For Immediate Release October 18, 2005

Contacts:
Sr. Christine Schenk, (FutureChurch)
216-228-0869 (office)
011-39-339-564-1658 (Oct. 2-23 Rome Cell)

Linda Pieczynski (Call To Action)
630-655-8783
630-399-6924 (cell)

Barbara Grants and Emily Hoag (U.S. FutureChurch)
216-228-0869

Bishops Must Face Up To Need For Married Priests
“ Celibates Only” Recruitment Not Enough
Eucharist More Important Than Mandatory Celibacy

“To think the priest shortage will simply resolve itself is, unfortunately, to be in a state of denial,” said Sr. Christine Schenk of FutureChurch. “The Bishops must admit that very good recruitment efforts of the past forty years failed to increase celibate vocations. Instead, over 100,000 priests left the active ministry to marry. Our Bishops must face up to the fact that the celibacy rule is keeping good men from becoming priests. The Eucharist is more important than mandatory celibacy.”

Schenk is in Rome representing two U.S. reform groups FutureChurch and Call To Action. She was responding to reports that some bishops meeting at the International Synod on the Eucharist attributed the priest shortage crisis to a “crisis of faith” rather than mandatory celibacy, and planned to increase vocation recruitment for men called to celibacy rather than consider ordaining married men, as some bishops had suggested.

“The celibate spiritual path is a beautiful one, but it is also rare,” said Schenk. “I don’t think we will ever have enough celibate priestly vocations because we are not meant to. We are meant to have a priesthood composed of both married and celibate priests to better reflect the diversity of the Catholic community. The Bishops’ fears about a married priesthood are unfounded. We have 400 married priests from other traditions who converted to catholicism and are now serving the U.S. Church. This is not to say there won’t be problems, but we have many problems now with the celibate priesthood.”

“The Catholic people have a right to receive the Eucharist from the Church,”said Call To Action spokesperson Linda Pieczynski. “This was just confirmed by the Church’s top authority in Church law, Cardinal Julian Herranz. When will the bishops listen to their own priests and to the cries of the Catholic people who want the Eucharist whether the priests are married or celibate?”

Pieczynski referred to a survey of priests conducted by Australian Cardinal Pell’s Archdiocese of Sydney that found that 55% of priests believe celibacy should be optional. Despite the views of a majority of his priests, Pell was one of the most outspoken critics of a married priesthood which he described as “a serious error...[and] a departure from the practice of the Lord Himself,”

Pieczynski said: “I don’t see how Cardinal Pell can say this when Jesus called a married man, St. Peter, to lead the early Church. Our bishops are responsible for providing Eucharist to the Catholic people. This should be their first priority. Mandatory celibacy is not more important than the Mass. We need to be open to all the kinds of priestly vocations in our Church, not just the celibate ones.”

The Australian poll mirrored a similar survey of over 15,000 priests in 55 U.S. dioceses conducted by Call To Action and FutureChurch. Sixty seven percent of respondents believed the church should open discussion about mandatory celibacy.(Results and priest comments available at www.futurechurch.org).

“Suggestions to redistribute priests from other countries won’t work either,” said Schenk. “In the U.S. I very much doubt that the priests themselves will go along with it. Plus, North America and Europe have the best priest to parishioner ratios in the world. For us to import priests from Africa or Latin America is just another way of exploiting the developing world. There are some authoritative documents that discourage the church of the first world from “importing” priests. They point to criteria for correct enculturation so that liturgical leaders understand and respect cultural differences. Priests from Africa and Latin America are working in a number of dioceses in the U.S. We hear from our members that they do not understand U.S. culture and cannot be understood when they preach and say Mass.”

FutureChurch and Call To Action collected 35,000 signatures on a petition asking the synod to discuss mandatory celibacy and female deacons as possible solutions to the priest shortage.

Petition signers claim their right under canon law to “make their views known about matters that concern the good of the Church” (c212). The petition pointed to the worldwide shortage of priests, the disciplinary (not doctrinal) nature of the celibacy rule and first century women deacons like Phoebe, as important reasons to open the desired discussion,”

“They can’t walk away from the synod with nothing but the status quo,” said FutureChurch cofounder, Fr. Louis J. Trivison. “Isn't it possible that the “crisis of faith” they point to, is because people have been denied Eucharist because of the lack of priests?”

Since 1996, FutureChurch and Call To Action have been working to educate about the danger of losing the Mass and sacraments as one consequence of doing nothing about the priest shortage. Schenk herself has given educational programs about the priest shortage in over 100 U.S. dioceses.

Call to Action is a national organization of 25,000 laity, religious and clergy with its national office in Chicago and 41 local chapters. It advocates for reforms in the Catholic Church such as equality for women and homosexuals in the Church, optional celibacy for priests, more focus on the church's social teaching, and consultation with the Catholic people on church decision making.

FutureChurch is a coalition of parish centered Catholics who seek the full participation of all Catholics in the life of the Church. FutureChurch strives to educate fellow Catholics about the seriousness of the priest shortage, the centrality of the Eucharist (the Mass), and the systemic inequality of women in the Catholic Church. It seeks to participate in formulating and expressing the Sensus Fidelium (the Spirit inspired beliefs of the faithful) through open, prayerful and enlightened dialogue with other Catholics locally and globally.

For Official Catholic Directory statistics for every U.S. diocese, and results of our
survey of priests in 55 U.S. dioceses visit www.futurechurch.org