Posted on 04/09/2005 7:09:00 PM PDT by neverdem
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Here's my prophecy about the next pope: He will allow married men to become priests.
This is simply a matter of survival: all over the world, the Catholic Church is running out of priests. In the United States, there was one priest for every 800 Catholics in 1965, while now there is one for every 1,400 Catholics - and the average age is nearly 60. In all the United States, with 65 million Catholics, only 479 priests were ordained in 2002.
The upshot is that the Catholic Church is losing ground around the world to evangelical and especially Pentecostal churches. In Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other country, Pentecostals are gaining so quickly that they could overtake Catholics over the next decades.
No one understands the desperate need for clergy more than the cardinals themselves. In fact, John Paul II himself laid the groundwork for an end to the celibacy requirement.
Few people realize it, but there are now about 200 married priests under a special dispensation given by the Vatican to pastors of other denominations - Episcopalians, Lutherans and so on - who are already married and wish to convert to Roman Catholicism (typically because they feel their churches are going squishy by ordaining women or gays).
"It's really kind of a nonissue," the Rev. John Gremmels, one of those married Catholic priests, in Fort Worth, told me of his status as a father of the usual sort.
The Vatican also permits Eastern Rite Catholics in places like Ukraine and Romania to have married priests. That was part of an ancient deal: they would be Catholics and accept the pope's authority, staying out of the Orthodox Church, and in exchange they would be allowed married clergy and liturgies in local languages.
Polls show that 70 percent of American Catholics believe priests should be able to marry. David Gibson, author of "The Coming Catholic Church," quotes Cardinal Roger Mahony as telling him that it's reasonable to raise the issue and adding: "We've had a married clergy since Day 1, since St. Peter."
It's true that St. Peter, the first pope, was married, and so were many of the apostles and early popes. But then Christians began to put more emphasis on chastity, with Tertullian describing women as "the gateway to the devil."
Origen of Alexandria, the great third-century Christian philosopher, castrated himself. And Hugh of Lincoln, a 12th-century bishop who was later canonized, claimed that a heavenly being had obliged him by coming down from heaven and castrating him, leaving him feeling much more peaceful.
By the Middle Ages, the church was clamping down on corruption and the tendency of priests to leave church assets to their sons. So in the 11th and 12th centuries the rules for celibacy became formalized.
Of course, the church sometimes adapts to local cultures. Christianity is at its most dynamic in Africa, but clergy in Africa have often complained that the effort to attract priests there is hobbled by a cultural emphasis on having children. In central Africa a few years ago, an Italian priest told me of a local bishop's children. I thought he was speaking metaphorically about the parishioners, but the missionary shook his head.
"No, he has a wife," the priest said of the bishop. "Celibacy just runs against the culture here. In fact, if we find a priest who sticks to just one wife, we promote him to bishop."
Ordaining women would also be an excellent way to provide a new source of clergy. John Paul wrote forcefully about the dignity and equality of women, even championing the female orgasm. One of his successors as pope will surely apply those precepts of equality to the church itself and allow the ordination of women. But maybe not in the next papacy.
It's often noted that Pope John Paul II chose all but three of the cardinals who will choose the next pope, but that doesn't necessarily mean another conservative pope. After all, Pope Pius XII chose all but two of the cardinals who in 1958 chose his successor, the far more open-minded Pope John XXIII.
As my Times colleague Peter Steinfels writes in "A People Adrift," his book about Catholics: "Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation." Faced with that choice worldwide, losing ground to Pentecostals, the next pope will be forced to choose transformation.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
ping
The author is clueless. In the dioceses with hard-core Catholic bishops, the seminaries are full. Where true Catholicism is, there are many converts. The answer is not giving into modernism, but embracing the Church, warts and all.
There are those who fall away and find what they seem to be looking for in various sects, but the question needs to be asked, How were they catechised and how strong are their bishops? Weak bishops are the problem and those dioceses are where the "priest shortage" is.
I don't think being married with children works as a practical matter for priests. How can one take a vow of poverty and be a good parent? (Especially if one is a good Catholic and not practicing birth control aside from NFP) Also, how can one be a good husband and father when one needs to be on constant call for the church? There are a few married priests (converts from other faiths) and I read a great interview with one and his family. His wife said it is a very hard life and would be difficult for most families. I think the sacrament of priesthood contradicts the sacrament of marriage. You can't be fully committed to both. I have long thought that it would be great to be a nun...but it just doesn't cut it with 3 kids and a husband!!
Correct me if i'm wrong but I believe not all priests have to take poverty vows.
I don't think so. I'm guessing it will be the Cardinal from Milan, Dionigi Tettamanzi. Thankfully, as I read it, he's a good Conservative and will continue to guide The Church in the same direction as JPII the Great. Meaning, toward godliness instead of "oh, my god-lessness."
Lots of different brands of Christian groups
have a FORM of Godliness
but DENY His power.
GOOD Pentecostal groups are not like that.
People used to battling various kinds of overt demonic oppression and attack as well as a list of other life challenges
naturally are blessed and responsive toward a relationship with God which Biblically teaches the whole counsel of God--including Acts 2 and I Cor 12-14.
But, hey, if dead dry religion is what you want, one can find even some Pentecostal groups which too sadly have become such.
The autho AAAAAlmost had me until the bisop part. Then the NYT author lost ALL credibility with woman priests.
The orthox church will allows for married priests have very specific rules. They have to already be married, they can never become bishops and if the wife dies then they can not become remarried and remain a priest.
The author is totally clueless, but it would be a rare exception for the NYT to get a story right. This story is just propaganda wishful thinking. (could katie "the perky" couric writing in a diguise?)
Priests generally do NOT take a vow of poverty. Only a few do. Almost all priests own both money and property.
Most of the details are lies. Origen is not generally considered to be a reliably orthodox theologian.
When I think of married clergy I think of Trollope's Barchester novels, with a bishop who is constantly being nagged in bed by his wife and persuaded to do foolish things, and all the other complications of married life among the clergy Trollope depicts.
It's hard being a good priest and it's hard being a good husband. Put them together and it's virtually impossible.
No, you are wrong about the poverty part. That is typically restricted to priests in holy orders not most priests.
What a load of crap. I'm a divorced dad, and these lefty loonies just want me to pay my child support and get lost.
They haven't a clue about real fatherhood.
Agree. Kristoff doesn't know a Mass from a mess.
Tell the 2 million pilgrims to Rome, or the billions around
the world that JP II was off course. They'll laff your butt off.
Kristoff has been reading too many NYTimes editorials.
Thanks. I had a friend, an RC chaplain in the navy, who was certainly not poor and quite able to support a family. I agree that family life is distracting and that celibacy, poverty and chastity tend to concentrate the mind but are a type of sacrifice.
I think the West is so fixated on sex that it can't get its head out of its shorts long enough to look into its heart. Remember the Rich Young Ruler? The point of that parable was not riches, but an inability to give up what possessed him, and follow Jesus.
If you can't give up sex in order to follow Jesus, perhaps you ought to get into another line of work. Celibacy is a gift, but like motherhood it is also something a competent determined person can learn.
But think about it. What if Jesus said to you today, in person, "Give up chasing wimmin and follow Me"? Would you do it? Or would you be like the Rich Young Ruler, who went away sadly to hug his idols insted of his Lord?
Although it is certainly not the most important consideration, I keep wondering what housing married priests would cost. We would sure have a lot of outmoded rectories on our hands.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.