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My father, my aunt and practically every Catholic I know says the very same thing. I myself just can't put "eating meat on Fridays" on the same level as the priesthood. Eating meat on Fridays is on par with Communion in the hand or on the tongue, bowing instead of genuflecting, etc.

Eating meat on Friday, prior to 1966, was a mortal sin.

So is attending Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, and the bishops are moving those around now at will.

I see a big difference between those and a pastoral practice like bowing or genuflecting.

? I haven't been to a standing room only Mass since I was a kid. Empty seats all around, now.

You've got Churches on every street corner in the Northeast. We've got parishes here in Texas, where I live, that are bursting at the seams, at every Mass.

One priest serving a parish of 7000 families is not unheard of.

We have a married priest leading a parish about 25 miles from me. His parish can't support him so he "tag teams" with another parish and gets financial help from the archdiocese.

The financial excuse is the last refuge for opposition to married priests.

People, especially Americans, tend to pay for what they get. Protestants support their clergy well if they are well served by them.

Catholics are cheapskates; we're used to people who live in poverty serving us.

Dear sinkspur,

"Catholics are cheapskates; we're used to people who live in poverty serving us."

This sounds implicitly critical, that we should better support those who serve us, so that they can live well.

And certainly, your criticism is on the mark if we were to permit men to marry prior to ordination, and then have families. It would seem wrong to make them live in altogether modest circumstances. You compare to Protestant pastors. Indeed, some of the pastors in my area, who have large and successful churches, live rather comfortably, enjoying good salaries and benefits.

But you keep telling us that our priests and bishops should live lives of ascetism.

Which is it?

;-)

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