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Expanding the priesthood 
Catholic group works at grassroots level to open clergy to more than unmarried men By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press writer
 Lisa Frey has two contradictory visions of the future Roman Catholic Church.
In one, a priest shortage means Catholics often stay home on Sunday because Mass is a rarity.
But in Ms. Frey's preferred vision, Mass is said frequently because the priesthood has been expanded to include women, like her, and married men who aspire to ordination.
"I actually have begun to think if it's open to me, I would seriously consider seminary," said Ms. Frey, 38, a leadership council member of FutureChurch, a group working for grassroots Catholic acceptance of a priesthood not limited to unmarried men.
The organization has about 1,000 members, 40 percent in the Cleveland, Ohio, area where FutureChurch is based. There are several hundred more donors, some anonymous to avoid criticism from conservative Catholics.
Philosophically, FutureChurch has much in common with the bigger, Chicago-based Call to Action.
But whereas Call to Action generally lobbies on a larger scale for change in the Catholic Church, FutureChurch focuses on the parish level.
Ms. Frey, who is single, already has a feel for what life might be like in the priesthood: She serves with a priest and a nun as part of a three-member team running a suburban parish. 
A former teacher at a Catholic girls' high school, Ms. Frey has preached at communal penance services at the 1,200-family Church of the Resurrection in Solon, a Cleveland suburb.
Sometimes presiding at weekday prayer services, sometimes distributing communion, Ms. Frey also directs youth ministry and social justice programs at Resurrection. The priest in the trio handles liturgy matters like the Mass, but "we all sign checks," Ms. Frey said.
Nationwide, seminary enrollments have dropped 60 percent since 1965. Between 1980 and 1998, the number of priests in the United States decreased from 58,621 to 47,582 while the number of Catholics increased from 49.6 million to 61.5 million.
FutureChurch, founded in 1990 with the backing of Resurrection parishioners, distributes educational materials and encourages rank-and-file "pew Catholics" to lobby bishops to support ordaining women and married men.
"The Eucharist is at the core of everything we are about as a Catholic community," said Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch. "We think the gender or marital status of the presider is not nearly as important as having Mass available."
She is encouraged that Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has declined to condemn the efforts of groups like FutureChurch. (To avoid conflicts with critical bishops, some of her speaking engagements have been scheduled away from church property.)
Pilla, who will preside over the bishops' Nov. 16-19 meeting in Washington, responded to a request for comment on FutureChurch with a brief written statement saying that the group isn't a diocesan organization, doesn't have his approval and is responsible for its own programs. He has said he supports the Vatican position limiting the priesthood to unmarried men.
Michael S. Rose, 29, a conservative Catholic from Cincinnati who publishes several religious magazines, believes bishops should denounce such groups.
"I think it should be made clear that these people are working against the church," Rose said.
Dioceses where seminaries have emphasized traditional rituals like devotion to the Eucharist -- in which Catholics believe Jesus is physically present -- have done well recruiting young men, he said. As for women, Rose said, they have "quite a bit of say in the church's governance, especially on the local level."
The Rev. Lou Trivison, an early FutureChurch backer who retired two years ago as pastor of Resurrection, said Pilla never limited his right to speak out on the issue.
Parishioners never complained to him either, but Ms. Frey said the daily Mass crowd of 25 or 30 people drops about five or six if she or her nun associate leads a prayer service instead. "I don't know if our homilies are poor or (it's because) we're women," she said.
FutureChurch leaders say they will be patient. Sister Schenk sees her role as assisting in divinely inspired changes in due time. "I'm not doing this as much as supporting energies that are there for bringing forth new life in the church," she said.
Photo by The Associated Press
1. Lisa Frey, pastoral assistant at Church of the Resurrection in Solon, Ohio, is a member of FutureChurch, a group working for grassroots Catholic acceptance of a priesthood not limited to unmarried men.Pastoral assistant 2. Lisa Frey meets with the Rev. J. Mark Hobson before Mass at the Church of the Resurrection in Solon, Ohio. Frey aspires to ordination.
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