From the 1930s, Catholics were prominent in Hollywood, whether actors such as Spencer Tracy and James Cagney or directors like John Ford and Leo McCarey.

Producers turned to Catholic actors to perform what was judged to be the difficult and delicate role of a priest.

Thus Bing Crosby played in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St Mary's (1945), and Gregory Peck in The Keys to the Kingdom (1944).

The individual characters may have varied, but the portrayal of the priest remained constant: an image of conviction and steadfastness, compassion and courage, and maturity of judgment.

More recent decades have given rise to different images. In the 1970s, priests began to be cast in an unfavourable light - for example, Saturday Night Fever (1977) and The Exorcist series (1973 and 1977).

They were depicted as insipid, immature and, at times, embittered men. In Saturday Night Fever, the young priest leaves his vocation.

In the last scene, his brother (played by John Travolta) tries on the clerical collar, only to hold it tightly round his neck in the form of a noose.

This demeaning image of the priesthood resulted from a convergence of factors.

They included anti-Catholic prejudice, which intensified as a result of the Church's stand on "life" issues such as abortion; the clerical abuse scandals, which have damaged the Church's moral credibility in the wider society and, perversely, in the very areas of sexual morality that were already under cultural attack; and, finally, a general decline of heroic and admirable characters (of which the priest was formerly one), especially affecting male figures in the family and society.

More recently, there has been some recovery of the image of the priest, in movies such as Gran Torino (2008), where a loving cleric reaches out to a troubled war veteran (Clint Eastwood), and For Greater Glory (2012), which features Peter O'Toole as a kindly martyr priest. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald article by Karl Schmude, a former university librarian and a founding fellow of the Catholic liberal arts college Campion College, in New South Wales.
• Image: cinemagumbo

Today, that number has more than doubled, with one priest for every 1,800 Catholics.

Globally, the situation is worse. The number of Catholics per priest increased from 1,895 in 1980 to 3,126 in 2012, according to a report from CARA at Georgetown University.

The Catholic Church in many parts of the world is experiencing what is being called a "priest shortage" or a "priest crisis."

Earlier this year, Pope Francis answered a question about the priest shortage in a March 8 interview published in the German weekly Die Zeit.

The part that made headlines, of course, was that about married priests.

"Pope Francis open to allowing married priests in Catholic Church," read a USA Today headline.

"Pope signals he's open to married Catholic men becoming priests," said CNN.

But things are not as they might seem. Read a little deeper, and Pope Francis did not say that Fr. John Smith at the parish down the street can now ditch celibacy and go looking for a wife.

What the Holy Father did say is that he is open to exploring the possibility of proven men ('viri probati,' in Latin) who are married being ordained to the priesthood.

Currently, such men, who are typically over the age of 35, are eligible for ordination to the permanent diaconate, but not the priesthood.

However, marriage was not the first solution to the priest shortage Pope Francis proposed. In fact, it was the last.

Initially, he didn't even mention marriage.

Pressed specifically about the married priesthood, the Pope said: "optional celibacy is discussed, above all where priests are needed. But optional celibacy is not the solution."

While Pope Francis perhaps signals an iota more of openness to the possibility of married priests in particular situations, his hesitance to open wide the doors to a widespread married priesthood is in line with his recent predecessors, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as the longstanding tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic News Agency article by Mary Rezac, a staff writer for Catholic News Agency/EWTN News.
• Image: Crux

In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, published in early March, Pope Francis was asked if allowing candidates for the priesthood to fall in love and marry could be "an incentive" for combatting the shortage of priestly vocations.

He was also asked about the possibility of allowing married "viri probati" — men of proven virtue — to become priests.

"We have to study whether 'viri probati' are a possibility. We then also need to determine which tasks they could take on, such as in remote communities, for example," Pope Francis said.

Expressing a willingness to study the question of allowing married men to become priests was hardly a groundbreaking response given that the topic was explored in two meetings of the Synod of Bishops and by both Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II.

During the 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, the possibility of ordaining men of proven virtue was raised as a way to provide priests for areas of the world where Catholics have very limited access to Mass and the sacraments.

"Some participants made reference to 'viri probati,' but in the end the small discussion groups evaluated this hypothesis as a road not to follow," a proposition from the synod said.

Eight years before he was elected pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said that while married priests in the Catholic Church were not on the horizon in "the foreseeable future," it was not an entirely closed subject.

In "Salt of the Earth," an interview-book with Peter Seewald published in 1997, the future Pope Benedict said, "One ought not to declare that any custom of the church's life, no matter how deeply anchored and well founded, is wholly absolute. To be sure, the church will have to ask herself the question again and again; she has now done so in two synods." Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic News Service article by Junno Arocho Esteves
• Image: Crux

The live audience, at George Mason University, in Virginia, included people whom CNN had flown in: gun owners, gun sellers, survivors of shootings, and relatives of victims.

