started dating a woman who was not his parishioner, not coerced, of legal age, not married, and so forth. That doesn't technically violate the promise of celibacy (he's not marrying her) but he's still doing something that for normal people leads to marriage, so he'd get a much sterner reprimand and be told to stop.

If he secretly married that woman instead, Canons 1394 & 1395 say that he would be suspended (Canon 1333), which would mean that he couldn't lawfully do any of the things that his ordination made him able to do, or receive any privileges of being a priest. The suspension would be "latae sententiae", meaning a bishop wouldn't have to know about it and pronounce the sentence - it would happen "automatically". Without a dispensation of some sort, he could not validly marry anyone anyway - it wouldn't just be against the rules, the Church would consider no marriage to exist at all. (Canon 1087)

He could also be excommunicated (Canon 1331) in which case he would not be permitted to receive any sacraments either. (More things that could happen to him.)

If he wanted to leave the church entirely, as far as I know all he would have to do is notify his bishop. Formally and publicly joining any other religious group would be an act of apostasy, which incurs excommunication "latae sententiae". If he continued to act as a Catholic priest, canon law indicates that he should receive "a just penalty". (Canons 1364 & 1365)

Canons 1381, 1384, and 1398 cover more things he could do wrong, indicating, in general "just penalties", which I suppose would be up to his bishop.

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