Married Priests and Women Priests Would Revive the Catholic
Church*
His journey takes place in the mountains of Calabria, the
“toe of the Italian boot,” and spans two days and several hundred kilometers.
For my dear friend and colleague, Father Luigi Iuliano, it’s a labor of love
that begins every Saturday afternoon and continues through Sunday. After a week
of pastoral care to the faithful of our village, Don Gigi, as we call him,
continues his priestly duties that now require that he travel among several isolated
mountain villages to half dozen tiny parishes to minister to hundreds of Catholics
who no longer have a priest to serve them.
Don Gigi is not alone. According to the Vatican’s own
statistics nearly half of the world’s parishes and missions do not have a
resident priest.
Now that the world’s Catholics have a new leader, Don Gigi
has been on my mind. Since the new pope,
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has been characterized as a reformer, as a married
female rabbi I wonder if he will consider allowing married priests and women
priests to join the Catholic clergy – something that many believe would bring
an enormously positive change to the Roman Catholic Church.
I arrived in Italy in 2004 to serve as Italy’s first woman
and first non-orthodox rabbi. In 2006 I returned to Serrastretta, my father’s
village in Calabria to establish the first active synagogue in the south of
Italy since Inquisition times. Over the years I have had the pleasure and
privilege of getting to know a number of priests, who, like Don Gigi, are deeply
dedicated to their work. Yet no matter how meticulously they organize their
time, it seems impossible for these priests to keep up. No surprise there. A
Vatican sanctioned organization, FutureChurch
reports that worldwide there are an estimated 125,000 priests who have left the
ministry and their reason for leaving – to get married.
 |
| Vatican |
In Italy the priest shortage is monumental. In America it’s
not much better. In fact at least 25,000 Americans have left the priesthood
since 1970, among them my cousin’s husband, Bernie. His wife Patricia recalls
that although Bernie loved his secular job, if priests had been permitted to
marry, Patricia is certain that Bernie would have stayed. In fact, FutureChurch tells us that 50 percent of
married priests would be willing to return to active ministry if they could.
Sadly Bernie died four years ago, but if he were here today
he certainly would be surprised to know that although he had to leave the
priesthood in order to get married, in America there are now nearly 100 married
priests in the Roman Catholic Church.
So who are these priests who serve American Catholic
parishes with their wives and children in tow? They are men who formerly served
Protestant churches as ordained ministers but who made conversion to become
Roman Catholics. Following a period of study and examination, these married men
were ordained as Catholic priests.
Throughout history there have been married priests, not
excluded from but sanctioned by the Vatican and obedient to the pope. It wasn’t
until 1123 that the church prohibited priests from taking wives. Finally in
1980, possibly because the shortage of priests had reached crisis proportions, the
church allowed Protestant clergymen who converted to Catholicism to remain
married to their wives.
Last year journalist Mark Oppenheimer examined the
phenomenon of married priests (NYT January 2012). Oppenheimer interviewed sociologist
Reverend D. Paul Sullins who began his career as an Episcopal priest and is now
a married priest serving in the Roman Catholic Church.
Oppenheimer wondered how things were working out. An
important question since conventional church wisdom has always maintained that
priests, who are the spouses of the church, do better when they devote
themselves exclusively to church work without the distractions of family life. Reverend
Sullins posed this question to these US married priests and found that, rather
than hindering their husband’s vocation, wives were mostly supportive and
helpful. Sullins puts it succinctly when he says, “I don’t want to say the
difference is great, but if there is a difference it’s in favor of the married
priest.”
What about women? The Jewish religion has ordained women
since the early 1970’s, although Regina Jonas who was murdered in Auschwitz,
holds the distinction of serving as the first woman rabbi in modern times.
Today hundreds of women serve synagogues as senior pulpit rabbis. We make up
approximately 15 percent of rabbis worldwide and as wives and mothers we divide
our time, as do most professionals, between work and home responsibilities.
 |
| New Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio |
The new pope, should he move forward with these reforms, would
have even better statistics on his side. FutureChurch
also reports that of the number of Catholic lay people and deacons currently providing
pastoral care, 50 percent are women. Maybe more important are the results from
a survey of a group thought to be the most traditional among all Catholics -
Irish priests. When they were asked to respond anonymously, 58 percent
supported the ordination of women priests. Given that there are a paltry
406,411 priests in service compared with the 783,000 women religious serving Catholics
worldwide, the ordination of women could be the force to bring priests back to
abandoned parishes.
Could these changes really happen? Absolutely. In the
1960’s, under Pope John XXIII, the Second Vatican Council made sweeping changes
to the Code of Canon Law. One change,
which permitted priests to offer mass in the language of the congregation,
created a significant surge in church attendance. Since the rules regarding
priestly celibacy and the ordination of women are not dogma but are included in
canon law, the new pope could revive interest and participation by permitting priests
to marry and women to be ordained.
Would it work out? If the Jewish experience is any
indication, the advent of women rabbis created opportunities for small and
struggling synagogues to have their own ordained spiritual leaders. Fewer
synagogues closed their doors as congregants seriously considered hiring women
and adjusted emotionally to the presence of a woman on the pulpit. As a woman
rabbi in traditional Italy, I am still seen as an anomaly and most days I feel
like a pioneer, but I have a loving congregation, a positive public presence
and a husband who supports and enjoys synagogue life, all of which contribute
to professional success and personal satisfaction.
 |
| Pope John Paul II |
The late Pope John Paul II said it best 27 years ago when he
told the world, “With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do
not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a
certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”
With that statement the late pope rekindled the familial
relationship between Jews and Christians – a relationship that had been dormant
for centuries. It is my hope that we Jews can continue to lead by example so
that our Catholic brothers and sisters might have the opportunity to embrace
the positive changes that married priests and women priests would bring to their
Church.
*This article first appeared as a featured piece on The Times of Israel blog.
