The Priest and the Catechist: Together for Human Rights

The story of the priest who falls in love with the catechist is somewhat of a cliche. Fr. Patrick Rice and Fatima Cabrera's story, captured in the TV documentary Perfumed Killers (RTÉ, 2001), gives it an entirely different twist. Here is the story as told by Dr. Dermot Keogh, head of the History Dept. at University College Cork in Ireland, which gave an honorary law degree to Rice on 6 June, 2008:

Patrick Rice has spent nearly forty years in Latin America working in the area of Human Rights education and in defence of the rights of the families of the ‘disappeared.’ Born in Fermoy in September 1945, he was educated at the local Christian Brothers’ school. He joined the Divine Word Missionaries, studied at St Patrick’s, College, Maynooth, and was ordained in 1970. His order sent him to Argentina as a chaplain to the Catholic University of Santa Fe and as an assistant professor in the Philosophy Department of the same university.

Dissatisfied with his pastoral role, he left the Divine Word Missionaries in 1972 and joined the Little Brothers [Hermanitos] of Charles de Foucauld. After his novitiate had ended in 1973, he became a worker priest in Santa Fe Province serving as part of a pastoral programme to unionise forest workers and agricultural labourers. In 1974, he moved to Buenos Aires, got a job as a carpenter on a building site and lived with the Hermanitos in the shanty town of Villa Soldati.

Following the coup in 1976, the military authorities viewed the pastoral mission of the Hermanitos with great suspicion and many members were forced to go underground. Gross violation of human rights quickly became the hallmark of the new regime. Mutilated bodies were dumped near Villa Soldati, including the cadavers of two Uruguayan members of congress. In all, nearly 30,000 were ‘disappeared’ before the military were forced from power in 1983.

Those working in defence of human rights under the military regime could not count on widespread support in Argentina. Instead of the condemnation of human rights abuses, many people responded to the frequent disappearances with the now infamous phrase – “algo habrán hecho,” or ‘they [that is, those who were ‘disappeared’] must have done something.’ Nobody was safe. The outspoken Bishop of La Rioja, Enrique Angelelli. Patrick, was killed by the military on 4 August 1976. Accompanied by a member of the Fraternity, Patrick made the long and difficult bus journey to the diocese during a ‘state of siege’ to investigate the circumstances in which the bishop had died. Returning to the capital, he continued the investigation into disappearances and helped produce a report “Violence against the Argentine Church” which received international attention. Patrick later described that investigation as his first work in the field of human rights.

Patrick, despite the danger in the capital, kept working openly. His life was changed by the events of 11 October 1976. That night, he left a prayer meeting in his parish in Villa Soldati accompanied by an eighteen-year-old catechist, Fatima Cabrera. They suddenly found themselves surrounded by armed men. They were hooded, bundled into an unmarked car and taken to a secret detention centre where they were tortured over a number of days, sometimes in adjacent rooms or in the same room.

Recalling those events, Fatima wrote recently that there were moments when she had the sensation that she was no longer alive. In Fatima’s own words: Ellos, los militares, eran los dueños de la vida. Their military torturers were the arbiters over who lived or died. But despite their ordeal, Patrick and Fatima did not share the fate of the 30,000 disappeared. Prompt and courageous action by the staff of the Irish embassy in Buenos Aires certainly helped save both of their lives. The then third secretary, Justin Harman, hearing of Patrick’s disappearance, worked with Ambassador Wilfred Lennon, to establish his whereabouts. Now Irish ambassador to Moscow, Mr Harman, who is here today, did not give up. He was the source for a news item in The London Times on 14 October which reported Patrick’s abduction. The following day, the same paper reported an Irish embassy source confirming that he was in police custody but his whereabouts and the reason for his detention were not known. Meanwhile, questions were being raised at the United Nations in New York about the whereabouts of the ‘disappeared’ Irishman.

The military authorities transferred Patrick to a new holding centre. Being over six feet tall, his military guard found it hard to stuff him into the boot of a car. Fatima Cabrera arrived at the same prison a few days later. Both showed the signs of physical abuse and torture. On 19 October, Patrick was shaved by his captors and told that he was to receive visitors. He was also advised, if he did not want to wind up in a sack at the bottom of the River Plate, to say that he had fallen down a stairs. His visitors, the Irish ambassador and Justin Harman, were delighted to see him but distressed by his appearance. They assured him that they would work hard to get him out of jail.

In December 1976, as Patrick was being released from jail his captors asked him to write something positive in their records. He wrote, with characteristic understatement: “I might have been treated better.”

Nearly thirty years later, a fellow prisoner and survivor told Patrick he believed that many of the prisoners in that holding centre were alive today because he had seen them. Therefore, the military were unable to make them ‘disappear.’

On his return to Cork, Patrick was helped make a good recovery by Professor Bob Daly of UCC. And so began a new phase in his life as a campaigner for human rights. In 1976 to 1977, he worked in London with Latin American refugees. He was a founding chairperson of the Committee for Human Rights in Argentina. He went on speaking tours in France, Spain and the United States to denounce torture in Argentina.

Between 1978 and 1980, he moved to the United States and helped found the Washington Committee for Human Rights in Argentina. He lobbied the US Government and Congress on human rights. In 1979, Patrick helped organize with Senator Christopher Dodd a hearing on the ‘Disappeared’ in Argentina. He also worked with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

In 1980, Patrick moved to Caracas, Venezuela, where he lived with a community of the Hermanitos in shantytowns near the capital. He began promoting human rights within the pastoral programmes of the local archdiocese. He also cooperated in assisting refugees from Haiti. In January 1981, Patrick helped organise in Costa Rica the First Latin American Congress of Families of the Disappeared. He became one of the founding members of FEDEFAM (The Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees). He served as its Executive Secretary from 1981 to 1987.

As part of his work with FEDEFAM, he visited most Latin American countries to investigate situations of enforced disappearances and began to lobby actively at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. He also represented FEDEFAM when, in 1982, it received the Spanish Human Rights award. He did a speaking tour of ten cities in the US organized by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation, and, accompanied by the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, received a peace prize.

With the fall of the Argentine military junta in 1983, Patrick returned to Buenos Aires. There he mourned the loss of so many members of his order and their friends. Returning to Villa Soldati, he met Fatima Cabrera. He had last seen her in prison in December 1976. She had, in the interim, spent two years in jail and a further two years under house arrest. Patrick left for Venezuela again, but kept in contact by letter with Fatima. They married in Caracas in May 1985. Two of their children were born in Caracas, and the third, Blanca, when they returned to live in Buenos Aires in 1987. She is here today with her mother.

Living back in Buenos Aires, it was not long before Patrick became involved in human rights training and education at the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights. He coordinated training courses, seminars and workshops throughout the country. In 1992, he became the national coordinator of that organisation and got involved in prison visitation and assistance to families of the disappeared. He coordinated training courses for teachers in human rights. In 1999, Patrick began to work again with FEDEFAM and was nominated as Senior Adviser to the Executive Committee. He has led a training seminar in Sri Lanka in 1999 organized by the Asian Federation on Involuntary Disappearances. He has participated in the Consultation on Disappearances in Africa, in Benin in 2002. He has attended the General Meeting of Families of the Missing in Croatia in 2002 and Patrick has also taken part in 2003 in consultations with the Office of Forensics and Missing persons in Pristinha, Kosovo.

In 2002, the Irish Diplomatic Mission at Geneva nominated him as the Western Group’s candidate for membership of the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. He participated in much of the advocacy to gain approval for an international instrument against enforced disappearances. That was finally achieved on 23 September 2005.

Over the past forty years, Patrick Rice has been a tireless worker in the field of human rights – as a teacher, educator, activist and lobbyist. For her part, Fatima has had responsibility for running the national adult literacy campaign in Argentina. She now directs the adult literacy campaign in the greater Buenos Aires which has a population of thirteen million.

A few days ago, before leaving Buenos Aires, both Patrick and Fatima were key-witnesses in the trial of a police chief accused of sanctioning a massacre at Pilar, in 1976, in which nearly twenty people were shot. Today in Argentina such testimony is not without danger. Two years ago, another key witness in a similar trial was ‘disappeared’ and is presumed dead. And so the struggle continues. The leading Argentinian poet, Juan Gelman, recalled how his son, Marcello, and his pregnant wife, Claudia, were ‘disappeared’ by the military on 24 August 1976. Both died in a concentration camp and Gelman writes:

The military
dictatorship never officially
recognised their ‘disappearance.’
It spoke of ‘those forever absent.’
Until I have seen their bodies
Or their murderers, I will never give them up for dead.

Juan Gelman’s determination, as reflected in those powerful lines, is shared by Patrick and Fatima Cabrera Rice. They will continue to reclaim the memory of those who have been ‘disappeared’ and never be intimidated into silence.

MORE INFORMATION:

• I fell in love with the girl being tortured in the cell next to me..;, Sunday Mirror, 10/7/2001
  
• Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Case 2450, Argentina
  

Photo: Patrick Rice with his wife Fatima Cabrera and daughter Bianca.

Former priest: Clergy should have right to marry

CNN
3/29/2010

Ed Gerlock has been calling the Philippines his home since he moved there from the United States in 1962 - it was the same year he was ordained.

Ed and Ching Gerlock married in 1981.
The 74-year-old joined the priesthood to initially get an education. It was also a vocation that allowed him to travel overseas.

