Dear Fr John I would be very pleased if you will kindly publish the attached article on the V2catholic site

Dear Fr John
I would be very pleased if you will kindly publish the attached article on the V2catholic site.
I am finding your web site site very interesting and try to log on to it most days.
God bless,
Tony Hoey (UK)

Thank you Tony for continuing to speak out about this important issue

2013-02-04 IF YOU ARE CONCERNED BY THE SHORTAGE OF PRIESTS - Married Priests Petition

The rule of celibacy, by which every man who wants to become an ordained priest in the Catholic Church must also embrace celibacy, is, on the face of it, doing an injustice to men who have a vocation to the priesthood but not a vocation to celibacy. These are two distinct vocations. We all know good men, priests, who have been laicised and God only know how many more have been turned away or have dropped out from seminary just for this reason. This is depriving the people of God of the ministry of these men. We cannot afford this at a time when, across the western world, parishes are being closed down for lack of priests and we know that the situation will get worse because of the high average age of our serving priests. Further, what does it say about our attitude to the sacrament of Matrimony if it would appear to be seen as making a man less worthy to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders?

Looking at the early church, Paul stands alone in his promotion of celibacy and I want first to look at what he says. I Corinthians chapter 7 is the frequently quoted text in this regard and I find it impossible to see how this text can be used to support the Church’s current position for the following reasons:
In this chapter Paul is clearly addressing all the Christians in Corinth and makes no reference to Presbyters/priests. So what holds good for one group holds good for all! Yet clearly we are not all called to be celibate. In In verse 1 & 2 he says: ”Yes, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman, yet to avoid immorality every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband”!

Paul makes it clear that what he says on this subject is his own opinion not Divine revelation: In verses 10 and 11 he writes about separation and divorce and stating that this ruling “is not mine but the Lord’s”. In verse 12 he goes on to say, “For other cases these instructions are my own, not the Lord’s.”!

In verse 31 we find out what his opinion is based on when he states, “Because this world as we know it is passing away.” In other words, Paul, like all or most of the Christians of his time, believed that he would see the end of the world in his lifetime. What he is saying is that since the end of the world is so immanent it is best to concentrate on preparing fort he next.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written about AD 57. Eight years later, in AD 65 he writes to Timothy instructing him that “the presiding elder” must, among other things, be “Husband of one wife ..............,a man who manages his own household well and brings his children up to obey him and be well behaved.” This is a passage he is writing about the clergy!

The other text that is quoted in support of the rule of celibacy for priests is Luke 18:28-30. In this Jesus tell his disciples that “anyone who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children will be rewarded in both this life and the next”. We should note here: a) Although this passage is quoted in all three synoptic gospels, it is only Luke (the faithful companion of Paul) who mentions a wife. b) The passage in all three gospels follows and is clearly linked to the passage about the rich young man and Jesus’ warning about the danger of riches. However there is nothing in Canon Law demanding a vow of poverty from priests. c) As with Paul above this is obviously a challenge that Jesus lays down to all of us. Attachment to riches and the things of this earth is detrimental to our relationship to God. So there would appear to no support in scripture for the demand that all clerics to be celibate.

In the first three to four centuries of the church history celibacy was not seen as important issue. George T. Dennis SJ of Catholic University of America says: "There is simply no clear evidence of a general tradition or practice, much less of an obligation, of priestly celibacy-continence before the beginning of the fourth century" History records that in the 3rd. Century, even in the West, there was a number of married Bishops who were in good standing with the rest of the Church.“ . Saint Hilary of Poitiers (315–68), a Doctor of the Church, was a married bishop and had a daughter named Apra, who was baptized together with her father, when he and his wife became Christians. Even in the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th centuries we had popes who were either married or the sons of married bishops. Pope Hormisdas (514–23) was the father of Pope Silverius (536–37). No statement is given on whether, among these, the children in question were born when their fathers were still laymen. It is quite clear that earliest church tradition does not support current church practice.

