Posted on 08/13/2006 7:31:18 AM PDT by Gamecock
Who are we? CITI is a lay organization that locates, recruits, and promotes the availability of married and other resigned Roman Catholic priests to fill the spiritual needs of God's people. According to church law (canon law), "Once a priest, always a priest." Therefore, married priests are not "ex" or "former" priests, they are still priests. In fact, Canon Law says they cannot refuse to ministry to someone who asks (Canon 843). Other canons
Whom do we serve? With a growing number of Catholics no longer attending church, more than 70 percent by a recent survey (CARA, 1996), and the growing shortage of un-married parish priests, married Roman Catholic priests are available for spiritual and sacramental ministry to anyone who asks for their help. They respond positively and non-judgmentally to Roman Catholics who have not attended a parish for some time or feel uncomfortable approaching their local parish priest at a time of need. Jesus always acted quickly to help people. Jesus never turned anyone away, and neither will married priests. Our ministry is ecumenical and open to Christians of all traditions.
Our ministries? Married priests provide spiritual guidance, counseling, home Masses, first or second marriages, funerals, confession, and other spiritual services. Like the early church that was closest to Jesus, the ministry is home-based. Married priests make "house calls". We are working towards the day when church authorities will welcome married Roman Catholic priests back to their local parishes. Many bishops clandestinely support the peacemaking efforts of Celibacy Is The Issue and look forward to the day when the officials at the Vatican will allow them to welcome married priests back into full parish ministry.
All contributions are tax deductible CITI Ministries is a tax-deductible (501.c3) charity. Your contributions fund our toll-free number (1-800-PRIEST 9), this web site, an interactive Internet and other discussion forums for married priests, and many opportunities to resolve issues affecting the Catholic Church as well as healing services to be scheduled throughout the country. Never before in the history of the church or in the history of Catholic church reform has there been such an opportunity to effect optional celibacy and restore integrity in the Church. Catholics are sitting in the driver's seat. All they need to do is invite married priests to celebrate Mass in priest-less parishes. Recently a canon lawyer at Leuven University chose CITI and Rentapriest for her dissertation study. Her conclusion is that the people have the right to call upon married priests for ministry. (A copy is available in our online Bookstore). Canon Law says they can and that married priests cannot refuse the request (Canon 843). Let's work together and make this happen. Your financial assistance will help us make more people aware through various efforts.
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from the "Quick facts" secton of the web page:
One out of every three Roman Catholic priests in the United States has transitioned from celibacy to the married priesthood. The total is over 20,000 - that's an average of over 400 married priests per state who are available to serve in their local parishes. There are over 110,000 married priests world-wide. In recent polls, more than seventy percent of American Catholics favor a married priesthood.
It is important to make some distinctions in order to fully understand the significance of the married priesthood in today's Church:
Priest / Cleric - Priesthood is a vocation, a spiritual calling from God to serve. The status of Cleric is a political position of authority in the institutional church. Because we have married, we have been dismissed from the clerical state. We are no longer clerics (office-holders) in the Church's hierarchy, but we retain the fullness of the priesthood. We are often referred to as "ex-priests". That term is inaccurate. We are really "ex-clerics". Ordination to the priesthood is permanent. One is ordained to be a priest, not a cleric. Holy Orders is a sacrament which confers priesthood. Priesthood is about spirituality and treating people as Jesus did in the Gospels. Being a Cleric is about having a special position in the church. Although we do not have clerical status, privilege, and support, we are still priests in good standing by virtue of Church law Canon 290, our education and ordination as priests, and twelve centuries of Roman Catholic tradition. The sacraments we provide are valid sacraments. For these reasons, we are now "married Roman Catholic priests". Once a priest, always a priest!
Priesthood / Mandatory Celibacy - The two are usually equated, but they are not the same. Good physicians are still good physicians - whether they are single or married. For the first fourteen centuries of our Church's history, priests, bishops, and 39 popes were married. Married priests and celibate priests worked side by side in service to the people of God. The majority of the celibate priests were monks. A string of worldly medieval popes worked to impose mandatory celibacy on the priesthood in order to centralize political power in Rome and seize the land of the married priest families throughout Europe. They succeeded at the Second Lateran Council in 1139. Married priests were forced to choose between their families and the priesthood they so loved. It has almost been forgotten that the married priesthood is the original and traditional priesthood of our Roman Catholic Church.
Today, God seems to be reviving the married priesthood, one priest at a time. Each married priest describes his departure from the professed-celibate clerical state as the following of a spiritual journey - one that has led him to marriage and family life - and back to the original and traditional priesthood of our Roman Catholic tradition. With thirty percent of priests now married, we feel that God is calling us back to our original balance and sending a clear message about the role of women in the Church. We believe that women have equal rights and the same potential as men for spiritual service in our Church. Married priests honor the feminine.
Most Catholics are unaware that Rome is ordaining married Protestant ministers into the priesthood and assigning them to parishes here in the United States. Rome is allowing them to remain married and providing support for their families. In ordaining to the priesthood over one hundred married Protestant ministers, the Vatican has, in effect, re-established the married priesthood in today's Roman Catholic Church. They have acted upon Pope John Paul II’s public statement that celibacy is not necessary for priesthood. By ordaining married Protestant ministers to the priesthood, the Vatican has changed the rules. In doing so, it has set a precedent that Catholics can now use to call upon their own married priests for Mass and the sacraments. By its own example, Rome has clearly announced to the world a new public acceptance of married Roman Catholic priests.
We married priests have added the sacrament of Marriage to the sacrament of Holy Orders. We now have experience in raising families and surviving in the real world. These experiences have given us insights and competencies that we would not have achieved if we had remained celibate clerics. People who know us believe that marriage has enriched our priesthood. They admire our integrity and our readiness to serve as priests when we are asked. Many bishops secretly support us and hope that the next Pope will reinstate all married priests so that the parish closures will end.
