Rent a Priest: The Story of CITI

"IF WE WAIT, RENTAPRIEST.COM WILL GO AWAY"

2010-11-06T07:29:00.003-04:00

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived blogs first since the story is being written somewhat chronologically. What is posted below is the most recent. Thank you.

“IF WE WAIT, RENTAPRIEST.COM WILL GO AWAY.”

In the late 1960s when it was expected that the Second Vatican Council would vote to end mandatory celibacy in the Catholic Church, priests were poised to get married. Then Pope John 23^rd died and Pope Paul VI was in charge. Mandatory celibacy and birth control went out the same window that John 23^rd had opened for this new fresh air to come from the Holy Spirit.

Shocked by the results of Vatican II, the climate in the Catholic priesthood changed and a mass exodus began that lasted for almost twenty-five years. Over 25,000 priests in the U.S. left their clerical ministry and nine out of ten did so to get married, many of them marrying nuns, according to a sociological study done in 1985 and reported in “Full Pews and Empty Altars” (Schoenherr and Young, 1990).

Priests got jobs, started families and became part of the mainstream—some may even be your neighbors or co-workers today. When they left, however, resentment set in by the hierarchy, as one archbishop admitted; some were blackballed in their communities and couldn’t get decent work, and they were told by their bishops that under no circumstances were they allowed to function as priests—in fact, “don’t even think of celebrating Mass” and “don’t tell anyone you’re a priest.” Some were forced to move as much as 500 miles away because of “scandal,” as the church put it.

Through the efforts of one married priest Canon Lawyer, Delmar Smolinski of Michigan, research was conducted in the Code of Canon Law to find church laws that validate the priests’ ordination, and “what about those canons that apply to ministry?” Twenty-one canons were in fact found, beginning with, “…after it has been validly received, sacred ordination never becomes invalid,” (290). More importantly, in the laity section of the Code of Canon Laws lies power to invite a married priest to any sacrament for “any just cause” (1335) and that he “may not deny the Sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them” (843).

While Canon Laws may not be the reason hundreds of thousands of people have contacted rentapriest.com over the last 15 years, it has helped many priests realize that what the bishops told them upon leaving about their priesthood and ministry was not true. It may also explain the reason there has been no cease and desist from the Catholic institution. What CITI Ministries is doing in promoting their availability falls within these Canon Laws—we are valid. The people may not care, but CITI protects married priests in its defiance of the hierarchy, but not its laws.

A few facts:

1. In 1996, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) based at Georgetown University, conducted a study of Catholics who no longer attended Catholic Church. The results, reported in Maine’s Church World in Feb. 1996 indicated that 73.3% of American Catholics (48 million) had stopped attending Catholic Church. Clergy sexual abuse revelations since 2002 only added to that figure so the publicly held figure of 30 million is grossly incorrect.

2. When CITI MINISTRIES INC first went into “business” in 1992, it was with the notion that married priests would be invited by bishops and the parishioners to fill in where there were shortages in the church buildings. However, no one called.

3. Much to our surprise after some national publicity due to the name Rent A Priest (received by the Holy Spirit's inspiration in a dream), calls came from the unchurched. While mostly for marriage and remarriage because of denials by their pastor, many calls to rentapriest were also surprisingly received from those whose babies were refused baptism because the parents no longer attended Sunday Mass and “put money in the collection plate."

But, people get complacent and priests get even more complacent. Without the availability of married priests, many important life cycle events may not have the Catholic traditions we grew up with. Married priests may forget what was afforded to them by CITI Ministries by making this service available was out of their lives, in some cases for as much as 20 or 25 years.

Now, CITI is struggling to stay afloat. Is this the end of our mission? Maybe it’s the end of the commercial aspect of our mission and the referrals for marriages are taking care of themselves. Is this all married priests were looking for? A marriage business?

If it's the end of our mission, why are Home Churches popping up? A few of the laity are beginning to notice the value of CITI/Rentapriest because of its association with Roman Catholic married priests. In the past three years, 75 lay people have become support members of CITI. In addition, a clergy sexual abuse survivor and his wife who were responsible for starting a Home Church with married priests are now members of the CITI Board.

