Posted on 01/31/2004 5:52:33 AM PST by ninenot
Lay volunteers are surveying diocesan and religious order priests in at least 52 of the country's 195 Roman Catholic dioceses to document how many think the requirement of mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests should be openly discussed by church leaders.
The effort is being coordinated by two national reform groups that advocate the ordination of married men and of women - the Chicago-based Call to Action and the Cleveland-based FutureChurch.
It is another in a series of ripples that were set in motion last year when 169 priests in the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese sent signed letters to the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops advocating optional celibacy for diocesan priests as one way of keeping the sacraments available amid a worsening shortage of priests.
"Look what Milwaukee started," said Linda Pieczynski, a past president of Call to Action. "All we can hope at this point is to have some ongoing dialogue, because we recognize that none of the bishops is probably going to speak out against what Rome has said, not under this current pope."
Priest associations in several parts of the country echoed the Milwaukee priests' call or voiced support for open discussion without taking a position. However, they represented a minority of priests in their areas.
The National Federation of Priests' Councils, recognizing priests are divided, also urged the hierarchy to have open discussions.
Meanwhile, 90 diocesan priests, representing 60% of the priests in the Diocese of Arlington, Va., supported mandatory celibacy.
Organizers of the survey effort hope to provide better documentation - and thereby help keep the issue alive - by ensuring anonymity.
"Priests are fearful of negative responses from their boss, so they would be more apt to respond anonymously," said Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch.
Results from five dioceses produced high enough return rates to show generally strong support for the question, "Do you favor an open discussion of the mandatory celibacy rule for diocesan priests?"
Those results, excluding respondents who were unsure:
Dean Hoge, a sociologist at Catholic University of America who has written about and studied the priesthood extensively, said those results and return rates could be considered representative of all priests, with a margin of error of plus or minus 10%, even though response rates vary.
"You can say that a majority of the priests already favor the idea and an even higher percentage favor discussion of the idea," Hoge said. "This is not surprising, because past studies, even the best studies, have shown that priests are ready for discussing."
The most recent survey Hoge is aware of - one he worked on in 2001 - showed that 56% of all priests and 53% of diocesan priests thought celibacy should be a matter of personal choice for diocesan priests.
Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. bishops conference, has opposed reopening discussion of the issue, saying celibacy had been reaffirmed over the years by popes, the Second Vatican Council, subsequent synods of bishops, and national conferences of bishops.
Proponents were heartened last year when Chicago's Cardinal Francis George supported having some type of discussions and said he would bring the matter up with Gregory.
Chicago archdiocesan spokesman Jim Dwyer said Friday that no decisions had been made about such discussions.
Again, Andrew Greeley, the notorious sociologist, would not agree with you..
As for counseling, one social worker here was told off by a client who said she "really didn't understand" because she never suffered from her problem. The social worker replied: I see criminals, people getting divorce, spousal abusers, drug addicts and neurotics all the time. If I had experience in every problem I treated, I wouldn't be a good counseler.
Greeley claims that because a priest is celibate, he is approachable by women who have problems and therefore makes a better counseler. (greeley says that we need women priests so men can also have such a counseller, but that is another discussion).
The idea of celibacy is about holiness.
People say that Catholic priests don't marry, and that is true. But Orthodox priests don't marry either: Both Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic churches, however, do allow married men to become priests.
And celibate monks are common in Hinduism and Buddhism
The reason is twofold: First, an unmarried person can spend full time to work for God ( I wwas a missionary and turned down marriage proposals in school so I could do this work. Now that I am married, I have to put my husband first)
And the second reason is that there is time for deep prayer. The crisis in the priesthood (and in many religious orders) is not about marriage, but because holiness and prayer were displaced by "social work" as the main reason to be for the priesthood and religious life...to translate this into marriage, it's like saying that cleaning the house and working is the reason to be for the married life, and so it's okay to ignore making love with one's spouse...I see many marriages on the rocks because people ignore the fact that love is the basis of marriage, just like love of God is the basis for the priesthood, and that one needs to make that relationship a priority
Frankly, I was not planning on visiting this thread again.
I will not jump through hoops for you.
That said, I will indulge you this far: I don't have Latin. I have French, a little German and some Greek.
I have NOT read the book you cited, so I cannot offer a review.
it is clear that we will not agree, and rather than continue to diatribe and engage in invective, and perhaps cause more angst, I withdraw.
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