Talking Back to Rome

Where the inalienable right to marriage and procreation is lacking, human dignity has ceased to exist.

So declared Pope Paul VI last March in Populorum Progressio, his encyclical on economic and social justice. Does this inalienable right exist for Roman Catholic priests? Last week the Rev. John A. O'Brien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, used the encyclical's noble words to challenge the Pope's recent decision upholding mandatory celibacy for priests. Addressing almost 200 fellow clerics gathered at Notre Dame, O'Brien said: "For years, countless thousands of priests have felt that they were being deprived of an inalienable, God-given right."

In ruling that celibacy "should today continue to be firmly linked to the ecclesiastical ministry," the Pope clearly hoped to end public discussion of the issue. Last week's meeting made it clear that the debate continues. Sponsored by the National Association for Pastoral Renewal, an organization of priests formed last year to lobby for the right to marry, the three-day symposium heard speaker after speaker forthrightly question the papal decision.

"Distortion & Injustice." The Rev. Alfred McBride of Catholic University wryly asserted that if a priest who has married "takes a look at the recent encyclical on celibacy, he will find out where he went wrong. He didn't pray enough. There wasn't adequate psychological testing when he entered the seminary." Added McBride: "More than likely this is true in some instances, but I maintain it is grossly overstated. There are married clergy today who have healthy prayer lives, a zealous sense of Christian mission and a balanced view of sex. To presume otherwise is a distortion of facts and an injustice to honest men." Describing preoccupation with celibacy as "a hobbyhorse of Roman Catholic theology," Dutch Priest R.J. Bunnik contended that Pope Paul's decision on the issue even "contradicts the way of thinking of the Second Vatican Council, which refused to call the religious life any longer the 'state of perfection' and laid great stress on the vocation of all members of the church to a life of perfect love."

Despite the Pope's determination to uphold tradition, the conference participants concluded that the arguments about celibacy will continue--if for no other reason than the continuing exodus from the ministry of priests who intend to wed. The N.A.P.R. claims that about 400 U.S. priests have done so in the past 18 months.* Several speakers proposed structural reforms by which the church might regain the services of married clergymen. One suggestion: the creation of a special jurisdiction for married priests, within which they could continue their clerical functions. At the final session, the attending clerics overwhelmingly approved a resolution addressed to American bishops, urging that married priests be restored as communicants and permitted to exercise "the active ministry of the church."

* Among them: Father Robert T. Francoeur, 36, an assistant professor of biology at New Jersey's Fairleigh Dickinson University and a co-founder of the N.AP.R., who got married last June.

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