While these numbers may not seem like a lot, we are remindful that in 1994 with all its efforts at Corpus/FCM/CTA and other church reform meetings, CITI had only signed up six married priests for its referral service because the others were skeptical. Home Churches are a new phenomenon with Catholics, especially the ones on the fringe, and they too are skeptical. It will take time, but CITI’s laity support member base grew by 23% in 2010 over 2009. Something is going on!

Please help support this effort to the end. We’re crossing a new threshold and really becoming the lay organization that we have been promoting, and we really need your help to continue. There is nothing better that the institution would like at this point than to see us disappear. That is their mantra. Will we succumb to their “If we wait, Rentapriest will go away?” or will we continue to support an organization that has (maybe too quietly) been using our ministry as our protest or our advocacy -- we don't picket -- no time because people need us for spiritual assistance. Close to a half million folks have contacted CITI/rentapriest for a free married priest referral in the past 15 years or so.

How can you help? If you’re a married priest certified member, continue your certification with an added donation. If you’re a sacramental recipient, become a support member at $50 per year for the couple. If you are a Home Church member, do likewise; maybe set up a special collection once a month to benefit CITI's work. If you are none of these things but believe in our ministry, please send a donation so it can continue--so we can continue to recruit married priests and so we can continue to supply referrals. CITI is a 501.c3 non profit and all donations are tax deductible. You can donate online at www.rentapriest.com or send a donation to CITI Ministries, Inc. 14 Middle Street, Brunswick, ME 04011.

Thank you and God bless you.

In behalf of all of us,

Sincerely,

Louise Haggett, Founder/President

CITI Ministries, Inc.

Church Culpability and the International Criminal Court (A Catholic Holocaust?)--Chapter 11