He spent many years working with the country’s poor and farmers, learning about a life outside the seminary.

It was during this time he met a beautiful Filipino social researcher called Ching. There was an instant attraction, but it was also forbidden. Their friendship grew and so did their love. It took 13 years before Ed would break his vows to the Church and leave the priesthood.

“This lady and I became close friends”, remembers Gerlock. “When I was working in Parish I was thinking to myself… I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I genuinely love this lady… in a sense she saved my life”.

They married on May 31, 1981 at a home for leprosy patients in Hawaii. Ching says it was one of the happiest days of her life. Two years later she gave birth to a baby girl they named Alay – which means “a gift”.

Ching says her husband has never turned his back on the church. In fact he still works for those less fortunate and down trodden… caring for the elderly who have no assistance and providing them with services.

She says he may not be able to give mass or wear the cloth of the church, but everywhere they go people still call him Father because of the charitable work he still does.

Their daughter Alay is a guidance counselor. She’s very close to her father and defends his actions 28 years ago. “Most people would say your father took a vow and broke the the vow. But he’s a person, he made a choice and I can’t refute his choice or I wouldn’t be here”.

Gerlock is very progressive and liberal in his views when he talks about the Church and the scandals it’s currently facing. He believes that marriage would be beneficial for priests and that the clergy should at least be given the option of having a marital life.

“When I go to Church and listen to priests talk about reproductive health, marriage and children, I think… what does he know? There are some things in marriage that you would find difficult to talk about and here’s this guy, standing there blandly talking about something he knows nothing about”.

Gerlock doesn’t only believe priests should be married. He also supports gay and women priests; something he knows won’t be happening in the Catholic Church anytime soon. Regardless, he believes reform is essential, if the Church is to repair its battered image.

“It’s going to be a very painful transition I’m afraid”, he admits. “I mean because people are so hard line within the Church. You have to go backwards and say how did this happen – like all the cases of sex abuse that are now coming out. How can we prevent this from ever happening again and what’s our obligation to these children … all those questions are not being address.”

Posted by: Anna Coren, CNN Anchor

22% of priests are married and some are still active

Long time readers of this blog may remember that we covered Fr. Gumersindo's marriage to María Benetti back in January 2007. We are thrilled to see that this clerical couple are together and happy three years later.

by Silvia R. Pontevedra
El País
3/22/2010

Gumersindo Meiriño, born in Cea 44 years ago, entered the seminary at 10, was ordained at 25, then earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Navarre, was pastor of Oseira and Cea, later in A Gudiña, and then went off to the missions. He was in Ecuador and Argentina, and there, in the Diocese of Santo Tomé (Corrientes), he fell in love with Maria Benetti, a lay missionary from Pergamino (Buenos Aires) devoted to the care of patients. At 40, Gumersindo decided to marry her, but he did not leave the priesthood.

He never asked for papal dispensation to return to lay status, so the couple married in the living room of a sports club, in a civil ceremony. And there were many participants (those from A Gudiña even got mad at him because he did not invite them), even though the bishop of Santo Tomé had a letter read in all parishes warning the faithful that whoever went to the wayward priest's wedding would be committing a mortal sin and could no longer take communion. Meanwhile in Ourense, the priest's native diocese, Bishop Quintero asked the faithful to pray that Meiriño, who had already gotten married, would return to the straight path. Now, in Santo Tomé, he does not walk the parishes of the diocese, but he still "feels like a priest" and is still counted in the statistics as a Catholic priest.

Moceop (Movement for optional celibacy), the largest religious group championing the cause in Spain, estimates that of the 27,000 priests in the Spanish diocese over 6,000 are married, though other estimates raise this latter figure to 7,000. It is difficult to be specific, precisely because the Church maintains silence on this issue, but according to these numbers at least 22% of diocesan priests have decided to formalize their relationship with a woman. And some continue to work discretely, with the tacit consent of their bishops. This happens here and in other diocese such as Madrid, also ruled by a Galician, Antonio Maria Rouco Varela.

Twenty-eight seminarians were ordained in Galicia this year. Three or four decades, ago, a single seminary class would have the same number of students. It is logical that diocese are reluctant to give up their soldiers. The lack of vocations and the aging of the clergy are not minor problems for the Church: for each seminarian who is ordained, three priests die. In Galicia, there are 3,863 parish churches (including the 219 belonging to the diocese of Astorga) and only 1,421 priests (28 in Astorga), many of them disabled by age.

When a scandal springs up, as in the recent case of Victorino Pérez, the non-laicized priest from the Diocese of Mondoñedo-Ferrol who continued to concelebrate Masses, the diocese take steps. With support from the Galician priest Manuel Espiña, who just died, Pérez Prieto recently officiated at the collegiate church of A Coruña, considered the second most important church of the Archdiocese of Santiago. Some very Orthodox parishioners had complained about the situation, but the archdiocese did not act until reporters asked about the matter in early March.

An official spokesman denied it at first, but just hours later, the archdiocese released a statement in which it forbade Victorino Pérez Prieto from celebrating or concelebrating Mass in any of the churches in the archdiocese. Three days later, the diocese of Mondoñedo-Ferrol took the same road and announced an investigation.

Victorino Pérez and his wife, Cristina Moreira, have agitated for years for the renewal of the Church, advocating optional celibacy and women priests. This week, Moceop published a statement supporting the couple: "It is sad that the Galician bishops are now jumping on this specific case, when they know that in Galicia, in Spain, in Latin America and in many other parts of the world there are thousands and thousands of priests who are living out a kind of Church in fraternal communities of equals."

In Galicia, there are even cases of priests married to nuns. Celibacy came into the Church three centuries after the death of Jesus of Nazareth with the Council of Elvira (Iliberis, Granada). "Sooner rather than later," according to Moceop, the bishops and the Pope "will have to realize" that mandatory celibacy is "outdated and obsolete." "Many bishops" (the lates -- the one of Vienna -- last week) have called for [a reconsideration of mandatory celibacy] publicly, and "even John Paul II came to acknowledge to a group of journalists that he knew it would be inevitable." In their public letter, the former priests and married priests warn that "the current pedophilia scandal" could put a change in church law on the fast track.

Until that happens, and more so now, given the favorable treatment towards Anglican pastors integrated into Catholicism, there will still be many leading double lives. "Celibacy is oppressive when it is not a charism," says Antonio Martínez Aneiros, a former worker priest, former mayor of Narón, former Galician parliamentarian and a deep believer. Aneiros, who started the process of laicization after spending two months in jail for having officiated at the burial of two workers from Bazán killed in the 1972 protests, recalls that there are studies that put the percentage of priests who violate the celibacy rule at 70%. Some do not even hide the fact, and their parishioners can come to see it as something normal. In a township east of Santiago everyone knows that there is a priest who has had a relationship with a lady for three decades and no one is shocked. The Church (not divine) celibacy law mainly victimizes women, who have to live in silence and who can't even be listed in a partnership registry.

The process of laicization is "hugely traumatic," says Luciano Pena who, while pastor of Portomouro (Val do Dubra), fell in love with a parishioner. "I was tricked from the beginning and it was humiliating for me," he acknowledges; in the interrogations conducted by the vicar, "they asked me to tell my intimacies and eventually, so that they would approve my laicization, I had to tell lies. My rector in the seminary had to make up that I had some kind of defect." With the Church and its "regression in the recent past," this official of the Brión City Council now feels "disheartened". He goes to Mass, but only "to maintain the link" with his neighbors.

Currently, the laicization process is less harsh and quicker (before, it could take "up to 10 years"), but even recently, according to Andrés Muñoz of Moceop, "almost all the questionnaire was of a sexual nature, and only if one declares onself to be obsessed or if one says one has lost faith, is it granted." Then, once returned to the secular state, "former priests become pariahs, and can not return to their parishes." But the low points, after the young priests come in contact with the world, are inevitable: "In the seminaries we learn that women are a danger, the word "pleasure" is forbidden, and the system of discipline, the cilice and the recitation of the breviary have come back," this married priest explains.

Sometimes the pressure is such that it is better to put some distance between. Ángel Álvarez, from Dena, moved to Argentina and conceived his children there. Most are still believers, but others have even left the faith along the way. Domingo Seivane, from Ferrol, was pastor and missionary in Angola, then traveled to France and read forbidden books: "I learned the story of the Church and became an agnostic," he says. Upon returning, he waited until he found employment (as an insurance inspector), and gave the keys to the parish back to the diocese. Under canon law he remains a priest: "I'm not deleting myself from anything," he jokes, "maybe when I die, I will be named pastor again in Heaven."

Photos: Fr. Gumersindo and Maria; Fr. Victorino

Celibacy is destroying church from the inside, says film-maker

Irish Independent
Monday March 22 2010

The director of a film which questions celibacy in the Catholic Church has said that the rule is "destroying the church from the inside".

Film-maker John Deery spent 10 years interviewing priests and seminarians before writing the script for 'Conspiracy of Silence'.

"The release couldn't be more appropriate, given that celibacy is at the heart of the mess the Catholic Church is in now," he said.

Starring Oscar-winning actress Brenda Fricker and actor Sean McGinley, the film tells the story of a young trainee priest torn between the love for his girlfriend and his vocation.

"Celibacy needs to be dropped by the Catholic Church as a prerequisite for being a priest. It's the real problem at the heart of the church," said Mr Deery.

