Media Advisory:
Press Conference Monday, November 15, 2004 1:00 PM.
Judicial Room, Holiday Inn WASHINGTON-ON THE HILL 415 New Jersey Avenue, NW

Contact:
Sr. Christine Schenk (FutureChurch) Linda Pieczynski (Call To Action)
216-228-0869 630-655-8783
216-513-3647 (cell) 630-399-6924 (cell) 11/12/2004

Catholics Push Vatican Synod To
Address Priest Shortage

Request End of Mandatory Celibacy,
Opening Diaconate to Women
Massive 53 Diocese Survey Finds 67% of
Priests Want Celibacy Rule Discussed

Tens of thousands of lay Catholics and priests in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and many other parts of the United States are asking U.S. Bishops to put the priest shortage, optional celibacy and opening the diaconate to women on the agenda of the International Synod on the Eucharist to be held in Rome in October 2005. Convened by Pope John Paul II, the synod is a worldwide gathering where Bishops can meet with each other and give advice about Church practice, in this case about the Eucharist or the Catholic Mass.

“Sadly, proposed synod topics do not even mention the priest shortage.” said Sr. Christine Schenk of FutureChurch. “I don’t know how we can have a worldwide synod on the Eucharist and not even talk about how half of the world’s Catholics don’t have regular access to the Mass.”

The Bishops will select U.S. synod delegates at their annual meeting November 15-17 which will be held at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. The Bishops’ U.S. response to preliminary synod agenda topics developed by the Vatican is now being formulated to meet a December 31 Vatican deadline.

Over 11,000 postcards and letters will be presented to church officials at the November 15 meeting. An estimated 10,000 postcards and letters have already been received by the Bishops. Organizers from FutureChurch and Call To Action hope to add tens of thousands more petition signatures for presentation in Rome next October.

A press conference will be held Monday November 15 at 1:00 p.m. in the Judicial Room at the Holiday Inn on the Hill, across from where U.S. Bishops are meeting. Concerned laity and priests will discuss local and national organizing efforts, including recent results from Boston where 82 parishes are being closed.

Over the past seven months Catholic lay leaders from Call To Action and FutureChurch also conducted anonymous surveys of priests in 53 U.S. dioceses. Priests were asked the question: “Do you favor an open discussion of the mandatory celibacy rule for diocesan priests?” Overwhelmingly, they said yes. Sixty seven percent of responding priests (2,589 of 3,846) supported open discussion. The survey response rate was 27 %. (For a more detailed report and results by diocese visit www.futurechurch.org and click on survey results).

“These results are similar to recent surveys of Irish and Australian priests said Schenk. “Two studies released in October found that 60% of Irish priests 55% of Australian priests believe celibacy should be optional.”

The Boston Archdiocese's recent announcement of 82 parish closings for lack of priests and money led Sharon Toffey Shepela, co-regional coordinator of Call To Action/New England (CTA/NE) to conduct the survey there. Two-thirds of responding Boston priests (321 of 1524) wanted open discussion of mandatory celibacy. Shepela was especially moved by comments from the priests themselves: “Possibly the most poignant one we received was this one, ‘ The issues of health and vitality are key right now. I am from ----- and we are in agony over parish closings. I am in the final phase of deciding to leave the priesthood after more than 14 years. The betrayal by our bishops is just too much to take. Pray for us.’”

Rockville Center priest Fr. Andrew P. Connolly said: “St. Peter was married but the successors of St. Peter and most of the priests throughout the world are denied this same opportunity by a restriction that Jesus himself did not impose. Does current law actually serve the good of the People of God? Does it serve the good of all priests? Is it the desire of Jesus?" Connolly helped convene the Priests Forum for the Eucharist, a group representing over 1,000 U.S. priests calling for discussion of the celibacy rule.

“We also need to talk about opening the diaconate to women,” said Call To Action spokesperson Linda Pieczynski. “Women ministers are the “glue” helping to hold the Church together. Eighty two percent of an estimated 65,000 lay ministers in the U.S. are women. Worldwide, there are 783,000 nuns and over 1.5 million female lay ministers. When we recall that there are only 405,000 priests, it becomes obvious that opening the diaconate to women could give us a huge new pool of ministers to meet the growing sacramental needs of an expanding church.”

Steve Schewe, spokesperson for Welcoming Vocations, a Minneapolis St. Paul group that collected 6500 letters from 25 parishes in support of optional celibacy said: “It is gratifying that so many grassroots Catholics worked to circulate the letters in their parishes and among their friends. Now we just hope the Bishops will listen.”

“The Catholic Church’s decline of active priests is having a dramatic impact especially since numbers of Catholics are increasing.” said Schenk. “One out of five parishes in Boston is closing, Toledo is planning to close or cluster 33 parishes and Cleveland projects only 76 priests to serve 235 parishes in 2027. Worldwide, according to Vatican statistics, the number of priests is essentially unchanged since 1975 when we had 404,783 priests compared to 405,058 in 2002. In the meantime Catholics increased worldwide by 52% to 1.07 billion in 2003.”

Call To Action and FutureChurch have promoted dialog about optional celibacy and the priest shortage for the past eight years through their Call for a National Dialogue on the Future of Priestly Ministry project . The resource contains education and advocacy materials about the history of celibacy, women in the church and the priest shortage. It has attracted over 5000 grassroots activists and sparked dialogue in over 100 U.S. dioceses about the need to reconsider mandatory celibacy if the Catholicism is to continue as a sacramental Church in which members have regular access to the Mass.

FutureChurch,headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, is a coalition of 5,000 parish based Catholics striving 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. FutureChurch makes presentations throughout the country, distributes educational and informational packets and advocates widespread discussion of opening ordination to all Catholics who are called to priestly ministry by God and the people of God.

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 the ordination of women, optional celibacy for priests, more focus on the church's social teaching, and consultation with the Catholic people on church decision making.