2010-04-22T13:19:00.004-04:00

Louise Haggett, 1997 and 2010, All Rights Reserved. We learn values as children from our parents, teachers and especially from those anointed by God in the religious denomination to which we may belong. These individuals bring us the Word of God and teach us what is right and wrong. This is the reason it is so difficult for me to face the reality of my beloved Catholic Church being involved in criminal behavior, especially involving our most innocent children. The global numbers of clergy sexual abuse victims is staggering, some say over one billion. There have been Class Action Suits against priests and bishops, legal accusations of collusion between the church and courts, Federal Racketeering charges in the U.S. because children were transported across state lines where sexual abuse took place, silencing and gag orders attempted against victims and attorneys; countersuing and wiretapping since 1993 (Wall Street Journal-1993), and countless cases involving obstruction of justice. The Catholic institution has also tried to avoid trial by claiming the First Amendment (separation of church and state in the U.S.) or by claiming that “priests are not employees of the institution” therefore not the church’s responsibility. Some of these tactics are still being utilized as the Vatican faces abuse cases in several European countries, closer to home than the United States. It was only a matter of time before the notion of the church’s culpability would reach the heights of the International Crime Court as recently suggested by high ranking United Nations (UN) Judge Geoffrey Robertson. He said, “the Pope should be prosecuted at International Criminal Court.”* It makes one wonder if these atrocities affecting millions of children (or maybe a billion as suggested by some) are similar to the Holocaust? Are the crimes of the church like the legacies of Nuremberg? Is the Vatican a “criminal state?” *(Yoshihara, http://www.c-fam.org/publications/pub_detail.asp?id=1606) In the broad spectrum, clergy sexual abuse is a crime against humanity too. It differs from Nuremberg however in that these crimes involve a “state of people” rather than a “political state.” What perhaps makes it more heinous is that the majority of its victims are the innocent children of the world. The following examines research conducted on bureaucracy as it related to the Holocaust, as well as the Catholic Church’s current NGO status (non-Member State Permanent Observer) with the UN. In a paper entitled The Legacies of Nuremberg, author David Luban says, “The framers of Nuremberg were confronted with a new offense, the bureaucratic crime, and a novel political menace, the criminal state. Limiting themselves to traditional legal concepts—sovereignty, individual criminal liability, conspiracy—and unwilling to question either the political system of nation-states or the character of responsibility in bureaucratic settings, they came to the brink of recognizing the novelty of criminal states but ultimately failed to comprehend this major challenge of our [20th] century (1987, p. 779). Nuremberg is seen by some as a “founding moment of the modern human-rights movement.” Are the crimes of a supposedly moral institution are also a “profound moment of the modern human-rights movement?” In order to put the notion of a Catholic Holocaust into perspective, it is necessary to examine the similarities between the Holocaust and the crimes of the Catholic Church. The Church as a Bureaucracy Let us first look at the issue of “bureaucracy.” Bureaucracy is the centralization of administrative power within major organizations or institutions so that its hierarchy—whether an individual or a committee—can control the individuals or groups in their influence. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, “bureaucracy or centralized administration, however, can lead to the suppression of internal dissent in an effort to further consolidate its power” (1995 p. 303). David Luban says, “The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. The highest point entrusts the understanding of particulars to the lower echelons, whereas these, on the other hand, credit the highest with an understanding in regard to the universal; and thus they deceive one another” (ibid. p.814). According to Jack Katz, “In the white collar ranks of formal organizations, persons construct authority to govern internal relations by shielding members from external scrutiny and by declining to force members to accept their responsibilities according to externally defined norms.” (1977 p.3) This is how “cover-ups” happen. As an organization builds internal authority, collective integrity becomes a secondary focus which can result in deviant behavior. In its attempt to maintain internal authority, the bureaucracy covers up the crime to protect the honor of the organization and maintain control of the deviant. This pattern manifests itself to other members of the organization who see the deviance as acceptable until the problem becomes uncontrollable. It is also possible that because the norms that are violated do not take priority over other organizational issues, less concern is shown, giving a message to the deviant that his misbehavior is tolerated. Another reason that an organization will hide the criminal or cover up the crime may be to maintain the external economic, political or financial support it may depend on to sustain itself, especially if it is nonprofit. In this context, the church is a bureaucracy. Its organizational structure is similar. It operates from the top down, attempts to maintain internal control and has protected deviant individuals so that it can retain its honor. The deviant individuals, seeing that it is okay to act in that fashion, continue the process until they get caught. Countless media stories have reported that deviant priests have been moved from parish to parish, country to country, rather than being disciplined or released. The Church as a Criminal State David Luban’s statement regarding the “framers of Nuremberg” described the Third Reich as a “nation-state” or “criminal state” (p.779). Does the church view itself as a church or as a