Priest: 'I cannot live this life of celibacy'

By Nancy Haught
The Oregonian
March 23, 2010

PORTLAND — The Rev. Tom Farley looked at packed pews Sunday morning and made a promise.

"There is an elephant in the room," Farley said as Mass began at St. Clare Catholic Church in southwest Portland. "But we'll talk about it later — after Communion. "

He was referring to the letter he'd sent to the congregation last week, which detailed why these Sunday Masses would be his last as a priest.

"I leave because of a private longing in my heart and soul that I have ignored or suppressed to my detriment," he wrote in the letter. "I love priestly ministry but I cannot live this life of celibacy."

Farley, ordained in 1979, is the latest priest to leave the Catholic Church in the United States, which is struggling with a severe clergy shortage and declining numbers. The number of American men joining the priesthood has dropped by 60 percent since the 1960s to about 40,000 in 2009. Celibacy, required since the 12th century by the Catholic Church in the West, is considered a major reason for that decline. Critics say many men reject the priesthood because they aren't willing to live without the intimacy of a life partner or that it leads to sexual frustration and breaking of priestly vows.

The Archdiocese of Portland has about 150 priests, including retired ones, who serve 124 parishes and 24 missions, and about 400,000 Catholics. In the last decade, perhaps half a dozen in the Portland archdiocese have left the priesthood, often quietly, and some have married, also quietly. National numbers of priests who marry aren't reported and tracked.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Farley, who is in his mid- to late-50s, wouldn't discuss leaving, except to say it was a "gut-wrenching" decision.

Parishioners packed Farley's last Masses — one Saturday evening and three on Sunday morning. As part of the services, the congregations knelt with him to confess their sins and listened as he preached a brief sermon. After Communion, Farley carried a sheet of paper to the lectern and read:

"I want to say how honored I have been to be a fellow disciple with you in the Catholic Church. I am leaving without anger or resentment, not wanting to hurt you or the Church. I do not want to be a poster child for married priests."

Farley, who graduated from high school in Corvallis, said he will live in Portland. He drew chuckles when he said he would be looking for a job, "like a real person." He said he will remain a practicing Catholic. He can still receive the sacraments, but if he chooses to marry in the church, he must go through a process to be released from his vows.

Meanwhile, he said, "I look forward to parish shopping — like you have been able to do."

The Rev. James Galluzzo will return as interim pastor at St. Clare. The archdiocese is expected to assign a new priest to St. Clare in July.

After Mass, parishioners said they were stunned by Farley's letter. It sparked speculation about marriage in Farley's future, but most were still focused on what the priest had brought to the parish, and the legacy he would leave.

"He was one of us," said Frank Elliott, who was baptized as an adult by Farley. Farley also married Elliott and his wife, Kathleen, and baptized their two daughters.

"He was part of our family," Kathleen Elliott said through her tears. "Always, in his sermons, he brought the message to life. He took his family stories and translated the Gospel in a meaningful way."

Other church members felt the same. "I can't imagine this parish without him," said Michael Spatz, a member of St. Clare's since 1989. "He's been a good match. This is a liberal parish with clear ideas about social justice. He didn't just put his stamp on us; he allowed us to put our stamp on him."

Linda Fanning, who remembers that her first day at St. Clare coincided with Farley's nine years ago. "Father Tom is man of huge integrity. He does what he says he's going to do." Neither Spatz nor Fanning would talk about the issue of celibacy at the core of Farley's letter or about his plans. "He's doing what's right, following the rules set out for him," Fanning said.

Mary Alice Judy said she drives 15 miles to attend Mass at St. Clare — because of Farley's homilies. "It always seemed like they spoke to me directly," she said. "They were short, obviously well-prepared." She said she'd heard some speculation about whether Farley would marry anytime soon.

"I certainly hope so," she said. "Loneliness is terrible."

Celibacy and Sex Abuse

The latest rounds of child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, and Brazil (caught on video and aired on a Brazilian TV station), among other places, have led several prominent Catholics to call for an end to the celibacy requirement.

Among the voices:

• Theologian Hans Kung who, commenting on the latest rash of sex abuse cases, asks “Why is it so prevalent in the Catholic Church under celibate leadership?” and opines: “Compulsory celibacy is the principal reason for today’s catastrophic shortage of priests, for the fatal neglect of eucharistic celebration, and for the tragic breakdown of personal pastoral ministry in many places.”
  
  
• Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, who called for celibacy to be reexamined and then was pressured by the Vatican to "clarify" his remarks and indicate that he still supported celibacy.
  
  
• Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschk of Hamburg, Germany, spoke about the issue on German radio: "The celibate lifestyle can attract people who have an abnormal sexuality and cannot integrate sexuality into their lives. That's when a dangerous situation can arise."

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has continued to defend the celibacy rule calling it the sign of full devotion, the entire commitment to the Lord and to the 'Lord's business', an expression of giving oneself to God and to others". The official Church position is that celibacy has no relationship to sexual abuse of minors. I, Rebel Girl, actually agree with the Vatican on this point, although I believe that celibacy should be made optional for other reasons.

Finally, Univision posted a survey today asking viewers whether the Vatican should eliminate the celibacy requirement. If you can understand Spanish and want to vote, click here.

Priests with love lives speak out against celibacy

By ANGELA CHARLTON and VICTOR L. SIMPSON
Associated Press
3/17/2010

PARIS — Leon Laclau shared his life, and often, his bed, with Marga over 20 years — all while serving as a Catholic priest in a town in the French Pyrenees.

His clerical leadership eventually expelled him, prompting protests from his flock and inspiring other priests and their partners around France to speak out about long-hidden love lives, and to press the Church to abandon its insistence on celibacy.

They say the chastity rule has fed the persistent, profound decline in the numbers of European and American priests. More influential voices are joining them as scandals involving sexual abuse and pedophilia spread across parishes around Europe.

The Vatican rejects any link between celibacy and sex abuse and shows no sign it intends to loosen its rules. Instead, church leaders are likely to continue a don't ask-don't tell policy of ignoring priestly relationships, as long as they cause no harm.

"Love, my love for Marga, never held me back from having faith. On the contrary, it encouraged me," Laclau told The Associated Press by telephone from his home in Asson, in the mountains near the pilgrimage site at Lourdes. "I lived my love life with Marga, and I kept my passion for the church."

The two met when Laclau led the funeral service for Marga's first husband in 1985. When their relationship blossomed, he said, "at first, we tried to hide it."

Slowly their friends learned, and Laclau's church colleagues, who met them "with a silence, not of disapproval, but of non-interference," he said.

The church's quiet tolerance melted when Marga came to live with Leon in 2001. Laclau's superior, Father Benat Oyhenart, asked him to "purify the relationship" — in essence to choose between his vocation and his love.

Laclau chose Marga. In 2007, he was forced out of the priesthood.

Oyhenart sent a statement to the congregation explaining what he had done. "What about the young groom who says, 'How can I commit to the sacrament of marriage, for the rest of my life, before a priest who himself does not respect the commitment he made for the rest of his life?'"

Oyhenart received angry, fearful letters from churchgoers. One he cited read: "If you replace him, I will keep my children at home, out of fear that his replacement is a pedophile."

Such fears have mounted as revelations about sexual abuse of children have convulsed Catholic leadership from the United States to Ireland to Australia and in recent weeks, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.

Now, one of the pope's closest advisers, Austrian Cardinal Christophy Schoenborn, has called for an honest examination of issues like celibacy and education for priests to root out the origins of sex abuse.

His office quickly stressed that Schoenborn wasn't calling celibacy into question, just as Pope Benedict XVI was reaffirming its importance as an "expression of the gift of oneself to God and others."

Theologians and psychologists warn against equating celibacy with pedophilia, at least directly.

But Schoenborn and others have been receptive to arguments that a celibate priesthood is increasingly problematic for the church, primarily because it limits potential candidates for ordination.

Another problem: People who are pedophiles to begin with are drawn to the church because it is an easy way to find victims and be in a position of authority where few question their actions, priest and family counselor Stephane Joulain noted in an essay in Sunday's Le Monde. He also said priests who have never had sexual experiences are often drawn to adolescents because their own sexual growth halted at adolescence.

Laclau, after his experience, says that "an end to celibacy is not the only answer" to the church's woes. He blames "young, reactionary priests ... who show a growing traditionalism" for alienating ordinary believers who might otherwise have been drawn to the priesthood.

While the worldwide number of priests is slowly rising to 408,000 — with major growth in Africa and Asia — the number in Europe is continuing to decline, according to Vatican statistics.

The decline is particularly jarring in the United States, where they have dropped from 58,909 in 1975 to 40,666 in 2009, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University.

France is down to about 24,000 priests nationwide from 42,000 in 1975, and numbers of churchgoers have plummeted. A study by Lyon's auxiliary bishop found that more than half of the 161 priests who left their jobs between 1996 and 2005 did so to join romantic unions with women or other men, according to Catholic newspaper La Croix.

"The church is losing a lot of ground, it's turning in on itself," Laclau said. Ending celibacy, while not the only solution, could help make the church "more humane," he said.

Two days after leaving the church, he received a letter from a former parishioner describing being sexually abused as a child by another priest, a kind of cry for help.

"It repulsed me. It stains religious life, this kind of perversion," he said.

Evidence over the past decade has shown church leadership has covered up, ignored or simply underestimated the problem of pedophilia.

