Corpus Christi Campaign: Fewer Priests, Fewer Parishes
This campaign which culminated in 2005 promoted a return to the early Church custom of having both celibate and married priests and ordaining women to the diaconate. Archaeological evidence shows that some women also served as priests. (see Women Officeholders in the Early Church).
Sparked by the prophetic call of 163 Milwaukee priests who called for open discussion of mandatory celibacy, FutureChurch spearheaded the Corpus Christi Campaign in partnership with Call To Action. The actions in this campaign was implemented with the hope that all Catholics have regular access to the Mass and the other sacraments as well as to avert looming parish closings and clustering because of the priest shortage.
35,000 signatures were collected for a petition to the International Synod on the Eucharist asking for discussion of optional celibacy and the ordination of women to the diaconate as a next step to full inclusion in all the ministries of the Church. To learn more about the synod, see Final Report from the Synod and Analysis of the Bishops Discussion of the Priest Shortage and Encouraging and Discouraging Aspects of the Synod on the Eucharist.
Never before available statistics gave dramatic diocese by diocese documentation of the loss of priests over the last 25 years. Priest Shortage USA 1976-2006 lists Official Catholic Directory statistics comparing the number of priests, seminarians, priestless parishes and Catholics in every U.S. diocese for 1976, 1991, 2001, 2004 and 2006. Previous published statistics were released in the aggregate or did not include every diocese.
What You Can Still Do Today
Catholics can write their Bishops, quote statistics for their dioceses, and request publication of actuarial projections of availability of priests for the future. Early anecdotes indicate devastating declines:
- The Green Bay diocese told a local newspaper it could be down to 83 priests for 165 parishes by 2010.
- In the Dubuque Archdiocese, where 100 of 350 parishes are run by lay people, a priest told a national TV newsweekly that in 5 to 10 years, there will be only 75 priests for 200 parishes.
- Cleveland actuarials project that by 2027 there will be only 76 active diocesan priests for the 235 parishes in the diocese. This presumes 4 ordinations per year.
Following the lead of Milwaukee clergy, supportive actions were taken or planned by priest associations representing over 700 priests in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Southern Illinois and the three dioceses in metropolitan New York. The Southern Illinois Association of Priests wrote their Bishop, then Wilton Gregory, who was also president of the U.S. Bishops, asking him to “do all in your power to make the charism of celibacy a grace and not a mandated law for diocesan priests.” The Association of Pittsburgh Priests circulated a petition and sponsored a diocesan wide educational program on the priest shortage and optional celibacy.
We invite other priest organizations, parish councils, lay organizations and individual Catholics to join us in requesting a return to our earliest Church practice which benefitted from both married and celibate priestly calls and the ordination of women to the diaconate.
“Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy, and to which the Christian people, ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people,’ have a right and an obligation by reason of their Baptism.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium)
“The laity have the right, as do all Christians, to receive in abundance from their sacred pastors the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the assistance of the Word of God and the sacraments.” (Lumen Gentium, 37).
“Christ’s faithful are at liberty to make known their needs, especially their spiritual needs, and their wishes to the Pastors of the Church.”(Canon Law 212.2 )
“They have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church.” (Canon Law 212.3 )