'Seminaries would be full, if celibacy was optional'

JimR-OCDS said:

I've never seen a religious order have one priest assigned to a parish. Diocesan priest this is common, but religious orders being from a religious
community usually share the responsibility. Many like Carmelites, live at the monastery and travel to the parish they are assigned to on a daily basis.

Jim

Click to expand...

JBMM said:

We should all remember, even after all of this has been said in the thread, that Jesus was the first priest, who was celebate.

It's in the scripture!

Click to expand...

Fantine said:

Is it a case, Jim, of Catholics migrating from rural and inner city areas to the suburbs, and are new churches being built in the suburbs?

This seems to be the case in most large dioceses, and historically, throughout our immigrant history, churches have followed the migration of Catholics.

Many of our new Catholics, however, come from different countries, and it is possible that, like most new immigrants, they will settle in cities. I think it's important that we keep our options open with our city church buildings, mothballing one or two and keeping them in reserve for potential growth in the future. If we sell them off to other denominations we will have a difficult time getting them back.

Click to expand...

HandmaidenOfGod said:

I don't know, I mean the Orthodox Church allows married men to become priests, and it's not like we've got thousands of men lining up to be priests. (Our seminaries are full; however not all seminarians become priests.)

Serving the Church is harder than just about any job there is. The words "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time" never ring truer than in this position.

Every aspect of your life is scrutinized, the hours are long, the money is short, and often the rewards in this life are few. Not to mention, to find a woman who is willing to be a priest's wife is also difficult. Your wife and how you raise your children are all under a microscope. Should the Bishop decide to move you to another parish at any time, you have to pull your children out of school, she has to find a new job and start all over again. It's a very difficult life.

I don't believe the priesthood is meant to be something that is supposed to appeal to the masses. Yes, we need priests, and yes, it's important to encourage people to go into the vocation, but I don't believe that allowing marriage would cause masses of men to fill the seminaries.

Also, married men can become Deacons in the Catholic Church, so if "marriage" were the only issue, why aren't there tons of men lining up to be Deacons?

Personally, I think we need to focus more on getting young people interested and staying interested in the life of the Church. The world as a whole is turning away from religion. This is disconcerting to me. I believe that as you attract more people to the Church, more will be attracted to the priesthood and monastic life in general.

Click to expand...

JimR-OCDS said:

Sadly, due to the priest shortage, my dioceses just announced this week that they will close half of the parishes in the city I grew up in.

It won't be long before that half that is left, dwindles down to just two parishes.

In the town I live in now, I foresee Mass-less Sundays, because there will not be enough priest to staff the small town parishes.

I'm not making this up, the dioceses put out a report on a comprehensive study ten years ago, and predicted exactly what is taking place now.

Jim

Click to expand...

Fantine said:

Is it a case, Jim, of Catholics migrating from rural and inner city areas to the suburbs, and are new churches being built in the suburbs?

Click to expand...

Nope, in this case there isn't flight to the suburbs. The parishes being closed have plenty of people attending many who grew up in those parishes. There's just not enough priest to staff them.

The next shoe to drop will be the parishes in the suburbs like where I live now. We'll probably have to join a parish in the nearby city. My parish only has 450 families and out of that, only about 130 actually support the parish. We border a wealthy private school who'd love to buy the property. It only makes sense financially to close us and keep the inner city parish open. Everyone in my town commutes to work so commuting to Mass shouldn't be a problem. We'll just have to help out with the elderly who can no longer drive.

This seems to be the case in most large dioceses, and historically, throughout our immigrant history, churches have followed the migration of Catholics.

Click to expand...

Not the case here in Massachusetts. Even Boston still has a large number of Catholics living in the city, yet they closed a bunch of parishes. Fact is, they closed the parishes in the burbs which were in the black financially, and kept the old Cathedral styled churches in the City open.

The logic is, first the have to keep the parish open that can serve the largest amount of people, this usually means the city parish. Then they look at the real-estate values. The suburb churches which were only built in the last 25 years, bring the best real-estate numbers. No one wants to buy a Cathedral style Church that cost $5000 per month to heat, and would cost $1 million to have the old under ground oil tanks removed.



Jim

Click to expand...

benedictaoo said:

and you really think marrying the preists off will solve that problem? for real?

Click to expand...

JimR-OCDS said:

I've never seen a religious order have one priest assigned to a parish. Diocesan priest this is common, but religious orders being from a religious
community usually share the responsibility. Many like Carmelites, live at the monastery and travel to the parish they are assigned to on a daily basis.

Jim

Click to expand...