Before becoming pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Catholic News Service in December 2002, that "less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type." The most extensive study of the abuse crisis in the American church, commissioned by the U.S. bishops in 2004, found that about 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the time studied were accused of abuse.

The percentage in society at large is unknown because studies are inconclusive.

The report stressed that neither celibacy nor homosexuality causes abuse, but argued that an understanding of the problem of clerical sex abuse isn't possible without reference to both, since the vast majority of U.S. abuse cases were of a homosexual nature.

In Italy, papal biographer Marco Politi, in his book "La Confessione" — "The Confession" — presents the testimony of a priest struggling to balance his homosexuality with his commitment to a church that considers homosexual acts a sin.

The priest, who is never identified, discloses that a network of homosexual priests is active in the Italian church. It is described as an informal "self-help group" that lives in the "catacombs" of the church — the underground.

For Laclau, the solution is more sexual honesty among the clergy.

"I thought I was one of the very few (priests) to have a love life. I slowly discovered how numerous we are," he said.

Groups around Europe have sprung up to bring together people like him, from the Belgium-based Married Priests association to a group called Plein Jour, or Light of Day, which includes some 150 Frenchwomen who live with priests.

Many have borne the priests' children. Many maintain a low public profile, but seek solace in sharing their stories with other women who have lived the same "suffering, silence, sacrifice," said the group's director, Dominique Venturini.

Venturini, now 85, spent 45 years romantically and sexually involved with a priest based in Provence. "Only when he retired could he come and live with me. But unfortunately, by then, it was too late to have children, a dream I always had."

She speaks bluntly against celibacy. "When you bury human nature, it figures out how to express itself in another, perverted way."

Under church law, the pope can change the celibacy requirement by fiat, although some in the church have suggested that various reforms be discussed in a wider forum such as a new Vatican council.

However, the Rev. Thomas Reese, an American expert on the Vatican, said he doubts there would be a majority vote at such a forum to lift celibacy. "In addition, too many dioceses in the southern hemisphere have resolved the issue by simply ignoring ongoing relationships between priests and women," in said in an email exchange with The Associated Press.

The Catholic church's Eastern rite, which follows Orthodox Christian traditions but is loyal to the pope, allows married priests in contrast to the Roman church.

The Rev. Igor Yatsiv, spokesman for Ukraine's Greek Catholic church, said he knew of no cases of clergy sex abuse.

"I am not sure that's just because of no mandatory celibacy here. I'm married myself and have three children, but I don't think it's this that keeps me from sin. I just don't know another way" of living, he said.

Leon and Marga Laclau, after he left the church and after more than 20 years together, finally married. He continues to attend Mass, "not regularly, but I go. It is always a joy to participate."

"I still have faith," he says. "But you must maintain it. It's a bit like love."

Simpson reported from Rome. Associated Press writer Fanny Dassie in Paris contributed to this report.

Catholic Church Loses an Exorcist

According to today's Crítica de la Argentina, on of the Catholic Church's few certified exorcists, Fr. Gastón Dedyn, has left the priesthood to get married and, on Sunday, will be ordained as a Lutheran pastor.

"They used me, they mistreated me, and that's why I left," says Gastón Dedyn, one of the few priest-exorcists in the worldwide Catholic Church, who is now obliged to change his life. He has just decided to leave the priesthood to marry Laura, a woman he fell in love with three years ago. But he will not leave the ministry. This Sunday he will become a member of the Lutheran clergy in Argentina, after leaving the institution with its headquarters in Rome because of its strict celibacy.

At 61, this priest, who has spent more than half his life consecrated to God, states that his priestly vocation "is intact", but that the humiliation to which he has been subjected by the church leadership made him feel "like Uriah, the Hittite." The biblical comparison refers to the story of the soldier husband of Bathsheba whom King David ordered killed on the battle front after having impregnated his wife.

Dedyn -- who fulfilled innumerable roles of high responsibility during his priestly life -- reached a breaking point when he fell in love and formed a couple with a woman. That situation caused his separation from the Catholic Church.

Father Gastón was professor of Spirituality at the seminary in Paraná, rector of the “Santa María Madre Dios” seminary in the Diocese of San Rafael, Mendoza, vicar general and diocesan administrator and a well-known exorcist authorized by the Vatican.

– When did you begin to perform exorcisms?, Crítica de la Argentina asked.

– I've been doing exorcisms since 1998, when I had to face a woman possessed by a demon for the first time. I have taken evil out of the bodies of many people, over one hundred, through what we call diagnostic exorcism.

- And what is it like to deal with a possessed person?

- Very intense, their eyes turn white, their voices change, they vomit, they develop an uncommon strength.

- Like in the movie "The Exorcist"?

- More or less. They don't turn their heads 180 degrees, but everything else is basically the same. It's terrifying to carry on a conversation with the demon to convince it to stop bothering a person, but with the power of Christ everything is possible.

LOVE. Laura is 47 and she is the woman who changed Dedyn's life. "I met her in Baradero three years ago and we fell in love, I was already fairly upset by everything that was happening to me with the church authorities, I had even had an argument with my bishop where I raised the fact that I could not continue to bear the injustices to which I was being subjected, but it was this love that led me to decide to separate myself," the priest says. And he adds: "I always dreamed of having a huge family. Imagine, I come from one with 11 brothers and sisters and 42 nieces and nephews, and I would love to have children, but we will have to adopt."

According to a survey Dedyn himself took of his parishioners, a substantial majority agree with his decision. Given his friendship with Bishop Manuel Acuña, head of the Independent Lutheran Church of Argentina, he decided to join this new institution, in the Good Shepherd parish, in the Santos Lugares area of Buenos Aires.

"Father Gastón is a Catholic priest who has asked to serve as a minister in our Church, channeling his vocation, after having discovered the affection given by a woman who is now his wife. Father Gastón, being a priest forever and understanding that human love enriches his service to his neighbor, did not find room in the Roman Catholic Church to continue, given the celibacy requirement," Acuña explains.

A special service naming Father Gastón as an official member of the Lutheran Church will take place on Sunday March 14th at 10 am in calle Sudamérica 1712, in Santos Lugares. Perhaps some of the people he exorcised will be present.

Photo: Fr. Gastón Dedyn, Bishop Manuel Acuña, and their spouses.

Spanish Bishops Conference defends decision to dismiss MOCEOP supporter from teaching post

Rentapriest Blog covered the case of Jose Antonio Fernandez back on June 20, 2007. The story — and the struggle — continue....

Mar Ruiz
Cadena Ser
2/19/2010

La Cadena SER has had access to a letter presented by the Bishops Conference in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It is the first time that the Spanish Church goes to Europe to defend its power to dismiss teachers for "moral standards".

The Court, whose decision will set precedence, will decide on the case of Jose Antonio Fernandez, a former priest who was dismissed by the Diocese of Cartagena for attending a meeting of the optional celibacy movement (MOCEOP). Jose Antonio Fernandez had been hired six years earlier by the diocese when he was already married and had five children.

The letter, to which Cadena SER has had access, is signed by the Secretary General of the Bishops Conference, Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, and it reflects the "direct interest" of the church hierarchy in this proceeding because, as it states, it is the Church's role to recruit teachers of religion and establish the moral criteria to determine the suitability of these teachers to teach the subject. The bishops also refer to the independence and freedom of the Catholic Church in the matter and the non-interference of the state in the regulation of its internal affairs.

The case is the culmination of a legal battle initiated by José Antonio Fernández in 1988 when the Diocese of Cartagena fired him from his post as professor at an institute in Mula (Murcia). He had been teaching for over six years there. The diocese, as well as the center faculty and all students were aware of his condition as an ex-priest who is married with five children. However, his attendance at a meeting of MOCEOP, as a member of the general public, was what led to his dismissal. After losing the case before the constitutional court, Fernandez is now exhausting the judicial avenue by asking for redress from the European Court of Human Rights. Speaking to Cadena SER, he asserts that that he is only asking for justice and an acknowledgement that his dismissal was invalid. He also condemns the hypocrisy of the church hierarchy because when he was hired they knew his status as a married ex-priest.

The Strasbourg ruling will set precedent and take full effect in Spain, which, in the case of a resolution favorable to the plaintiff, would be critical to the many claims of invalid dismissal presented by teachers of religion in Spain.

Married Catholic priest will be Nashville diocese's first

By Bob Smietana
Tennessean
1/21/2010

Prentice Dean will be ordained as a Catholic priest on Monday — while his wife watches.

The former Episcopal priest and father of two will become the first married priest in the Nashville diocese.

He resigned from the Episcopal Church because he thought the denomination had moved away from traditional Christianity. He converted to Catholicism five years ago, and, after Monday, he'll be celebrating Mass, hearing confessions and handling all the responsibilities of a priest.

Since the 1980s, the Roman Catholic Church has allowed former Episcopal priests, like Dean, to be ordained under a special provision. Church leaders say the provision is an act of grace toward converts. But some wonder why that same grace isn't extended to former Catholic priests who left the ministry to marry.

Right now, about 100 married former Episcopal priests have been ordained. Still, the vast majority of the more than 40,000 priests in the United States are celibate.

The tradition of celibacy is rooted in the Bible. Jesus never married, and the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that marriage is a distraction from serving God.

Eventually, Christians were divided on the issue. Greek-speaking Christians allowed priests to marry before they were ordained. Latin-speaking Christians, on the other hand, required celibacy.

