Radical solutions sought for shortage of priests

Press, 11 June 1987, Page 38

Radical solutions sought for shortage of priests

By

ELIZABETH RENNICK

NZPA-AAP Melbourne The Roman Catholic Church is being forced to consider radical solutions to counter a shortage of priests, according to a visiting American lecturer, the Rev. Timothy O’Connell.

They include ordination of women, cancelling the rule of priestly, celibacy, and encouraging nonpriests to carry some of the burdens once confined to ordained men. Father O’Connell sees the first two as valid possibilities, but his particular work is training lay and religious people to work as pastoral associates, helping the priest in his parish. Father O’Connell, director of pastoral studies at Chicago’s Loyola University, is the guest lecturer at the first national gathering of pastoral associates (non-ordained parish ministers) being held at St Mary’s . College, Melbourne University. He said that cold, hard facts were the basis s for the f need for the wider

Church to help out in roles which were once the preserve of the priest In the United States the number of priests was down about 30 per cent since 1968 and was expected to decline a further 20 to 30 per cent before the year 2000. Australia's shortage was similar. In Melbourne alone, the number of diocesan priests available for appointment was expected to drop 45 over the next 10 years. .

. By that time there would be 200 priests over the age of 50 and a maximum of 120 priests under 50 years, according to Church surveys. Father: ..O’Connell agreed that pastoral associates had come about by default, but he saw them as a healthy sign for the Church, because they' were performing ministerial roles which were once, confined to' priests. “The more priests can share pastoral work with trained non-ordained ministers, the less ’ risk they, see,of burn-out and greater are the opportunities for participation by

the wider Church community,” he said. In the United States there were about 200 parishes, mostly In country areas, run exclusively by pastoral associates, with priests visiting every few weeks. At the St Mary’s College gathering there were 340 pastoral associates from various parts of Australia. All but 20 were women and 75 per cent women religious, which opens up some curious twists to women’s emerging role in the church. For instance, some women pastoral associates saw themselves as doing the “menial jobs” in the parish, while the priest kept the number one role

as celebrant at Mass and s' administrator of the sacraments, Father O’Connell said. Yet if the pastoral associates were ordained, the ’ role would lose its accessibility to lay people, risking charges of excessive clericalism in the Church. Most of the women associates were nuns and:, were much "cheaper” to’employ than lay people

who had to be paid a family wage. On the one hand, as Father O’Connell explained, no nun wanted to say Tm yours for' sAust2s,ooo a year ($30,750),” but she might also ask, “is it good if I go in as cheap labour?”

And while women associates might feel demeaned by their role, there were priests who said pastoral associates had robbed them of the enjoyment of ordinary human contact with the parish.

In a further twist some priests had trouble working with assistants of any sort, let alone women assistants.

A whole new set of roles and relationships had to be worked ouL Father O’Connell saw both married priests and ordained women as a desirable move, but not likely in ■‘the immediate future. He /said* priestly celibacy was a purely disciplinary matter, not intrinsically linked with. priesthood. i-. Not only was it not a requirement in the early

Church, but it was not adhered to in the case of Anglican priest-converts to Catholicism who wanted to minister as Catholic priests. “We are retaining married priests as long as they are converts from Anglicanism,” he said.

Celibacy was halting a growth in vocations to the priesthood. It was the most common reason given for not joining the priesthood in vocational surveys.

Yet other surveys In the United States showed that most people were "comfortable” with the idea of married priests and only marginally less comfortable with the idea of ordained women. Can he foresee when either of these'will come about? ' "We are much less naive about the pace at which the Church: changes. It is a very elaborate social institution which it probably should be. It is pretty easy to get caught in the winds-of momentary change” <