We should be considering this question as a matter of some urgency if we are to maintain our present diocesan structures at anywhere near their present level, let alone seek to become a Missionary Church.

Factors behind the problem

A number of factors might be considered that have given rise to our present predicament.

The age profile of serving priests continues to rise.

Parishes with more than one priest are rare so the return alone to an empty house is uninviting.

Above all, the question of a compulsorily celibate clergy remains with us.

How often do our bishops face the unenviable task of replacing a priest who through age or infirmity can no longer continue with his duties?

Or a younger man who has fallen in love and is unable to sustain his vocation?

Options

A contributor to the working document for the Vatican's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon region made his case for the priestly ordination of married men in the region.

"I'm saying this with great sincerity - there is no other option," Bishop Erwin Kräutler, the retired head of the Xingu prelature in Amazonian Brazil, said recently.

The availability of the Eucharist is of far greater importance than the marital status of the priest.

What is the bishop to do?

Amalgamate parishes is one option but this often only serves to double the load of an already aged priest or leave the parishioners to fend for themselves with the occasional help from priests in surrounding parishes?

Harriet Sherwood writing recently in the Guardian reported on the challenge by Archbishop Scicluna to the present discipline.

"Archbishop Charles Scicluna, Malta said ‘If it were up to me, I would revise the requirement that priests have to be celibate. Experience has shown me that this is something we need to seriously think about.'

"The church had lost many great priests because they chose marriage.

"There was a place for celibacy but the church also had to take into consideration that priests sometimes fall in love, and were forced to choose between that and their vocation", he said in an interview with the Times of Malta.

One man, two vocations is perfectly possible if everyone concerned is aware of what is involved.

Movement for Married Clergy

It was with these thoughts in mind that a small group in the 70s set about the establishment of the Movement for Married Clergy (MMaC).

Its aim was to raise the profile of this question and so separate a vocation to celibacy from a vocation to the priesthood.

Over the last 50 years, that has been our objective. Now has come the time to re-appraise the position.

Our membership is an ageing one, largely because the argument is already won. For the majority of younger Catholics, there is no case to answer.

We have been down the route of writing to our bishops, only to be, in most cases, ignored.

We have kept the issue alive in the Letters column of the National press. We have become of the ‘go to' points for journalists looking for factual material on current issues.

We have built a large database of articles, letters and a web site which is a valuable resource.

So it is time for a change.

We cannot continue re-inventing the wheel.

The current committee of MMaC, after consultation with membership, have decided that we will cease to function as an independent organisation from this Easter, 2024.

This decision was not reached lightly but only after much thought and discussion.

Illness and age has led to the loss of three committee members in recent months. Without that core direction we faced an unsustainable future as an organisation. We needed a new home to reinvigorate our goal.

After discussions with the Root & Branch community, we decided to lend our voice to their cause.

Root & Branch community

For those of you who are not familiar with this Community, here is a brief summary of their goals and recent achievements.

Root and Branch is a grassroots community for reform, working for a safe, just and inclusive Roman Catholic Church.

Beginning just before Pope Francis initiated the current Synod on Synodality 2021-2024, Root and Branch organised their first acclaimed lay-led Synod in Bristol in 2021.

They and were honoured to play a foundational part in Spirit Unbounded in Rome and Bristol in October 2023, alongside the official Synod for Synodality in the Vatican.

With contributions from prominent reform-minded Catholics such as Joan Chittister, Mary McAleese, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Tom O'Loughlin, people worldwide recorded their often painful lack of human rights within the Catholic Church.

They called upon it to accept and recognise all who are currently marginalised or excluded by Church teachings.

A Christian community, centered on a thriving parish Eucharist, must be our aim, our voice that of the risen Christ.

That, at this stage of the journey MMaC has decided to make this move should not be seen as a failure of intention, rather as a continuation, a new direction, a global direction.

Parish discussion

As individuals we haven't gone away.