That split continues today. Roman Catholics from the Latin rite tradition, which includes most of the world's Catholics, require celibacy. But Eastern Rite Catholics allow married men to become priests, as do Orthodox Christians.

Bishop David Choby of the Diocese of Nashville supports Dean's ordination but he believes that it's difficult for a minister to be both a husband and a good pastor. That view is based, in part, on his conversations with Protestant ministers.

"They've told me at times that they felt torn between the needs of their family and the needs of their parishioners,'' Choby said.

John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, said the debate over married priests continues among Catholics. "It's always on a slow boil," he said.

Clergy couples: Overcoming the odds to find mutual understanding and love

By Jeff Brumley
Florida Times Union
12/12/2010

...
The Revs. Davette and Richard Turk: God and love helped them overcome the odds

If there ever seemed to be an impossible romance, it is that of the Revs. Davette and Richard Turk.

For starters, he was a Catholic priest and she a Catholic nun when they first met in 1973. As such they were both forbidden to marry.

Making matters even more difficult, their first encounter went badly when Richard asked Davette to prepare a ministry document for him.

"He said, 'Just type it up.' I said, 'There's a typewriter, type it yourself,' " said Davette, 76. "He couldn't believe it. Smoke was coming out of his ears."

"I didn't like her," Richard, 70, added.

But over time they overcame that difficult first encounter and grew closer as they worked together in social justice ministry in Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton, N.J.

"I realized I was in love with her, and I knew I could not love her and remain a Roman Catholic priest," Richard said.

Davette realized the same. Both left Catholicism for the Episcopal Church, where Richard's ordination was accepted. Davette was ordained a priest a decade after their wedding in September 1975.

"We both maintained our vows of celibacy until we were married," Richard Turk added.

They've raised two kids and have served parishes in the Jacksonville-based Episcopal Diocese of Florida since the 1980s. And though retired from active church ministry, Richard helps lead services at the Church of Our Savior in Mandarin and teaches college courses. Davette is known for her interfaith and race relations work in the city and offers spiritual direction to other clergy.

For those who are curious, Richard said no, they do not hear each other's confessions, and they are not each other's personal pastors.

"And we don't throw Scripture at each other" during arguments, he said.

But they do worship together and pray together every day, which Davette said has helped stoke the flames of love during their 34 years of marriage.

Which is why Davette said she's expecting royal treatment on Valentine's Day.

"We are as romantic, if not more romantic, than when we first got married," she said.
...

Priest calls for debate on celibacy and women priests

By Fintan Lambe
New Ross Standard (Ireland)
Wednesday February 10 2010

A priest who is taking time out from his ministry to 'consider his future' has called for a meaningful debate on the issue of married priests and women priests.

In a frank and open interview this week, Fr. Tommy Conroy said he was taking time out to decide on his future, mainly because of the pressure of the workload and the loneliness of clerical life.

He said his reason for speaking out was not to be critical of the Church, but rather to encourage debate on the future direction of the Church in Ireland.

A Craanford native, Fr. Tommy went straight from second-level education to studying for the priesthood at St. Peter's. He was ordained at the age of 25, and spent two years as a curate in Portarlington, Co. Laois, before being posted as chaplain to Gorey Community School. He remained there for 17 years, but, last September, was appointed to work in the parish of Gorey and Tara Hill. However, he kept up some of his duties at the school.

'The challenge of working in the three places was too much for me,' he said this week. 'I felt completely overburdened, and I felt I was running around a lot.'

'I'm taking time out, but I do hope to return to the Community School in September,' he explained.

News of his move from working at the school full-time last September caused the students to organise a petition to keep him there. His straight-talking demeanour, and his ability to relate very well to the students, had proven popular with both students and staff alike. 'I didn't waffle or preach to the students. I just said it as it is,' he said.

However, the transition to parish life presented its own challenges. The workload in a parish can be very demanding.

'For those that actually work, it's a mission impossible, and there's very little lay involvement to lessen the load,' he said. 'The Church has to face up to two things. I think they have to face up to a married priesthood, and I can't understand why the Church is not open to women priests as well.'

'I'd like a debate. I can't understand why it's not being debated and why people are not asked for their opinion,' he continued. 'I've always said these things, but it seems that it doesn't carry much support.'

Life as a priest can also be lonely. He said that he had a good circle of friends in the Community School, but when he moved out into the parish, things changed when he was seen out and about in social circles.

He added that rumours about him had started to go around the town. 'There were all sorts of rumours, but none of them are actually true,' he said. 'I do find it hard that you can't have friends without insinuations being made. If you're ever seen talking to a woman in public, it's automatically assumed something illicit is going on.'

'I had a good circle of friends for 17 years in the Community School, and there was never an issue, but the minute I stepped outside of it, it appeared to become a huge issue,' he added.

He said he would take a year out to consider his future. 'I suppose you could say I'm at a bit of a crossroads,' he admitted. 'The pressure of work has increased the sense of isolation and loneliness. You're just running all day and you're wondering what you're really achieving.'

He believes the Church too is at a major crossroads. 'Until they give the laity their proper role, things are going to get harder,' he contended. ' Basically they should play a role in decision making. They need to be challenged more to use their gifts. There are a lot of things they could be doing in the community. That's their role as baptised members of the Church.'

He said that the issues of allowing priests to marry, or women priests, are never discussed at bishops' meetings or deanery meetings. 'As priests get scarcer, are they going to run us into the ground until the last one is gone?' he asked.

He doesn't believe the sexual abuse scandals in the Church have made it harder for him to be a priest. 'I've always looked at the bigger picture. Obviously they disgust me, and the manner they have been handled disgusts me even more, but I've kept looking at the bigger picture. I've dealt with so much abuse that takes place in the community at many different levels over the years.'

He hopes his future will include working with young people. He spoke openly about his reasons for taking time out at a recent Mass, and received huge support from local parishioners.

'There's a huge amount of appreciation for whatever bit I've done over the years,' he said. 'But the challenge was too big for these shoulders.'

'I'm still a priest, and I have absolutely loved it. I put my heart into it and I have enjoyed myself immensely. 'I'm hoping for a measured debate now. At least let's start discussing the issues that affect priests or the ministry.

'We are born on our own, and we die on our own. It's beyond my understanding why priests have to have such a solitary life.' Just last year, one of the youngest priests in the Diocese of Ferns left to consider his future.

Fr J.J. Doyle, who was curate in Ballymitty, successfully applied for discernment, and left to take time out and consider his vocation and future within the Church.

His decision came around the same time that Fr Noel O'Brien said his final Mass in Templeudigan, before leaving the priesthood to get married in Florida.

Fr O'Brien said he was leaving the priesthood as he wanted companionship in life, having found the priesthood lonely.

73% of Belgian Catholics support married priests

The Beligian newspaper, Le Soir, this week published the results of its survey of Catholics and their beliefs and practices in that country in a series of articles under the general title "The Jesus Crisis". Among the findings: 73% of Belgian Catholics now support allowing priests to get married. This is up from 66% in favor of abolishing mandatory celibacy in 2005.

The survey also finds the same disconnect on issues of sexual morality and "life" between Catholic laity and the Magisterium that has been noted in surveys in other countries:

• Only 1% of Catholics surveyed said that they always follow the teachings of the Church to the letter in sexual matters while 48% said that they "never" follow the Church on these issues
  
• 90% of Catholics surveyed supported the use of artificial contraceptives
  
• 61% supported euthanasia
  
• 39% were tolerant of abortion
  

All of which may explain the most dramatic finding in the survey and one which should give the Church in that country pause: one out of three Beligian Catholics has abandoned the faith. While 87% of those surveyed were born into Catholic families, today only 60% still consider themselves Catholic. According to the survey, the percentage of Belgians who consider themselves Catholic has been steadily declining from 72% in 1980 to 68% in 1990 to 60% today.

Postcard Campaign for Optional Celibacy

Supporters of this blog should click on the link and join in this electronic campaign. The e-postcards go to Cardinal Claudio Hummes with an optional copy to your local bishop...

Local group wants Catholic priests to be allowed to marry
By Ken Robinson,
Newsradio WTAM 1100
Sunday, January 24, 2010

(Cleveland) - A Lakewood-based organization called FutureChurch.org has started an electronic campaign to make priesthood celibacy optional for Catholics.

Sister Christine Schenk says their site has sent more than 3,000 postcards urging catholic leaders to discuss the concept.

Schenk explains that the move toward celibacy only started in the 16th century and throughout most of Catholic history, priests were allowed to marry.

Schenk contends that married priests have a better concept of how to live a Christian life. She says one of the main reasons behind the current priest shortage is the desire of men to have a family.

A 2005 gallop poll indicated that 75% of Catholics were open to having married men ordained as priests.

Schenk says her group would also like begin discussions about the ordination of women.

Priests in Puebla Dismissed Over Children

UPDATE 1/6/2010: Eugenio Lira Rugarcía, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Puebla, has issued a communique clarifying that four priests have been dismissed and that they are also suspended a divinis. On a more interesting note, Cambio reports that Rugarcia suggested that once the priests have fulfilled their obligations as fathers of minor children, they could ask to be returned to the priesthood though, he said, this seldom happens. And, in a further development, La Jornada de Oriente reports that the Jesuit rector of the Universidad Iberoamericana, David Fernández Dávalos, has offered his opinion that it is time for the Church to end mandatory celibacy for priests which he describes as a source of disenchantment for the faithful. “It is necessary to review whether it is appropriate for celibacy to continue to be practised in the Catholic Church, because it is not linked to any revelation, it is not in the gospel. The obligation of celibacy has been imposed since the 12th century. It is a human law that can be ended at any given moment. The religious [monastic] life in which one voluntarily accepts a way of life freely, without having the commitments of a family or partner, is something else."


