20,000 Married Priests In The United States and Time To Change

 The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has an lively comment section to go with this article.

(August 30, 2007) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester recently welcomed two newly ordained priests. I want to congratulate them. I'm confident they will prove to be worthy of their pastoral assignments.

However, despite these ordinations, Rochester is among many dioceses nationwide experiencing a sharp decline the numbers of clergy, due to a large number of retirements and a shortage of men willing to commit to a life of celibacy. Women continue to be barred from ordained ministry as well.

I consider my membership in Corpus: National Association for an Inclusive Priesthood to be one of the major blessings in my life. While most Corpus members are formerly active priests who later married, I was ordained a married priest on Dec. 10, 2006, by Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, himself a married priest who had been excommunicated.

Furthermore, I am certified as a married priest for weddings, funerals and baptisms by the Federation of Christian Ministries, although I am not allowed to administer sacramental functions in Diocese of Rochester churches.

All married priests have experienced what amounts to being shunned by certain segments of faith communities, despite various polls indicating that most Catholics support the addition of married priests.

There are approximately 20,000 married priests in the United States, most of whom were able to find secular jobs after being ousted from their respective diocesan positions. In this regard, it is good to recall that married priests were commonplace until 1139, when mandatory celibacy was imposed on clergy.

While there is a clergy-shortage crisis, membership in the Roman Catholic Church worldwide continues to grow. Consequently, there is about one ordained celibate priest per 3,500 Catholics in the United States. It is time to erase artificial barriers and admit both women and married men to the priesthood.

Grosswirth lives in Rochester.

Source: Democrat & Chronicle: Essays

Italian Priest wants Marriage: One more with Milingo

 This is not the last of this discussion.  How long did it take to have the common language used in the Mass?  The time it will take for Priests to marry just around the corner. Five years?  2012?

The case of Sguotti has again reignited the debate over priestly celibacy, particularly because the woman in question has a young son, who Sguotti said he had helped name. He dodged direct questions about whether he was the boy's father, saying only that he cannot have a child according to church law.
Sguotti urged other priests who are living in intimate relations with women to «come out of the shadows,» and said he hoped to meet with Emmanuel Milingo, the renegade Zambian archbishop who was excommunicated last year after marrying a woman and launching a crusade for the Vatican to allow priests to marry.
Padua Bishop Antonio Mattiazzo said he was profoundly saddened by Sguotti's comments, and that he shared the suffering of the faithful as well as Sguotti's parents. «Mercy is a great Christian virtue, but it doesn't remove the need to shine light on the truth,» he said in a statement, according to the ANSA news agency.
Men in the Eastern rite of the Catholic church who are married can become priests, and the Vatican has accepted into the priesthood some married Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism.
But the Vatican has constantly refused to relax the celibacy requirement for Latin rite priests. The Vatican reaffirmed that last November, when Pope Benedict XVI convened a summit of clergy who rebuffed Milingo's crusade.

Source: Italian priest admits publicly to being in love, but says he still wants to be a priest