Advent Group - Supporting Priests & Religious since 1969
CORPUS, group for married priests, disbands after 50 years | National Catholic Reporter
- Written by: Alex Walker
CORPUS, group for married priests, disbands after 50 years | National Catholic Reporter https://share.google/GXtBPmBeQBLW3AqYJ
The Tablet Letter on the sadness of celibacy
- Written by: Joseph Fitzpatrick
The Tablet, 6 July 2024
Sadness of celibacy
I was touched by Cathy Galvin’s article on priesthood (“Thank you, Father”, 22 June). But the emotion that stayed with me after reading it was one of sadness and melancholy.
There is a sadness brought on by mandatory celibacy – priests in the western Church cannot be ordained unless they take a vow not to marry. The result for many is a loneliness that nothing can assuage.
The priest she focused on at the start was lonely. He was gaunt, poorly clothed, did not eat enough and could not give up smoking: a man without a wife to look after him. Like many former priests, I left my practice as a priest because of celibacy.
But the celibacy ruling is based on faulty theology. For more than the first Christian millennium, priests, bishops and popes in the West married and had children.
It was Pope Innocent III who imposed celibacy as a condition for ordination in the twelfth century. He wrote: “Who does not know that conjugal intercourse is never committed without itching of the flesh and heat and foul concupiscence whence the conceived seeds are befouled and corrupted?”
Today, we have to ask if celibacy should remain mandatory, especially when we read these words in the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes: “The actions within marriage by which couples are united intimately and chastely are noble and worthy ones” – a complete reversal of the words of Pope Innocent.
Celibacy is a major reason for priests leaving the priesthood and for the dwindling number of priests. At least part of the remedy would be the ordination of married men.
Joseph Fitzpatrick
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
"One man, two vocations is perfectly possible"
- Written by: Chris McDonnell
Founded in Britain in the 1970s, the Movement for a Married Clergy is closing down its work on Easter Sunday and handing over the reins to a new synodal group, explains its secretary.
I return this Easter to an issue that refuses to hide its face, the continuing fall in the number of priests serving our parishes. We should be considering this question as a matter of some urgency if we are to maintain our present diocesan structures at anywhere near their present level, let alone seek to become a missionary Church.
A number of factors might be considered that have given rise to our present predicament. The age profile of serving priests continues to rise. Parishes with more than one priest are rare so the return alone to an empty house is uninviting. Above all, the question of a compulsorily celibate clergy remains with us. How often do our bishops face the unenviable task of replacing a priest who, through age or infirmity, can no longer continue with his duties? Or a younger man who has fallen in love and is unable to sustain his vocation?
The Catholic Church needs married priests now
- Written by: THOMAS REESE
At the Last Supper, Jesus said, 'Do this in memory of me.' He did not say, 'Be celibate.'
Without the Eucharist, it seems obvious: There is no Catholic Church. It feeds us as a community of believers and transforms us into the body of Christ active in the world today. But according to Catholic theology, we cannot have the Eucharist without priests.
Sadly, in many parts of the world, there is a eucharistic famine, precisely because there are no priests to celebrate the Eucharist. This problem has been going on for decades and is only getting worse.
Last year, the Vatican reported that while the number of Catholics worldwide increased by 16.2 million in 2021, the number of priests decreased by 2,347. As a result, on average there were 3,373 Catholics for every priest in the world (including retired priests), a rise of 59 people per priest.
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