Several priests in the Archdiocese of Puebla, Mexico, have been dismissed from their parishes over the last year after the archbishop, Mons. Víctor Sánchez Espinosa, learned that they had fathered children. The exact number of priests who have been dismissed varies in the news accounts on the subject. Milenio claims three priests are involved; El Sol de Puebla says four. The reports are also contradictory as to whether the priests have also been suspended a divinis or not...

Uganda Catholic Priests Form New Church

I post these stories not because I approve of creating separate schismatic Catholic sects but simply as a warning: as long as the Vatican does not allow Catholic priests to marry, more and more of these sects will emerge. Let's pray that the new year brings a real change in policy and not just the admittance of a few more disgruntled married Anglicans into the RC priesthood. -- RG

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Times
Published: December 31, 2009
Filed at 3:26 p.m. ET

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- Twenty renegade Catholic priests who are either married or want to marry have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church here and formed a new church where celibacy is not required, members said.

The Ugandan government said Thursday it was investigating the breakaway Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be illegal. Vatican officials said the priests were now considered ''outside'' the Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.

The creation of the splinter church underscored the increasingly vexing problem of enforcing celibacy for Roman Catholic priests in Africa, which has the world's fastest-growing Catholic population but where there have been several cases of priests living openly with women and fathering children.

Earlier this year, the Vatican summoned African bishops to Rome for a three-week meeting on problems of the church in Africa, and celibacy was a key topic of discussion. The Vatican, however, has remained firm that priests must not marry, although there are exceptions for priests of the Eastern rite and for converts from Anglicanism.

The breakaway Ugandan church has as its head a former Zambian Catholic priest, the Rev. Luciano Anzanga Mbewe, who was excommunicated earlier this year for having founded what the Vatican called a schismatic church, the Catholic Apostolic National Church of Zambia, which allows for a married priesthood.

The Ugandan offshoot is located in the eastern town of Jinja. Mbewe is expected to visit soon to officially launch the church and ordain new priests, said Rev. Leonard Lubega, who says he has been appointed bishop-elect by Mbewe.

Mbewe has said he was inspired by the former Zambian archbishop, Emmanuel Milingo, who was married in 2001 to a South Korean woman by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church.

Milingo was excommunicated in 2006 after installing four married men as bishops in the United States. Two weeks ago, the Vatican defrocked Milingo entirely, stripping him of his priestly functions so any future ordinations by him would be invalid.

Lubega said the Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda already has over 12,000 followers.

''We are Catholics but not Roman Catholics,'' Lubega said, adding that the new church -- while not under Pope Benedict XVI -- recognizes him and prays for him.

At least three of the priests have said they are married. One is Rev. Henry Mutto, who said he recently got married. ''Some of us already have wives. Others will get (one) soon,'' he said.

Uganda's vice president, Gilbert Bukenya said authorities were investigating the church, which he called a sect.

''We want to know its roots. If we discover that it is illegal we will ban it,'' he said.

Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kampala, called on the government not to allow such renegade religious groups to operate, saying they might cause confusion among Ugandans.

''I call upon government to avoid registering such new churches,'' he said. ''They can bring about religious conflicts.''

Photo: Rev. Fr. Leonard Lubega, the bishop-elect, and Fr. Matovu Seguya of the Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda

Related articles from New Vision:

• Rebel Catholic church opens in Uganda (12/29/2009)


• Catholic sect has received support – Bishop (12/31/2009)


• Cardinal slams breakaway Catholic sect (12/31/2009)

Laity will adopt duties of declining clerical caste

by Patsy McGarry
The Irish Times
Wednesday, December 30, 2009


ANALYSIS: In the second of our series looking at what things might be like five years hence, we consider the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland, where ordinations have collapsed along with its moral authority

There was a poignancy in the air at the ordination of three men as Redemptorist priests in St Joseph’s Church, Dundalk, on Sunday December 6th. In the front pew a female relative of one of the men wept copiously as the ceremony progressed.

It was conducted by the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady, who was clearly still reeling from the findings of the Murphy report, published on November 26th, while also attending to his duties. He seemed exhausted. In a momentary lapse he forgot the name of one of the young men. Then, remembering, he commented it was “Seán, the same name as my own”. There was a laugh from the congregation.

The three men made up the largest number to be ordained at once for the Redemptorist congregation in more than 10 years. They were Brian Nolan (31) from Limerick, Tony Rice (31) from Belfast, and Seán Duggan (30) from Galway.

They are no starry-eyed neophytes. Brian Nolan, a former electronics student at Limerick Institute of Technology, admitted that when he told people that he was in the religious life, “it can be a conversation stopper”. But still, he didn’t “feel the need to hold back from telling people what I’m doing”.

Tony Rice worked in a bank for four years. He said the difficulties in the church were symptomatic of a general lack of leadership in a number of areas in our society. “People have reason to be disappointed with several institutions right now – banks, politicians, the church and so many others . . . We need strong, just and accountable leadership to renew our vision and our hope in humanity,” he said.

Seán Duggan gave up corporate law to become a priest. “The choices I have made are not knee-jerk reactions. They have been thought about and talked about over a period of eight years’ training,” he said. “The questions that people throw to me such as celibacy, inept church leadership, married priests and more, are all questions that I’ve thought about myself. It’s not as if I live in a bubble cut off from reality,” he said.

On Sunday November 15th Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said his archdiocese will soon have barely enough priests to serve its 199 parishes. “We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age. In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes,” he said.

Last April he said there were now 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40 in Dublin. It also emerged at the time that the number of priests in Tuam’s Catholic archdiocese will fall by 30 per cent over the next four years, leaving most parishes there with just one resident priest.

Meanwhile, writing in the Furrow magazine last June, Fr Brendan Hoban, parish priest at St Muredach’s Cathedral, in Ballina, Co Mayo, said of his own Killala diocese that “in 20 years’ time there will be around eight priests instead of the present 34, with probably two or three under 60 years of age”.

He continued “the difficult truth is that priests will have effectively disappeared in Ireland in two to three decades”.

For people of a certain age the very idea of an Ireland without Catholic priests is, truly, beyond imagination. This is not hard to understand. Speaking to the Association of European Journalists in Dublin on November 13th the Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, recalled that of the 50 students in his Leaving Cert class of 1952, 20 went on for the priesthood. Vocations were so high then that between a third and a half of Irish priests went on the missions.

But, almost 50 years later, all has changed. The number of priests in Ireland is in serious decline. The average age of the Irish Catholic priest today is put at 63. For those who are members of religious congregations the average age is in the early 70s.

Each priest must retire at 75. As the Americans say, you do the math!

At the end of September last there were 77 men training for the priesthood at Maynooth. Of that number, 36 entered this year, an increase of 12 on the 24 who entered in 2008.

It is believed to be a blip which won’t alter the downward trend. Meanwhile, for every 10 men who begin training for the priesthood, at Maynooth five or six become priests.

All of which means that the coming decade will see profound change in Catholic Church structures and practices on this island. It will also see the end of the clerical caste which has dominated Irish Catholicism since Victorian times. They will give way, of necessity, to a more lay-directed institution with fewer-but-bigger parishes in fewer-but-bigger dioceses.

An indication of what is to come was illustrated in the Catholic diocese of Waterford and Lismore last June. That month saw the first ordination to the Catholic priesthood there in eight years when Fr Michael Toomey (39) became a priest.

That same month in that same diocese sacristan Ken Hackett conducted a Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion instead of daily Mass at Ardfinnan parish in Co Tipperary. The priest, Fr Robert Power, was away. Mr Hackett is a minister of the Eucharist and a minister of the word and may do as he did according to Vatican norms published in the early 1970s. Women may also conduct such liturgies. The response to him from parishioners was “very, very good”, he told The Irish Times.

Catholic Ireland is embarking on a path others have already taken.

In one diocese in northern France there is only one priest to serve 27 parishes. It means the priest drops by on occasion in each parish to offer Mass and consecrate hosts. The rest of the time parishioners run their own church.

In 2001 the diocese of Nice had to reduce its 265 parishes to 47. The recently created parish there of Nôtre Dame de l’Espérance has five churches.

It had five priests; now there is one. Each church has an appointed lay person, the relais locale, whose duty is to run both church and parish, and perform almost all functions of a priest except celebrating the Eucharist and administering sacraments only a priest can.

A principal function of the relais is to conduct a Sunday Communion service in the absence of the priest, a “Mass” without the consecration. There is frequently no priest at funerals there any more.

Writing about this in The Irish Times on July 8th, former Dominican priest and author David Rice recalled how, at the Église Sacré Coeur in Beaulieu “I attended one such funeral, conducted by the relais locale for the church. She received the coffin. There were words of welcome, the singing of hymns, a short eulogy of the deceased, readings from scripture, a brief reflection by the relais, the lighting of candles beside the coffin, a blessing of the coffin with holy water, and prayers for the deceased. It lasted about half an hour. There was no Mass, as there was no priest.”

