Posted on 05/02/2004 5:53:26 PM PDT by Investment Biker
Savio Russo loved being a priest.
The Cincinnati man taught high school, counseled the sick and presided over baptisms, funerals and weddings.
But after 14 years, he felt something was missing. "It was a pretty exciting life," Russo, 59, says today. "But it was lonely."
He blames that loneliness on the celibacy required of priests, a rule that Russo says ultimately drove him from the priesthood. Now married with four children, he regrets that his desire for a family meant he could no longer be a priest.
Questions about celibacy are being raised as U.S. Catholics struggle with a severe priest shortage.
"How do you get more priests? Go to optional celibacy," says Dean Hoge, author of Evolving Visions of the Priesthood. "The priest shortage would be over."
A survey for Hoge's book found that 71 percent of lay Catholics and 53 percent of diocesan priests support optional celibacy.
But the church is not a democracy, and rewriting rules that have been in place for 800 years is no easy task. Any change in the celibacy rule would require the approval of the Vatican, which has shown little support for that move.
The pope believes a priest can best serve his flock if he is solely devoted to his church, and not distracted by demands of family life.
The archdiocese does have one married priest - the Rev. Gregory Lockwood, a former Lutheran minister. The church accepts ministers who convert from other faiths, even if they are married at the time.
"I'm glad they let me work, but I have a very special spouse," says Lockwood, who also has five kids. He's wary of optional celibacy because the priesthood is hard on families. "People really underestimate how much people depend on you," he says.
Other problems include the difficulty of supporting a family on a priest's $20,000 salary, the prospect of priests getting divorced and the pitfalls of transferring entire families to new parish assignments.
"It's one thing to move a priest from Cincinnati to Wapakoneta. It's another to move a priest, a wife and four kids to Wapakoneta," Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk says. "Many see ordained married men as a quick fix. It's not quick, and I'm not sure it's a fix."
Supporters of optional celibacy say Americans are transferred and juggle low-paying jobs all the time.
They believe that ending the celibacy rule would draw thousands more prospective priests to U.S. seminaries, where enrollments have dropped from 6,600 to 3,400 over the past 30 years.
"We are unnecessarily restricting the priesthood, and that's not serving the church well," says Sister Christine Schenk, director of the reform group, FutureChurch.
Now, now. Easy. We know where you are going with that :-).
All in the name of discipline. Stoke of a pen in the hand bearing the right kind of ring could change everything. But they won't unless things get really dire, and I guess overworked priests and priestless parishes and all the other messes aren't dire enough.
Time will tell. They may have to cave before it's over. If enough people screamed loudly enough, it probably could be made to happen. But people like the mystique of a celibate priesthood, I guess. I did, too, until I saw the downside.
Actually, if there were plenty of quality, celibate priests, I'd say leave well enough alone. But . . .
I don't think most Catholics would care, until they were confronted with the fact they had to provide a living wage to a priest's family.
That's one too many.
It has never been a problem for most protestant churches, but then they don't have so many schools to run and extra buildings to keep up.
It would complement your service to your country.
Catholics are accustomed to have clerics and religious who work for below poverty wages.
Protestants have to pay up, or get no services.
Catholics will be in the same predicament, not too many years hence.
The priest who married and left the active ministry is still ONTOLOGICALLY a priest. And he can still hear the confession and absolve a person who is in danger of death. In fact, if I am dying, I could tell the Pope to leave the room, and ask an "ex-priest" to hear my last confession. But other than that one case, an "ex-priest" is not allowed to carry out any other priestly function.
Incorrect. St.Paul's instructions to St. Timothy were not absolute in that only married men should be selected, quite the contrary. Your failure to mention the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself in Luke 18:28-30, Matthew 19:12, 27-30 and the importance of the priesthood of Melchisedech, from the Old Testament, with regard to the Catholic Priesthood proves that you don't know what you're talking about.
You have the nasty habit of leading some people on this forum, who aren't familiar with your modus operandi, into thinking that you speak for all Catholics in this country, you don't.
I certainly don't speak for the Catholic population of this country, but, if you don't think the population of this country would accept married priests, you aren't paying attention.
Join me in the diaconate.
We could use a determined, dedicated man like you.
It's a matter of Scripture. Celibacy is a higher calling praised by both Christ and St. Paul.
Catholic Priests cannot marry and remain active priests. The Pope has granted dispensations to a small number of married Protestant ministers who have converted to Catholicism and sought ordination in the Latin Rite. In the Eastern Rite married men can be ordained as priests but once ordained a single priest may not then get married. Bishops in the Eastern Rite are selected exclusively from celibates.
800 and counting.
And, the Anglican Dispensation only highlights the fact that married men can function effectively as priests in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.
Did you know that not a single one of these men has left the Catholic priesthood, nor has a single one of them divorced? And that's over 20 years while this dispensation has been in effect.
OH, and none of them have been implicated in the sexual abuse fiasco.
Perhaps you could be bit more clear. And, a bit less hostile.
That's a waste. Don't bury your talents, man.
No. But, at least I gave it a shot. For seven years.
Yet, I'm serving the Church as a deacon, and you're carping.
That's not failure, on my part.
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