Cowardice in the Vatican

Bishop Carl Mengeling of the Catholic Diocese of Lansing (Mich.) ordained Steve Anderson -- a 44-year-old married man with three children -- to the priesthood Saturday. Some might question how this is possible, but the answer lies in the fact that celibacy is neither fundamental to the priesthood nor dogmatic to the Church.\nThe Catholic Church will grant special permission to married men who convert to Catholicism (from Lutheranism or Episcopalianism, for example) in order to become priests. There are currently more than 200 married Catholic priests in the United States.\nThis sounds odd, but the celibacy vow always has been a cloudy issue. Scripture doesn't exclusively support celibacy or marriage, yet it contains justification for both. For the first thousand years of the Church, there existed huge populations of bishops, priests and deacons who not only married but also had children. \nConsidering that married and celibate priests still coexist today, one can imagine what a weird atmosphere is present around them.\nWhile a married priest is allowed to satisfy his human desire for love, a celibate priest who falls in love is left with two unfavorable options: struggle with the depression and frustration embedded within his situation or leave the priesthood. Indeed, the desire for marriage has been the most popular cause for leaving the priesthood.\nMost importantly, the lack of interest in religious vocations is becoming an epidemic, and Catholics should be worrying about who will lead the Church in years to come.\nCurrently about 3,000 parishes have no resident priest. Seminaries are struggling to recruit candidates and the number of priests in the United States is dropping year by year. Religious sisters and brothers are disappearing at an alarming rate. In the face of all this discouraging data, however, the number of lay people involved in some sort of religious vocation (with no vow of celibacy) -- Eucharistic ministers and deacons for example -- has steadily risen. It is obvious that these people want to serve both the divine and the earthly world, so why can't priests do the same? \nThe Eastern Churches have much more lax policies on celibacy amongst clerics than the Latin-Rite or Western Church. The Nestorians, a schismatic communion of the Church, actually allow priests to marry unconditionally -- before or after ordination. Yet, like most of the Oriental Churches, bishops are selected solely from celibate or monastic clergy. Perhaps the Western Church could adopt some of these more lenient practices.\nUnfortunately, the Church is avoiding debate on this issue at all costs. \n"This conspiracy of silence, of course, comes directly from the Vatican, which has put a ban on all discussion of celibacy as the cause of the vocation crisis," wrote Rev. James E. Sullivan -- director emeritus of the Religious Consultation Center of the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. -- in US Catholic magazine in December 2001.\n For me, this dilemma recently hit close to home. The Catholic grade school I attended was part of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Philadelphia. This school has been maintained by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for more than 160 years. Starting next year, the school will switch to an all lay staff and the convent is going to be leveled to build a set of condominiums. When I heard this sad news a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't help but wonder -- will the priests be next? \nEver since I was a little boy, an indescribable sense of spirituality and awe has weighed my soul when I participate in the Church's traditions -- most of which have endured the span of our common era. It is my hope that the Church, especially the Vatican, will end its cowardly silence and work to allow the Church to grow alongside its people.