Optional Celibacy: So All Can Be At the Table

Introduction
Calls for Changing Celibacy Rules
Parish Closings Due to Priest Shortage
Essential Elements of This Project
What Can You Do

Introduction

FutureChurch’s Optional Celibacy: So All Can Be At the Table initiative asks for open discussion of restoring the tradition of both married and celibate priests in the Catholic Church.

This effort builds on our earlier work at the International Synod on the Eucharist in 2005 where the priest shortage dominated the agenda and four of twelve bishop small groups asked for further study of married priests.

In 2008, FutureChurch conducted a survey to help us discover next steps in our work for optional celibacy. Initial feedback indicated highest support for the following strategies:

education and advocacy about the priest shortage, the history of married priests and mandatory celibacy.
international national and local networking for petitioning church leaders to discuss mandatory celibacy and women’s roles in the church.
encouraging priests themselves to speak up about the need.

Read final survey response here.

Priest Shortage USA 1996-2011

Statistics by Diocese

Still frame of Chris Schenk from video 'FutureChurch's Action for Optional Celibacy' Video: FutureChurch's Action for Optional Celibacy

Still frame of Bill Appleton from video 'Deterred from Priesthood by Manditory Celibacy' Video: Deterred from Priesthood by Mandatory Celibacy

Calls for Changing Celibacy Rules

Our project could not be more timely since calls for changing celibacy rules are rapidly expanding in all parts of the world, especially in the face of widespread parish closings. Consider the following:

Kenya. In the last two years, more than 40 priests have defected from the Catholic Church in Kenya seeking freedom from celibacy and have joined the Ecumenical Catholic Church. (Nairobi Star, 8/25/2011)
Austria. Pollsters GfK Austria said that 80 per cent of 500 interviewed parish priests supported calls for an abandonment of mandatory celibacy. (Austrian Independent, 6/20/2011)
Switzerland. “Msgr. Markus Büchel, bishop of St. Gallen, is not in favor of abolishing the celibacy requirement for priests. But he is proposing that ‘one should also be able to become a priest, without having celibacy imposed." (APIC/KIPA, 3/26/2011)
Belgium. According to a survey taken between December, 2010 and January, 2011, seven out of ten Flemish priests are against celibacy for priests, are for the access of women to the priesthood, (La Croix, 2/19/2011)
Ireland. THE VAST majority (87 per cent) of Catholics believe priests should be allowed to marry, according to an Irish Times /Behaviour Attitudes social poll. (9/16/2010)
Belgium. The Bishop of Bruges, Jozef De Kesel, has questioned celibacy for priests and called for an open discussion on the position of women in the Church. The bishop of Hasselt, Patrick Hoogmartens and Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp have also said that married men should not automatically be excluded from the priesthood. (Reuters, 9/22/10)
USA. The May 4, 2009 issue of the Jesuit weekly America openly called for the “recruitment and training of married men” as priests, ordaining permanent deacons to the priesthood, and welcoming back married priests. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11620

Parish Closings Due to Priest Shortage

FutureChurch has worked for nearly twenty years to raise awareness about the need to change celibacy rules if parishes are to stay open and the Eucharist is to remain the center of Catholic worship. In addition to our optional celibacy campaign, our Save our Parish Community project has helped parishioners hold their bishops accountable by appealing mistaken decisions to close their vital, solvent parishes because of the priest shortage.

In just the past three years, over 400 parishes across the United States have closed, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

Boston. In 2004, Archbishop O’Malley announced the closing of 65 parishes, more than one-sixth of the parishes in the Archdiocese.
Buffalo. In 2005 the Buffalo diocese began implementing a three year downsizing which entailed the closing of 77 parish properties.
Syracuse. In 2007 the Syracuse Diocese announced the closing of 40 of its 170 parishes over a three year period.
Cleveland. In March 2009 Bishop Lennon announced the planned closing of 29 churches and the merging of 41 other churches, creating 18 new parishes. The result would be 52 fewer parishes in 16 months.
Brooklyn. In 2010, following the largest school reorganization - entailing the closing of 31 parochial schools and one high school - the Brooklyn Diocese announced a plan to shutter churches and merge parishes in several stages in succeeding years.

Sadly, this scenario is being repeated in dioceses from New Orleans to Nova Scotia as well as the United Kingdom and Europe as the irreversibility of the priest shortage hits home. Likewise thousands of Catholics in the developing world have minimal access to Mass and the sacraments because of too few celibate priests.

http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/parish-groups-seek-mediation-church-closings

Essential elements of this project include:

Raising Awareness. FutureChurch has worked for nearly twenty years to raise awareness about the need to return to our early tradition of both married and celibate priests.
Open Letter from the People of God to U.S This letter urges our bishops to find solutions to the priest shortage and open discussion about ending mandatory celibacy as a requirement for the diocesan priesthood. The letter will be published in major Catholic publications in late 2011 and 2012.
International electronic and paper postcard campaign. Asking Cardinal Piacenza at the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome to open discussion of optional celibacy at the highest levels of the Church. These electronic postcards can simultaneously be sent to local bishops and other church decision makers. Epostcards and downloadable templates for paper postcards are available in English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. (The unprecedented success of our postcard campaign to the 2008 Synod on the Word testifies to the effectiveness of this strategy.)
Networking with other progressive organizations. National and international priest and church reform organizations are being approached to elicit support for expanding the optional celibacy postcard effort, lobbying national Bishops’ Conferences, and encouraging other strategies in support of courageous priests, religious and laity to speak up on these issues.
Reaching out to the thousands impacted by parish closings, providing them with resources to support their discerned responses and to elicit their activism in working to change the celibacy rules. Our Save our Parish Community project has helped parishioners hold their bishops accountable by appealing mistaken decisions to close their vital, solvent parishes because of the priest shortage
Developing and distributing downloadable resources. These educational/ training materials are geared to the issues of mandatory celibacy, the priest shortage and expanding women’s roles in the church, beginning with the diaconate.