He spoke to a woman appointed there as general manager of the parish with its five churches. While her official title was économe, her job was more about administration than money. Unpaid herself, she managed a payroll for nine people, including cleaners, organists and two parish secretaries.

Other lay people – men and women – were active in priestly roles: parish visitation; counselling; pre-marriage instruction; attending the sick; chaplaincies to hospitals and retirement homes; to scout and youth groups. And it is lay people who, almost exclusively, impart the faith to children.

In 10 years, this way of things is likely to be very familiar to Ireland’s Catholic faithful. And that is believed to be likely even if both the mandatory celibacy rule is dropped and women are allowed become Catholic priests.

Archbishop Milingo Dismissed from Clerical State

Straight from the Vatican without comment...

"For a number of years the Church has followed with great concern the difficulties caused by the regrettable conduct of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. Many attempts have been made to bring Archbishop Milingo back into communion with the Catholic Church, including the consideration of suitable ways to enable him to exercise the episcopal ministry. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were directly involved in those efforts and both Popes personally followed the case of Archbishop Milingo in a spirit of paternal solicitude.

"In the course of this unhappy series of events, Archbishop Milingo became irregular in 2001 as a result of his attempt to marry Mrs. Maria Sung, and incurred the medicinal penalty of suspension (cf. canons 1044 para. 1, n. 3; 1394 para. 1 of the Code of Canon Law). Thereafter, he headed certain groups calling for the abolition of clerical celibacy and gave numerous interviews to the media in open disobedience to the repeated interventions of the Holy See, creating serious upset and scandal among the faithful. Then, on 24 September 2006 in Washington, Archbishop Milingo ordained four bishops without pontifical mandate.

"By so doing, he incurred the penalty of excommunication 'latae sententiae' (canon 1382) which was declared by the Holy See on 26 September 2006 and is still in force today. Sadly, Archbishop Milingo has shown no sign of the desired repentance with a view to returning to full communion with the Supreme Pontiff and the other members of the College of Bishops. Rather, he has persisted in the unlawful exercise of acts belonging to the episcopal office, committing new crimes against the unity of Holy Church. Specifically, in recent months Archbishop Milingo has proceeded to several other episcopal ordinations.

"The commission of these grave crimes, which has recently been established, is to be considered as proof of the persistent contumacy of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. The Holy See has therefore been obliged to impose upon him the further penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.

"According to canon 292 of the Code of Canon Law, the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state, now added to the grave penalty of excommunication, has the following effects: loss of the rights and duties attached to the clerical state, except for the obligation of celibacy; prohibition of the exercise of any ministry, except as provided for by canon 976 of the Code of Canon Law in those cases involving danger of death; loss of all offices and functions and of all delegated power, as well as prohibition of the use of clerical attire. Consequently, the participation of the faithful in any future celebrations organised by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo is to be considered unlawful.

"It must be pointed out that the dismissal of a bishop from the clerical state is most extraordinary. The Holy See has felt obliged to act in this way due to the serious consequences for ecclesial communion resulting from repeated episcopal consecrations carried out without pontifical mandate; nevertheless, the Church hopes that Archbishop Milingo will see the error of his ways.

"As for those recently ordained by Archbishop Milingo, the Church's discipline in imposing the penalty of excommunication 'latae sententiae' upon those who receive episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate is well- known. While expressing hope for their conversion, the Church reaffirms what was declared on 26 September 2006, namely that she does not recognise these ordinations, nor does she intend to recognise them, or any subsequent ordinations based on them, in the future. Hence the canonical status of the supposed bishops remains as it was prior to the ordination conferred by Archbishop Milingo.

"At this moment, as the Church experiences profound sorrow for the grave acts perpetrated by Archbishop Milingo, she entrusts to the power of prayer the repentance of the guilty party and of all those who - be they priests or lay faithful - have in any way co-operated with him by acting against the unity of Christ's Church".

Swiss Catholic bishop calls for married priests

Swissinfo.ch
November 29, 2009 - 1:07 PM

A Swiss bishop says that married men should also be allowed to be priests in the Catholic Church and that celibacy should be voluntary.

Norbert Brunner, who takes over as head of the Swiss Bishops Conference at the start of next year, told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that most Swiss bishops were in favour of the move.

"There should be the possibility of making married men priests," Brunner said.

There was no fundamental link between celibacy and the priesthood, maintained the Bishop of Sion, but added that it should remain a choice for those who wanted it.

Brunner said that the Swiss bishops were "quite unanimous" in their support.

He had proposed the move to Rome several times, but admitted that he had, as yet, been unable to push his solution forward.

Catholic official in Germany calls for end to celibacy for priests

The Local
11/24/2009

Alois Glück, the new head of Germany’s main Catholic association, on Tuesday called for an end to celibacy vows for priests.

“I would welcome allowing established married deacons to be ordained as priests,” the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics told daily newspaper Bild.

But Glück said such a decision could not be made only for Germany.

“The question of mandatory celibacy can only be determined within the Church globally,” he said.

Glück, a former conservative politician from Bavaria, was made the president of the lay organisation on Friday.

A Catholic priest in Hammelburg in northern Bavaria was suspended by the Church last month after he said he wanted to marry and announced he already had one child.

Pope Benedict XVI earlier this month raised the hopes of some liberal Catholics opposed to celibacy constraints by announcing the Church would welcome married Anglican priests wishing to convert to Catholicism.

'How can any normal priest go through 40 or 50 years and not fall in love?'

By Kim Bielenberg
Irish Independent
Saturday November 21 2009

It is hard to imagine a similar response from the faithful 10 or 20 years ago. Last Sunday, a Catholic congregation actually stood and cheered when their priest Father Sean McKenna announced at the altar that he was stepping down, having embarked on a "loving, beautiful and life-giving relationship".

It could have been the somewhat corny denouement of a romantic comedy, or a scene from Ballykissangel.

The Derry priest, who celebrated his silver jubilee earlier this year, has become involved with a local nurse, Elaine Curran. She is a mother of two children, who reportedly separated from her husband before the relationship with Fr McKenna started.

"I have made my choice,'' the popular priest declared to his parishioners. "It is a difficult choice but a clear and free one.''

At the time of the Eamonn Casey affair 17 years ago, such revelations were greeted with shock and much hand-wringing across the country. But now reports of relationships between priests and a consenting adult woman, married or otherwise, have a certain humdrum quality and are met with a certain relief that there was nothing untoward or illegal going on. There was anger in Derry this week, but much of it was directed at the Church for its archaic strictures on celibacy and the media for delving into what local Catholics saw as a private matter.

Like many other priests, Father Brian D'Arcy greeted the news with a tone of sincere regret, rather than any form of condemnation. It was regret, not because one of his colleagues was involved in a relationship with a woman, but because yet another priest has been lost to the strict celibacy rule. "We are losing good men,'' Father D'Arcy told me.

He refers to estimates that 110,000 priests have left the church worldwide because of a similar predicament. Asked whether it was common for priests to fall in love, Father D'Arcy said: "I would think that every priest worth his salt has had to face it at least once in their life. Of course, not all priests will break their vows. They have to make a very difficult choice.

"How can any normal person go through 40 or 50 years in their life and not fall in love? It is something that I have had to face up to myself.

"It is a significant time to think about the value of compulsory celibacy. This may have been suitable for a particular time but that time has now gone. Remember, the first Pope, St Peter, was married.''

It is bad enough for the Church that few men in Ireland are called to the priesthood in 2009. Even fewer are called to a life of permanent celibacy, it seems.

Close observers of the Church suggest that the rule is observed in the breach by many priests worldwide.

Richard Sipe, a psychiatrist at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, has estimated that just 10pc of priests are successfully celibate. These fulfilled celibates have embraced their state of being and find it empowering. The psychiatrists says 40pc stick by the rule but only with profound reluctance.

According to a report in The Times, Sipe contends that the remaining 50pc have at some stage during their ministry been sexually active. If these figures are correct, and it should be pointed out that they are US figures, around half of priests find it impossible to practise what they preach.

Father D'Arcy believes celibacy can be a good thing, but it should be voluntary.

"It is an insult to celibacy to make it compulsory. It must be freely chosen in order to make it meaningful. Compulsory celibacy is a man-made rule, introduced to enforce obedience and to ensure that Church property was not dissipated.''

The celibacy rule in the Catholic Church was introduced in a piecemeal fashion. One decree in the year 306 declared that priests could not sleep with their wives on the night before Mass (the type of rule that some sports stars would be familiar with).

St Augustine is never likely to become a poster boy for feminists after his famous pronouncement in the 5th century that "nothing is more calculated to cast a man's spirits down from the citadel than the blandishments of a woman".

Increasingly, celibacy was held up as an ideal, but for another 1,000 years at least it was still common for men of the cloth to be married.

In the more recent past, Irish priests who became involved in love affairs either covered up their romances, in some cases taking their secrets to the grave, or simply left the Church for a new life, frequently abroad.

Increasingly, Irish Catholic priests with an inclination to marry are continuing their spiritual journey elsewhere. Father D'Arcy believes up to six former Catholic priests have married and joined the Church of Ireland in recent years.

The ease of this transition has been demonstrated by Dermot Dunne, a former Catholic priest who married, became a Church of Ireland clergyman, and now holds a senior position as Dean of Christ Church Cathedral.

It only took the priest three years to make the leap from Roman Catholic priesthood to a post in the Anglican Church.

