Posted on 11/27/2006 6:28:23 AM PST by VidMihi
BRUNSWICK - The Vatican this month reaffirmed its position that priests should be celibate. But Louise Haggett remains faithful to her belief that the Roman Catholic Church's celibacy rules need changing now more than ever. The church could grow its shrinking ranks of priests and touch many more lives by lifting its celibacy requirements, said Haggett, a lifelong Catholic who runs a nonprofit referral service for married priests. In the decade since Haggett launched her Rent-a-Priest Web site, more than 100,000 people have been married, buried, baptized or otherwise attended to by married priests who are listed on the site. Perhaps some day, Haggett said, church leaders will share her opinion. "The whole issue of celibacy in the church is nothing but a farce," she said. Haggett, 65, founded CITI Ministries -- the CITI stands for Celibacy is the Issue -- in 1992 after she couldn't find a priest in Maine to visit her mother in a nursing home in the weeks before her death. Following her mother's death, Haggett discovered there were countless priests who had left the church to marry but still felt a calling. So she launched Rent-A-Priest, which bills itself as "God's Yellow Pages" and lists more than 300 ordained priests, who happen to be married, in the U.S. and abroad. The priests perform marriages, baptisms, funerals, confessions, home Masses and other Catholic rituals for people who can't find a parish priest or don't meet church requirements to receive the sacraments.
(Excerpt) Read more at pressherald.mainetoday.com ...
Then the Vatican should allow priests to marry women. That would keep them celibate. As the old joke goes: "What food makes a woman stop having sex forever? ANSWER: Wedding cake...
No one is making him remain a Catholic. The vocations problem is one of a lack of faith, not a lack of married clergy.
Many Protestant sects and Orthodox Churches have similar vocations problems.
As an Eastern-rite Catholic, I'd at least like to see the restoration of the married priesthood in North America and elsewhere in our dioceses.
If ordinary Catholics were properly taught and were led by holy priests and bishops, the problem would start to reverse.
Why is it the Fraternity of St. Peter doesn't have a vocations problem? They have more applicants for their seminary than they have room for.
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