Celibacy imposed loneliness and a degree of isolation on most of our ordained priests. Surely we demand too much of them. We expect them to minister to and counsel married couples, to advise and support husbands and fathers, while they are not allowed the experience to support that ministry. Meanwhile the situation in our dioceses is getting worse, with parishes merging and churches being boarded up. And we know that short of a miracle, it will get worse still because the average of our serving clergy is so high.

How many decades have we now being praying for more vocations? Perhaps God wants us to act ourselves. I believe that it is time that the laity found their voice. For that reason I have set up the website:

If nothing else it will keep alive this important issue and support those among the clergy and in Religious life who have already taken a stance on this matter.

Comments

Darlene Starrs · Feb 5, 2013
Thank you Stephen for your response. We can be fairly certain that once the apostolic era is over with the passing of the disciples who were in the upper room and with the passing of St. Paul and his workers, and particularly, when the Church of the Way becomes legal with Constantine, that "corruption" is now a sure thing, as religious roles are assumed by Lords and Princes. That doesn't mean that the Church with Christ doesn't accomplish what Christ wants, and Christ says the enemy will come and the weeds and the wheat will grow up together. However, I think, by the time, that Vatican II is announced, God has made it clear, that the Kairos time of the Church had arrived for renewal. In other words, clericalism, in particular, needed to be nipped in the bud, or at least, interruped seriously, with what the theologican Richard Guillardetz calls a "rupture", the inbreaking of Vatican II. Vatican II was to create new wine and the task is not finished. In some way, the Holy Spirit is groaning through the last pangs of giving birth to the complete vision, groaning to give birth to new administrative structures, groaning to give birth to a fully empowered laity, groaning to give birth to a new sacramental life, groaning to give birth to a new relationship with Rome, and very definitely groaning to birth to a new preaching of the Kerygma.

Stephen K · Feb 5, 2013
I definitely think Darlene is on to something here. I think it is part of the problem, insisting on seeking solutions within the paradigm that is currently failing. But the paradigm of the special all-male cultic priesthood may have always been a problematic thing: what era ever was there that clericalism did not exist? Or that the worldly goods of institutional political power and wealth did not tempt or corrupt leadership? What does it mean to be a "Christian"? Darlene's thinking outside the box seems long overdue, doesn't it?

Darlene Starrs · Feb 4, 2013
I am of the "theological opinion" that we, the Church, donot in fact have a shortage of priests. What we have is an inability to understand the so called shortage from a new perspective. Father Bernard Lonergan, who wrote the treatise, "Insight", told us that if we want to arrive at "insight", we need to approach a situation by examining a problem by knowing what assumptions and beliefs, we come to that problem with. We need to be willing to suspend those assumptions and beliefs, so that we are truly open to "brainstorming" solutions. I believe, we call this, being able to think outside of the box. Yes, what is God saying by the so called lack of celibate men for the priesthood? I have to say that it is tiring to hear over and over, "we won't have Eucharist because we don't have the priests". Yes, we have been praying in all the Catholic parishes, all over the world, for God to send us these vocations that we once knew. If isn't happening, what do we think, God is saying? Do we think. that maybe God is suggesting, that we have our priests among the faithful? As far as I'm concerned, we need to get real, about who is able to bless the bread and wine. This is where I think, Thomas Acquinas' theology is a very big problem. We are too reliant on a theology of the Eucharist and the priesthood which is 1000 years old. Those who preside at Eucharist, ought to be people in the community who are esteemed to be of integrity and who have perhaps a couple of years of theological training. They could be single, married, men, women, but would be people that the community has put forward for a bishop to install which is probably closer to the New Testament meaning of laying on of hands. A petition for married priests is one aspect of a discussion that needs to be far wider in its scope. Vatican II calls for collegiality, new structures of administration, and a "new priesthood", but even more importantly, Vatican II demands "new theological thinking".
Perhaps, it exists, and I just don't know about it.