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The shortage of priests to serve the 1.1 billion-member Church was perhaps the key issue in the synod, which closes ceremonially with a papal mass on Sunday in St Peter's Square.

One bishop from Honduras drove the point home by saying he had only one priest for every 16,000 Catholics in his diocese.

I hope this bishop takes advantage of the generous offer made by the Bishop from Ghana whose seminary is overflowing with new priests and who wishes to send them 'west' in appreciation for their years of evangelization in Africa.

Reminder - for the more swarthy amongst you. EWTN will be carrying the closing Mass for the Synod and Canonization of 6 new saints, LIVE, beginning at 3:30AM EST. (Check their web site for replay times). I plan to be up with the basset boys :-o

Annulment is a subject on which I need enlightenment. Knowledgeable Catholics, help me.

I'd read somewhere that while the Western Church relies on a "juridical" approach to the bond of Matrimony (Tribunal, Canonical judges and lawyers, sworn testimony, etc.) the Eastern Church traditionally took a "pastoral" approach: that is, one's pastor could make the determination of whether the original attempted marriage was in fact sacramentally binding, or whether there was some defect from the beginning which would have made the vows null.

True or false?

Moreover: let's say you're convinced in your conscience that your initial attempted marriage was invalid, BUT your ex-spouse has either disappeared and can't be found, OR flatly refuses to cooperate with the annulment process (refuses to fill out a questionnaire, refuses to be interviewed, whatever) and therefore the process can't proceed.

At this point, IIRC, there was this principle called the "internal forum" which came into play. That is if the Marriage Tribunal's "external forum" is stalled permanently, through no fault of yours, your own testimony can be enough to authorize your pastor to regularize a second marriage.

I probably said this all wrong. Honest ignorance on my part. Can somebody fill me in?

(No, I'm not contemplating divorcing Mr. Don-o. He's my once-in-a-lifetime spouse, and I'm his; and boy, am I grateful for it.)

Celibacy in the Latin Church is a long-standing, self-imposed human discipline, nothing else. It is not Scriptural. Those priests who feel they cannot live up to that standard should seek other venues offered by the Church -- deaconate or Eastern-rite, or even Orthodoxy. All of these options offer valid Orders.

I really do not understand those who insist on being Latin-rite and not following the Latin discipline in this regard. It's the same with monasticism: if you can't live a monastic life, perhaps that vocation is not for you.

Nor do I understand those Catholics who want to be "a little" Catholic hut not live up to everything the Catholic Church professes, such as birth-control ban. I am really curious how many Catholic women are on some kind of artificial contraception device or method, or how many Catholics engage in extramarital sex. Does anyone have statistics on this?

Repeatedly brining up the alleged 1.1 billion Roman Catholics is a rather bogus attempt to inflate the real Church in my opinion. For, what exactly constitutes real Church? If those who "live in sin" are outside the Church (ex-communicated), because they are not allowed or should not be allowed to receive the Holy Communion, then obviously the number of real Catholics is not even close to that figure!

Let's stop pretending that a record of baptism makes one a "real Catholic" or "real Orthodox" for that matter -- or even real anything. Unless the paper reflects the values and life style of what that paper stands for, it is a worthless document physically and spiritually.

So, until, and if, the RCC defines exactly what constitutes "living in sin" and determines how many of its 1.1 billion registered members don't "live in sin," any such number should be qualified, because otherwise it is clearly and often deliberately misleading.

It was my understanding that the CHURCH IS MADE UP OF SINNERS, not saints, and that includes the bishops, cardinals and even the Pope. So, each and every one of us "lives in sin" even those boastful Pharisaical ones who claim to be holier than thou. So, if we counted all those who "live in sin" our churches ought to be empty!

Finally, there is a sense of futility in all this: teh RCC still acts as if morality, faith, etc. can be ligislated! Those who are denied Eucharist in one Catholic parish can go to another and receive communion where he or she is unknown. How is the priest going to know that such and such is still married as far as the Church is concerned and lives in sin when most Catholic parishes don't even expect those receiving the Eucharist to do a confession?!?

The same is true of the Orthdox churches as well. I can go to any Orthodox Church, confess (not necessarily everything), receive absolution, and receive the Eucharist. The burden is not on the Church hierarchy, but on me; it is something we will answer for individually. The duty of the church is to steer us in the right direction; the Church cannot order us to be good Catholics/Orthodox. So the real size of the Church is known only to God and when we refer to the numbers of who "belongs" to whom it should be qualified with the words "registered but not necessarily practicing" Catholics/Orthodox. A priest will be celibate if he believes in celibacy as the highest discipline of the Church and is so removed from human passions that he can resist them. CELIBACY CANNOT BE LEGISLATED.

A "celibate" priest, who is celibate only on paper, will continue to "live in sin" through looks, thoughts and some even by deeds, and no statements from any number of bishops (who no doubt are also sinners) will change that fact.

Ultimately, it is up to the individual to live a Christian life of the Church and no rules of pronouncements of the hierarchy will make anyone conform -- the change has to come, like our prayers, "from the heart," as Thomas Merton says, and that is a true and only conversion, and is known but only to God.