Many and varied voices can be heard and are welcome within the forum of Root & Branch.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales is well placed to plead the cause of acceptance of a married priesthood given our experience of convert Anglicans.

Many Catholic parishes are familiar with married priests and have welcomed them into the parish community.

Maybe the next step is to urge parish discussion of the immediate and long-term future of priesthood for the sake of the people. Moreover, it is apparent from Synodal reportage that the celibacy issue was not dealt with adequately during the recent gathering in Rome.

May I thank those members who have served on MMaC's national committee over the years and offer thanks to members who have loyally paid a yearly subscription that has covered our ongoing activities.

We urge you as individuals to support the Root &Branch community by keeping alive discussion of issues vital to a flourishing Christian mission in the Third Millennium.

• First published by The Association of Parish Priests Republished with author's permission.
• Chris McDonnell is a retired headteacher from England and a regular contributor to La Croix International. He was the secretary of the Movement for Married Clergy.

The topics will be discussed at next month's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.

Francis's mainly conservative, traditional Catholic critics say these topics distract from evangelisation.

"What do ecology, economy, and politics have to do with the mandate and mission of the Church?" German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller asks.

From Francis's perspective, these subjects are essential to evangelisation, not a distraction from it.

When Christians stand with people as they face such struggles, Francis believes they'll eventually wonder why we're doing it.

That's when the conversation begins, he says.

He spoke of his vision of evangelisation in a recent audience with members of a charismatic group called the Community of Abraham.

The meekness that the Holy Spirit gives us makes us witnesses, because the path of the Holy Spirit isn't proselytism [trying to convert people to their beliefs] it's witness," Francis told them.

"If someone comes to proselytise, that's not the Church, it's a sect."

"The Church the Lord wants, as Pope Benedict XVI said, doesn't grow through proselytism but by attraction, meaning the attractiveness of witness, and behind that witness there's always the Holy Spirit.

"This is the methodology we're called to live in the work of evangelisation.

"We need to walk together with the people of our time, listen to what they carry in their hearts, in order to offer them the most credible response with our lives, that is, the life that comes from God through Jesus Christ."

Francis says he is guided by advice St. Francis of Assisi gave his brothers when they started to evangelize:

‘Go, preach the Gospel, and, if necessary, use words.'"

"Start with witness, and then they'll ask you: ‘Why are you like this?' That's the moment to speak."

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: Kairos Canada

Kasper, who is considered one of Francis's close theological advisers, says such a change could be made during this year's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon set for this October, if the prelates were to ask Francis about it.

The ordination of women, even to the diaconate, is out of the question, however.

Kasper says this is because it would undermine a "millennia-old tradition".

At the same time, Kasper notes, the Catholic Church would "collapse" without women.

"If the bishops agreed through mutual consent to ordained married men - those called viri probati - it's my judgement that the pope would accept it," he says.

"Celibacy isn't a dogma, it's not an unalterable practice."

Kasper says he would prefer to see celibacy continuing to be an "obligatory way of life with a commitment to the cause of Jesus Christ".

However, he points out, "this doesn't exclude that a married man can carry a priestly service in special situations".

Kasper's views seem at odds with those of Francis, who in January addressed the issue of possibly ordaining married men, during the in-flight press conference on the way back to Rome from Panama.

"I would rather give my life than to change the law on celibacy," Francis said at the time.

"I'm not in agreement with allowing optional celibacy. No," he said.

He added, however, that he believes theologians should study the possibility of "older married men" being ordained, in "far, faraway places," such as the islands in the Pacific.

Even then, he said, they should be ordained only to celebrate Mass, hear confessions and anoint the sick.

At the time, Francis also said the question of married priests is a matter to be "prayed on" and discussed by theologians, and is one he personally hasn't meditated on enough.

"It's not for me to decide. My decision is, optional celibacy before the diaconate, no," referring to the fact that future priests typically are first ordained as deacons.

"I will not do this. I don't feel like standing in front of God with this decision," Francis said.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Crux Now