state? As the only world religion that enjoys a “non-Member State Permanent Observer” status at the UN indicates that the church considers itself a “state.” To put it into perspective, the only other “state” with the same UN status is Switzerland (Columbia Law Review 1996). In this role, the church has more political influence in the General Assembly than it would in a lesser “observer” role. It even has voting and veto power at world conferences even though it has a “non-member State Permanent Status.” Two other UN “non-member” affiliations are available, each, however, with less influence. The International Red Cross belongs to one of them. If the church is a state in the United Nations political arena, it is responsible for potentially global criminal action against humanity and is, therefore, a “criminal state,” subject to the status of The Third Reich. There appear to be other similarities with the Catholic institution and The Holocaust. The Third Reich’s crimes were moral crimes; the church’s crimes are moral crimes as well. Both are crimes against God. The difference is, however, that the church is upheld as one of the highest moral institutions in the world, honor in the highest degree. While the crimes committed by priest perpetrators may not be related to a major war, these deeds would fall under Classification 6c in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal which describes the category of “crimes against humanity” as follows: “…murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in executive of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated (p780). Of course, there are differences in the crimes of the Holocaust and crimes of the Catholic Church. In the case of the Third Reich bureaucracy, since no single individual performed the whole deviant act, no single individual could be responsible for the individual acts. The administrative authority was at fault. In the case of the church, however, individual blame is also possible because of the nature of the crime (one abuse at a time) and the added element of “cover-ups” by immediate supervisors (the bishops) is identifiable. At the administrative level, the Pope would be named as the defendant because the Vatican’s bureaucracy protects the other hierarchy. (Evidence of alleged cover ups by the Pope when he was Archbishop has also emerged recently.) Luban said that “if the law is to be anything humane, it must guide our moral imaginations; and since it is now imperative that our moral imaginations include awareness of criminal states, the law must also include awareness of criminal states” (p.785). It would, therefore, seem fortuitous that the broader campaign that was launched in 1999, aimed at stripping the Holy See of its permanent observer status at the UN, was unsuccessful. Otherwise, the International Criminal Court might not be an option. ### Louise Haggett 2010, All Rights Reserved Excerpt from unpublished paper entitled “Why Would a Moral Institution Engage in Criminal Behavior?”, Haggett, Louise, November 13, 1997. CSRI99@aol.com 207-729-7673 Bibliography: Abdullah, Yasmin. 1996. The Holy See at United Nations Conferences: State or Church? Vol. 96. Columbia Law Review. 7:1835-1875 (Wellesley College) Associated Press. 1993. Pope: Celibacy Not Essential. July 18. New York Times 1996. Woman Sues over Relationship with Priest. May 30. Allegheny Times. 1997. (Dublin, Ireland-no headline) Aug. 25) Internet. Connors, Fr. Canice. 1993. The Issue of Sexual Misconduct & the Clergy, as presented at the 25th Annual NFPC (National Federation of Priests Council) Convention & House of Delegates. May 3-7, 1993. Hyatt Regency, Chicago. Dummett, Michael. 1995. Is Scandal, not truth, the norm for cardinals? Feb. 11. The Tablet (London), as reported in Breadrising, June 25, Terry Dosh, editor. MN Economus, Fr. Thomas. 1995. Missing Link Newsletter. Vol. 4 Linkup Abuse Support Organization. Chicago. Franklin, James L. 1992. Catholic Bishops Vow to Step Up Efforts Against Clergy Sexual Abuse. June 25. Boston Globe. Geyelin, Milo. 1993. The Catholic Church Struggles with Suits over Sexual Abuse. Nov. 24. Wall Street Journal. P.A48 Glascott, Katherine. 1997. 100 Priests Forced Out Over Sex Abuses. Aug. 26. The Australian. Haggett, Louise. 1997. Why Would a Moral Institution Engage in Criminal Behavior? Nov. 13. Unpublished paper. Framingham State College. Katz, Jack. 1977. Cover-up and Collective Integrity. On the Natural Antagonism of Authority Internal and External to Organizations. Vol. 25. Social Problems. 1:3-17 (Wellesley College) Lacey, Michael. 1993. The Sins of the Bishop. Sept. 8-14. New Times. Likoudis, Paul. 1996. In NCCB Lawsuit to Mediation. July 11. The Wanderer. Luban, David. 1987. The Legacies of Nuremberg. Vol. 54. Social Research. 4:779-829 Matchan, Linda. 1993. Porter Victim Tells of Secret Agreement. Dec. 7. Boston Globe. Matt, A.J. Jr. 1996. Why The Wanderer Can’t Back Off. Vol. 129. The Wanderer. 28:4 McCaffrey, Joseph D., Monica Maske. 1993. 3 Men Sue South Jersey Priest for Sex Abuse. June 11. The Star- Ledger. P.10 Merriam, G. & C. Co. 1967. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Chicago: Rand McNally. Ostling, Richard N. 1991. “Handmaid or Feminist?” Vol. 138. Time Magazine. 26.66. 1993. “Sex and the Single Priest.” July 5. Time Magazine. Renner, Gerald. 1997. Jury Hears Bishop Defend Diocese. Aug. 16. Hartford Courant (Internet). Reuter, 1997. Internet. Shannon, Denise. 1991. Public Perceptions, The Bishops Lobby. Booklet. Catholics for a Free Choice. Simmel, Georg. 1898:680-683; 1955: 99:104; 1955b:163-166. As reported in “Cover-up” Ibid. Sipe, A. W. Richard. 1995. Clergy Sex Abuse: A Crisis of the Church System. Vol. 5. Bread Rising, edited by Terry Dosh. P.2 Steinfels, Peter. 1993. Clinton Signs Law Protecting Religious Practices. Nov. 17. New York Times. Turner, Jonathan H, Leonard Beeghley, Charles H. Powers. 1995. The Sociology of Emil Durkheim. The Emergence of Sociological Theory. P.346 Welsh, Patrick. 1993. Is Sexual Dysfunction Killing the Catholic Church? Aug. 8. Washington Post. P.c3 Yallop, David. 1984. In God’s Name. New York: Bantam Yallop, Richard. 1997. Faith No More. Sept. 26. The Australian

