There’s No Priest Shortage
AN EXCESS OF DISGRUNTLED LAITY
The perceived scarcity of priests in the Catholic Church is called a crisis. Observers wring their hands and warn that the Church will fall apart if she can’t get more priests. This may, however, be less a crisis than a blessing.
Let’s examine an oft-proposed cure. Liberal Catholics say the Church will have to ordain married men (and women). This, they promise, will release a flood of eager, well-educated young professionals to become priests (and priestesses), thus saving the Church.
But does the Church want a flood of eager, well-educated young professionals? Let’s look at other areas which were visited by such floods in our recent past:
· A horde of young urban planners was released on our cities. The cities turned from centers of civilization into crime-ravaged wastelands.
You May Also Enjoy
This past April we were pleased to announce the launch of the “mobile version” of…
God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School... The Christian Faith: An Essay on the Structure of the Apostles’ Creed... Origen: Spirit and Fire... Family and Nation... Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas... The Liberation of One... Tikkun magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1... The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy... East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall... The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. Volume II: The Tender Passion
Why were moderate Catholic papers such as Our Sunday Visitor so desperate to discredit Michael Rose’s book Goodbye, Good Men?