Explaining his decision, he said: "What was emerging for me is that we are not called to be 'other worldly' but actually to live fully in this world and to value humanity and the world that God has created.

"The decisive moment for me was to admit that God is mediated through our acceptance of an inclusive humanity where there can be no exclusions.

"This inclusive humanity embraces the fullness and beauty of human sexuality from one end of its continuum to the other and the full participation of the woman as well as the man in the celebration of the life of faith.''

A growing number of Catholics, both clergy and parishioners, are copying the example of Dr Dunne by simply voting with their feet. "If a priest leaves the Catholic Church and joins the Church of Ireland, there is no longer a sense of betrayal among parishioners,'' says Canon Ian Ellis, editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette. "In some ways, the two churches are coming closer together. So that makes the transition easier.''

What rankles with Catholic campaigners for the abolition of compulsory celibacy is the apparently inconsistent line taken by the Vatican. Father Brian D'Arcy points out that married Anglican priests are admitted to the Catholic Church.

He said such priests were "re-ordained" in the Catholic Church and allowed to minister at parish level without celibacy being imposed.

Quirks of history also enable certain priests with links to the Orthodox Church to get married with the blessing of the Vatican.

The warm reaction of parishioners to Father McKenna's plight again demonstrates the gulf between many ordinary Catholics and the Papacy over certain teachings.

So long as the present Pontiff is alive, it is a gulf that is likely to remain unbridged.

Shortage of priests

The Irish Times
11/23/2009

SPEAKING IN Dublin recently the Catholic bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, recalled how, of his own 1952 Leaving Certificate class, 40 per cent went on to study for the priesthood. Vocations were so high then that between a third and a half of priests went on the missions. In 1961, remarking on this extraordinary phenomenon Pope John XXIII said “Ireland, that beloved country, is the most fruitful of mothers in this respect. In the number of priests, diocesan and regular, and in the number of nuns and sisters to which she has given birth, she is second to none.”

Almost 50 years later, all has changed. The number of priests is in serious decline. The average age of the Irish Catholic priest today is put at 63. Each must retire at 75. Soon, there will not be enough priests to serve all Catholic parishes.

The reasons for this rapid decline will be debated for years to come but consensus is gathering around a view that in Ireland, as elsewhere, its beginning can be traced to the 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical. It banned artificial means of contraception, though a great majority on the Vatican Commission set up to address the issue recommended otherwise. It was “a watershed” moment Bishop Willie Walsh said last week. Whereas disobeying church teaching was as old as the institution, that 1968 decision was the beginning of people questioning the teachings of the Church itself, he said. In the Catholic home, traditionally the primary source of vocations, it was the beginning of a decline of confidence in church leadership. This, in time, led to ever-growing doubt about the mandatory celibacy requirement for men who wished to be Catholic priests. An RTÉ poll in 2003 found that 75 per cent of Irish people opposed it. But it doesn’t matter. As Catholics are frequently reminded, the church is not a democracy and, certainly during this papacy, there will be no change on celibacy.

It means that in Ireland an ageing priesthood must shoulder an ever-heavier workload as parishes are clustered with fewer personnel to serve them. It means too that the laity is assuming a far greater role in running parish and church. This trend may extend to laity conducting funerals and baptisms. In some few Irish dioceses a permanent (male) diaconate is being prepared to conduct all liturgies, except celebration of the Eucharist. What we are witnessing is the death of a clerically-dominated Catholic Church which has existed since Victorian times. It is being replaced by something altogether more lay-oriented, and where the priest’s role is almost entirely spiritual.

Obituary: John MacGillis

By Amy Rabideau Silvers
Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 18, 2009

Before John D. MacGillis became a father - the biological kind - he was a Catholic brother working in Peru.

"He was with the Marianists religious order for about 15 years and had taken vows of celibacy and poverty," said his son, Alex MacGillis. "He met a woman who was a Canadian and was working there as a nurse."

When she left Peru to return home, they began corresponding, writing letters for several years.

"And he fell in love with her," their son said.

In 1968, MacGillis was released from his religious vows, marrying the former Louisette Poulin the next year. She died in 1975, following the birth of their third son.

MacGillis raised his young sons and kept working for Milwaukee Public Schools, teaching the Spanish he honed as a brother in Peru.

He died Saturday of complications of heart disease. MacGillis was 75.

The youngest of five children, MacGillis grew up in Milwaukee, graduating from the old Don Bosco High School.

"He was an outstanding athlete," said one of his brothers, also named Alex MacGillis. "He was a popular guy, but humble as well."

Inspired by the Marianists at Don Bosco, he entered the order and the religious life right after high school. He continued his education, including a master's in Latin American studies and work toward a doctorate.

MacGillis first taught in Lima, Peru, then helped to establish a new school in northern Peru. He received training in basic medical work, helping at a summer clinic in the Andes Mountains.

That was where he met his future wife, a nurse who was a lay missionary, in 1961, brother Alex said.

"She was one of 17 children," he said. They married and settled in his hometown.

In the late 1960s, there was a certain stigma to leaving the religious life and starting over. Someone with one company even told MacGillis that he lacked stability because he had left the order, according to his brother.

In 1969, MacGillis began teaching with the Milwaukee schools. He taught for more than 25 years, last at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts.

"Students from both his Peru years and his Milwaukee years stayed in contact with him," son Alex said.

MacGillis also found love again. Years after his wife's death, he married the former Marguerite Ceolla.

"She, too, was a nurse like my mother, and formerly a nun," his son said.

MacGillis remained a man of faith, active with St. Mary's Catholic Faith Community in Hales Corners, including on the church council. He was long involved with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, even serving as a volunteer manager for local stores.

"He believed in charity and forgiveness and humility," his son said. "And he was non-materialistic, probably from life as a monk."

In addition to his wife, son and brother, survivors include sons James and Pierre; sister Mary Capelli; brother Paul; and grandson Ian.

Funeral services were held Tuesday.

"Celibacy was part of the package..."

Régis Menet is married, but he is not exactly like any other husband. For 34 years, he was a priest in the Diocese of Lille. In France, about 10,000 men have left the priesthood. Their reasons are many and diverse. Their journeys as well. Here is his, which started in 1942 in Haubourdin.

By Benoit Deseure (translation by Rebel Girl)
La Voix du Nord
11/15/2009

Priestly celibacy, a taboo subject? Régis Menet immediately warns us: "With the association I'm part of (Association pour une retraite convenable - APRC, "Association for a Decent Pension"), we are not making any demands for marriage for priests. We only want to get a decent pension."

That said, obviously, his journey draws attention.

The former pastor of Bondues (in fact, he was vicar at the time) lives today in Guéret, near Limoges, with Marie, his wife, a psychologist. "In 2002, I asked to meet with the bishop (Msgr. Defois at that time) and I explained to him that I had met a woman and wanted to bring this relationship to light. I did not want to live in clandestinity." Régis Menet was then... 60 years old. He had been a priest for 34 years.

What happened? To understand, the sexagenarian explains, you have to go back to the 60s. Originally from Haubourdin where he was born in 1942, fifth of a family of seven, Régis plunged into scouting. He was generous, liked being of service to others. He observed the lives of his two uncles who were priests. And at 18, having passed the baccalaureate, he decided: off to the seminary in Merville, then to the one in Lille. "The priesthood was an ideal in life." And the Second Vatican Council, a "breath of fresh air, very hopeful."

Ordained at 27, after the army, Régis was named to Villeneuve-d'Ascq, which didn't quite exist completely yet. "Ascq, Annapes, it was fascinating, I was the vicar." Yes, but celibacy, did it raise any questions for you? "No, the sexuality issue was a bit hidden, even by us. It should be said that at that time boy-girl relationships were not as open as they are today. I was just getting out of an all-boys high school and I entered seminary." So celibacy "was part of the package."

After ten years at Villeneuve-d'Ascq, Régis Menet came to Bondues, in 1978. There he was also vicar. "I was in charge of the young people."

The adventure lasted seven years, before a nomination to Lille, in the Vauban neighborhood: "It was the beginning of parish consolidation. Everything was going well." That's where he met Marie: "We had known each other for a long time. We were buddies, friends. I didn't want to leave..." Marie knew this. But their friendship changed into...

In 1992, the priest, now in his 50s, was named to Gruson. "At that point I was hesitant: leave the Church or not?" In the end, he stayed. For a noble mission: to bring alive 12 bell towers in the heart of Pévèle. "It was very interesting." Except, everything changed. "As it went on, it went less and less well. I would join Marie again sometimes at night, without anyone knowing." No one? "No, not even my family -- I didn't tell them anything. I only talked about it to a small group of priests with whom I met regularly to share." What to do then? The priest in love asked himself the question, and decided to stay until the end of the eight years he had agreed to serve there with the bishop. Then he asked for an audience with Msgr. Defois. "Climbing up to the chancery, that was the hardest."

So, what happened on Rue Royale in Lille? "He dropped his pencil when I announced that I had met someone. He suggested that I take one year sabbatical, step back a bit. Finally, after a few weeks, I confirmed to him that I wanted to leave." A move and a civil marriage later, Régis Menet has taken stock of his life: "I think I would have been an excellent deacon but at that time, they didn't exist." Any regrets at having been a priest? "No, I gave the best of myself."

See also:

• Charité bien ordonnée pour les retraités? (11/12/2009)
  
• La retraite, sujet de discorde (11/15/2009)