Research Bibliography--Chapten 10 Addendum

2010-04-22T13:16:00.004-04:00

Bingo! Clergy Sexual Abuse Research Bibliography: References in alphabetical order: Abel, Gene G. and Joanne L. Rouleau. 1995. “Sexual abuses. Special Issue: Clinical sexuality.” Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 1:139-153. AFP. 1995. “Tough Pedophilia Bill Derailed.” International Herald Tribune, November 8. Akerlind, Ingemar. 1992. Loneliness and alcohol abuse: A review of evidences of an interplay. Social Science & Medicine. 34:405-414. Akers, Ronald L. 1985. Deviant Behavior: A Social Learning Perspective. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. American Humane Association. 1996. Fact Sheet. Children’s Division, AHA. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV-TR. 2000. Washington, D.C. APA. ------. 1994. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV. Washington, D.C.: APA ------. 1987. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IIIR. Washington, D.C.: APA. Ames, M. Ashley and David A. Houston. 1990. Legal, “Social, and Biological Definitions of Pedophilia.” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 4:333-342. Anderson, Kenneth N., Lois E. Anderson, and Walter D. Glanze. 1994. Mosby’s Medical, Nursing & Allied Health Dictionary. St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Andrews, D.A., and James Bonta. 1994. The Psychology of Criminal Conduct. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Co. Arnold, Regina. 1980. “Socio-structural determinants of self-esteem and the relationship between self-esteem and criminal behavior patterns of imprisoned minority women.” U.S. Univ. Microfilms International. 40(10A):5603. Arroyo, Raymond, narrator. 2004. “National Review Board Report on Clergy Sexual Abuse.” EWTN Television Network, February 27.Associated Press. 1998. Pentagon Estimates Viagra Costs $50M. The Union Leader. Manchester, NH, October 3. Babbie, Earl. 1995. The Practice of Social Research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. 1982. Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy—The Eleventh-Century Debates. NY. Edwin Mellon Press Baumeister, Roy F., Laura Smart, and Joseph Boden. 1999. “Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem.” Pp. 257-272 in Self in Social Psychology, edited by Roy F. Baumeister. Philadelphia: Psychology Press. Bates, Frederick and Katherine S. van Wormer. 1979. “A Study of Leadership Roles in an Alabama Prison for Women.” Human Relations. 9:793-801. Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. NY: Ballantine. Bennetts, Leslie. 1991. Unholy Acts. Vanity Fair, December. Berry, Jason. 1992. Lead Us Not Into Temptation. Catholic priests and the sexual abuse of children. NY: Doubleday. Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perceptions and Method. NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bonnike, Frank J., James Gower and Louise Haggett. 1993. “The Movement, the Ministries & the Methods.” Workshop presented at the 25th Annual National Federation of Priests Council (NFPC) Convention & House of Delegates. Chicago, IL, May 3-7. Booth, Richard. 2000. Loneliness as a Component of Psychiatric Disorders. Medscape General Medicine. 2(2): posted 3/22/2002. Retrieved April 7, 2004. (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/430545). Brennan, Tim. 1982. “Loneliness at Adolescence.” Pp. 269-290, in Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Peplau, L.A. and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley. Briere, John and Marsha Runtz. 1989. “University Males’ Sexual Interest in Children: Predicting Potential Indices of ‘Pedophilia’ in a Nonforensic Sample.” Child Abuse & Neglect.13:65-75. Burkett, Elixir and Frank Bruni. 1993. Gospel of Shame. NY: Penguin. Cameron, P., W. Coburn, Jr., and H. Larson. 1986. “Child molestation and homosexuality.” Psychological Reports. 58:327-37. CBSNews Online. 2002. Priest suicides tied to sex charges? (http://www.CBSNEWS.com/stories/2002/05/23/national/main509970.shtmlshtml) Retrieved July 11, 2004. Celibacy. 