The first three questions came from skeptics of greater gun control—the widow of a Navy SEAL, a rape survivor from Colorado, and a Republican sheriff running for Congress in Arizona.

Then the Reverend Doctor Michael L. Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest dressed in a black jacket and a white collar, took the microphone. "I happen to be from one of those cities where violence is not going down," he said. "There's been eleven killed in seven days in Chicago."

For forty years, Pfleger has worked and lived at the Faith Community of St. Sabina, Chicago's largest African-American Catholic church. His neighborhood, Auburn-Gresham, is ninety-eight per cent black.

Pfleger is white. At sixty-six, he has heavy eyes and side-swept brown hair that has not changed much in color or style since the Johnson Administration. "It's easier to get a gun in my neighborhood than it is a computer," he told the President, adding, "For many years, nobody even cared about Chicago, because the violence is primarily black and brown."

In Chicago, Pfleger is a showman of the first order. He usually preaches with an eight-piece band, a choir, and a troupe of dancers, all arrayed beneath a painting, twenty feet tall, of a young black Jesus wearing a white robe.

His parishioners once nicknamed him Cecil B. De Pfleger. At a funeral that I attended for Vince Clark, his assistant and friend, Pfleger concluded the eulogy by putting on one of Clark's signature fedoras and downing a shot of rum, the deceased's favorite drink. He drew a standing ovation. Continue reading

Sources

• The New Yorker, an article by Evan Osnos, a staff writer who covers politics and foreign affairs.
• Image: ABC News

The church's stance on homosexuality, contraception, abortion, transgender issues, the ordination of women and euthanasia is no longer that of the majority.

Its history is full of examples of failing to live up to the high standards of Christian behavior. You cannot easily sweep the Crusades, the Borgias or the Spanish Inquisition under the carpet.

In the 20th century, questions about how the church rose to the challenge of German Fascism can be posed.

It was on the side of Franco in Spain and there are at the very least conflicting views about its relationship with a Nazi regime, where a good portion of senior leadership claimed nominal Catholicism.

Then there is the issue of historic sexual abuse by its clergy and the systematic practice of covering these obscene crimes up and even perpetuating them by shifting offenders from one parish to another.

That the institution put the needs of its reputation above that of innocent children is now an acknowledged fact. If the church refuses to engage in a conversation about the effects of enforced celibacy on priests or the predilection of those who put themselves forward for the priesthood to offend, it can no longer deny that grave and indefensible errors were made.

To purport to believe in one thing then to do the exact opposite is bad enough. To lie about the contradiction rubs salt in the wounds. The lying is a sin in itself. There were millions of victims.

The film Spotlight, a movie about the investigative journalism that began the long process of unravelling this deception, is coming toward the end of its run in New Zealand cinemas. A contender for the top award at Monday's Oscars, it's a smart and muted piece of film-making that has the virtue of knowing what story it is telling and doing so in a clear and compelling manner.

Spotlight isn't about the abuse itself, nor even about the cover-up, per se. It's a film about working reporters who come to realise that they, too, are implicated in the crime. By failing to grasp the implications of clear evidence sooner, they played a part in perpetuating abuse. Continue reading

• Dr Richard Swainson writes for the Waikato Times.

Ordinations are always an emotional occasion, but this particular Ordination Mass had a significant impact on me.

In the weeks leading up to the Ordination, (then) Deacon Lewi had told me that the Ordination was not about him or (then) Deacon Tom, but about the Priesthood.

I didn't really give much thought to his comment, and instead dismissed it as part of the humility so characteristic of him and other clergy.

Anticipation and Sorrow
I had really been looking forward to the Ordination of these two new priests because I have had the privilege of getting to know them, and am confident that they will be a true gift to our Church.

I was eagerly anticipating the weekend of the Ordination, which I knew would be filled with beautiful liturgies and wonderful celebrations.

But in the days leading up to the Ordination, my family was struck with a double tragedy in the sudden deaths of two close relatives, only days apart.

Instead of a week of joyous anticipation, it was a week of mourning.

The Ordinations to which I had been so looking forward had become irrelevant in light of the sorrow being experienced by myself and my family.

Or so I thought.

My aunt passed away on the Sunday before the Ordination. In the days before her death, she had been anointed by our parish priest, the same one who had said the daily Mass she attended for the last 13 years of her life.

He was there to comfort the family after her death, as were a number of Maronite priests who prayed with us in the evenings leading up to the funeral.

At her funeral on the Wednesday, our same parish priest asked those gathered to pray for my uncle, who had taken a turn in hospital and was gravely ill.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, the two priests who concelebrated the funeral went straight from the Church to the hospital, while the rest of us went to the cemetery.

My uncle passed away that afternoon. Continue reading

• Monica Doumit is the co-ordinator of Catholic Talk, a Sydney based group which offers a clear and charitable Catholic view on local and international news items.