MARRIED GERMAN BEING ORDAINED CATHOLIC PRIEST

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In a rare move that needed the pope's approval, a Lutheran convert is being ordained as a Catholic priest in Germany and is being allowed to remain married to his wife - who has already become a nun.

The Cologne archdiocese said 61-year-old Harm Klueting is to be ordained as a Catholic priest Tuesday. Pope Benedict XVI gave him a special permission to remain married to his wife Edeltraut Klueting, who became a Catholic Carmelite nun in 2004. The couple has two grown children.

Klueting and his wife were both Lutherans when they married in 1977 and both converted to Catholicism several years ago.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, says the exception is rare but there have been similar cases.

He says "it doesn't happen every day."

WAPO