America
Welcome to the CORPUS Blog. CORPUS is a faith community affirming and rooted in a revitalized church including an inclusive priestly ministry. Please visit our web site: www.corpus.org Our Blog will be a portal to news, articles and resources enabling you to keep up-to-date in the Catholic Reform process.
When will this Pope or any Bishop or Cardinal give a word of encouragement to all those many thousands of priests who in good conscience found that the celibate life style was destructive for them mentally, spiritually emotionally and physically and left it before it destroyed them? They were not only deprived of a livelihood, the hierarchy actively condemned them and blocked their efforts to gain employment, and in many instances prevailed upon employers to fire them. They were obliged to move away from their locality where they had a chance of obtaining a job, where their friends and family were. They were denied job references from their church superiors, and any that were given were negative. The hierarchy bad-mouthed them at every opportunity and insulted their wives and children. If they attempted to minister in any way the Hierarchy did all they could to prevent it. In my case I received many letters from Cardinal Law and his other bishops in Boston telling me what a terrible person I am for wanting to minister to Catholics who requested the Sacraments. Meanwhile, Law was
ReplyDeletesending letters of thanks, appreciation, and commendation to child abusers whom he was protecting. Even most of the priests whom the Pope is now encouraging disowned their brother priests who made the decision to leave the celibate life style and in many cases bad-mouthed them to the faithful.
Where is the word of encouragement for the men who realized too late that they made a decision to be celibate long before they understood what it entailed and had the courage to correct their mistake knowing that they were risking everything they had worked so hard to attain for so many years? What made it doubly painful is that many of these priests love priestly ministry which is , even today, unnecessarily bound to an unnatural lifestyle. Call it a "spiritual" lifestyle if you will, it is no less unnatural.
As positive as I am that I am breathing as I type this, that is how positive I am that optional celibacy for Catholic priests is an inevitability