In response to a growing pastoral need and requests from individual Catholics, we married priests are offering our priesthood, not as clerics (office-holders in the institutional church), but as your equals, your spiritual friends, to help those in need through the Rent A Priest program.
Rent A Priest, 1-800-PRIEST-9, is a referral program that was started by Louise Haggett. Louise is a traditional Catholic grandmother who loves the Church and works to animate married priests and put them in contact with Catholics in need of spiritual or sacramental help. Please read Louise's letter to learn about the beginnings of CITI and the Rent A Priest program.
Our motto: Jesus never turned anyone away, and neither will married Roman Catholic priests.
I would be greatly surprised it were Bishop Olmstead?
so would I, and some of my friends I know who like to investigate this kind of stuff.
Following is info re:Canon
PART II : PENALTIES FOR PARTICULAR OFFENCES and TITLE III : USURPATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICES AND OFFENCES COMMITTED IN THEIR EXERCISE
http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/canon/c1364-1399.htm
Thanks for the apology. Can you understand though why I may feel some anger against the Catholic Church and it being justified?
We have youth in our Correctional facility who out of financial consideration that aren't being serviced and that is what really ticks me off.
As a non Catholic personally I don't care if a volunteer provides the services but I would certainly believe that the Catholic Church would, but apparently it doesn't.
"What you are saying should concern all Catholics in the diocese of Phoenix."
It is current, and yes, you would think it would.
I have read some of their material in the past but the paragaph that stands out is the following regarding their associations. The WCC has had its fangs in the Church for many years. They must surely gloat with affilation to these wayward priests.
"Through the ecclesial establishment of a religious society, Society of Christ's Priesthood, and affiliation with the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC) which is a member of the World Council of Churches, married Roman Catholic Priests can again acquire the ecclesiastical standing they lost when they married. Their ordination is valid in the eyes of ICCC"
Also, the following is some information:
CHAPTER IV : LOSS OF THE CLERICAL STATE
Can. 290 Sacred ordination once validly received never becomes invalid. A cleric, however, loses the clerical state:
1ƒ by a judgment of a court or an administrative decree, declaring the ordination invalid;
2ƒ by the penalty of dismissal lawfully imposed;
3ƒ by a rescript of the Apostolic See; this rescript, however, is granted to deacons only for grave reasons and to priests only for the gravest of reasons.
Can. 291 Apart from the cases mentioned in can. 290, n. 1, the loss of the clerical state does not carry with it a dispensation from the obligation of celibacy, which is granted solely by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 292 A cleric who loses the clerical state in accordance with the law, loses thereby the rights that are proper to the clerical state and is no longer bound by any obligations of the clerical state, without prejudice to can. 291. He is prohibited from exercising the power of order, without prejudice to can. 976. He is automatically deprived of all offices and roles and of any delegated power.
Can. 293 A cleric who has lost the clerical state cannot be enrolled as a cleric again save by rescript of the Apostolic See.
What if he refuses to resign? I had in mind something involuntary when I asked the question.
Thanks for the info.
This diocese has it's share of problems, that's for sure. I know some that will be interested in this.
"This diocese has it's share of problems, that's for sure."
I know this is off topic but I read an article in the Republic the other day that basically said that the Vatican was protecting three priests from the Phx diocese from being sent back to the US to be prosecuted for the sexual molestation of minors. Why would the vatican do that?
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0802priest0802.html
To me, I find this disturbing. 30 priests under investigation for crimes just from Phoenix alone?
A priest can be laicized and in full communion with the Church.
Pretty pathetic, isn't it?
This filthy scourge has been festering in this Diocese for many years. It's just recently that things are beginning to be "cleaned up" because the previous "bishop" always looked the other way (or out right threatened) if there were an allegation.
And yes, that was just *this* Diocese.
Instead of being called "Rent a Priest" they should be called "Rent a Dissident."
"I never really cared one way or the other about the issue of celibacy, but I don't think it has a bright future."
It has a 2000 year running history of success and devotion. I believe it has a much brighter future than you might imagine.
That article was recent, August 2 of this year about the three that are fighting extradiction to Maricopa and all the lawyer representing the Catholic Church can say is is that it is heartbreaking? I mean come on.
Why would the Vatican take accused priests at their word that they'd return to the US for prosecution?
And too, I'm not just saying that it is only Catholics do these things, they aren't. Alas, I'm off topic and maybe I'm just a little too sensitive about the whole issue. You know where I work.
But you don't read articles from other organized religions that protect those that are being accused from being brought before the court on charges. That does make the Catholic Church complicit.
From the article:
Paul Pfaffenberger, Arizona leader of the Survivors Network of those Accused by Priests, or SNAP, said the Salvatorian order was "complicit and morally responsible" for the disappearance.
According to the article, the Vatican did no such thing. They were not protecting him, he was under "house arrest" at the Rome Headquarters of his order, awaiting extradition. He got away.
The problem is with the order, for not keeping a better eye on him, not The Vatican.
That said, back to our regularly scheduled topic....
Isn't the order in the nation of the Vatican?
According to the article you sited, the Vatican had nothing to do with it. They weren't taking his word. It was turned over to the Italian court, and they ruled that he was to be extradited to face charges.
He was under house arrest at the Rome headquarters of his order. He got away. The Swiss Guards of the Vatican were not guarding him.
Please read what you sited.
By definition, celibacy inherently has no future. Celibates have to recruit new members from parties who don't hold to the same values/behaviors, in order to pass the practice on to another generation.
Not criticizing the practice per se, just saying that it's a "dead-end" in and of itself.
I'm not sure what you mean. They are not part of the Vatican gov't.
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