2004. America Uncover. HBO-TV, June 28. Celibacy & the Church. 2004. MSNBC-TV, July 7. Connors, Fr. Canice. 1993. “The Issue of Sexual Misconduct & the Clergy.” Workshop presented at the 25th Annual National Federation of Priests Council (NFPC) Convention & House of Delegates. Chicago, IL, May 3-7. Coon, D. 2000. “Introduction to psychology: Exploration and application,” in Ami Rokach, “Perceived causes of loneliness in adulthood.” Journal of Social Behavior & Personality. 15:67-85. Coridin, James A., Thomas G. Green, and Donald E. Heintschel. 1985. The Code of Canon Law. A text and commentary. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Cozzens, Donald B. 2000. The Changing Face of the Priesthood. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Crosby, Michael H. 1996. Celibacy—Means of Control or Mandate of the Heart? Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press. CST. 2004. “Bishops accused of sexual misconduct.” (http://www.WFAA.com/s/dws/spe/2002/bishops/stories/061202dnmetbishide.1d 915.html). Dabrow, Allan M. 1970. “Comment—The Pros and Cons of Conjugal Visits in Prison Institutions.” Journal of Family Law. 9:436-440. Diamant, Louis. 1993. Homosexual issues in the workplace. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis. Dietch, James. 1978. “Love, Sex Roles and Psychological Health.” Journal of Personality Assessment. 42:626-634. DiTommasso, Enrico, Cyndi Brannen, and Lisa A. Best. 2004. “Measurement and Validity Characteristics of the Short Version of the Social and Emotional ‘Loneliness’ Scale for Adults.” Educational & Psychological Measurement. 64:99-119. Doyle, Thomas P and A.W. Richard Sipe. 2005. Priests, Sex, and Secret Files. (to be released August, 2005). Durkheim, E. 1951, 1897. Suicide. NY: Free Press. Economus, Thomas. 1995. Missing Link, Fall. Egerton, Books, Reese Dunklin. 2002. Bishops accused of sexual misconduct. The Dallas Morning News, June 12. Finkelhor, David. 1994. “Current Information on the Scope and Nature of Child Sexual Abuse.” The Future of Children. Sexual Abuse of Children. 2:31-53. ------. 1989. “Early and Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: An Update.” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 21:325-330. Finkelhor, David and Sharon Araji. 1986. “Explanations of Pedophilia: A four factor model.” Journal of Sexual Research. 22:145-161. Finkelhor, David and L. Baron. 1986. “High-risk Children.” Pp. 60-88 in A Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse. Edited by D. Finkelhor. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Finkelhor, David, G. Hotaling, I.A. Lewis and C. Smith. 1990. “Sexual Abuse in a National Survey of Adult Men and Women: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Risk Factors.” Child Abuse & Neglect. 14:19-28. Finkelhor, David and Lisa Jones. 2004. “Explanations for the decline in child sexual abuse cases.” Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention/OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin, January 2004. [Online] Retrieved February 27, 2004. Fischer, David R. 1975, in Peterson, Richard A. (1979). “Revitalizing the Culture Concept.” 1979 Annual Review of Sociology. Fraze, Barb. 1993. “Canadian Bishops move vigorously on sex abuse problems.” National Catholic Reporter, July 3. French, Laurence. 1979. “Prison Sexualization: Inmate Adaptations to Psycho-sexual Stress.” Corrective & Social Psychiatry & Journal of Behavior Technology, Methods & Therapy. 25:64-69. Freund, Kurt and Robin Watson. 1992. “The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles among Sex Offenders against Children: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. 1:34-43. Geyelin, Milo. 1993. “The Catholic Church Struggles with Suits over Sexual Abuse.” Wall Street Journal, November 24. Gifis, Steven H. 1996. Law Dictionary. Happauge, NY: Barron’s. Gill, James. 2002. In Dean Hoge, The First Five Years of the Priesthood. A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Gill, Fr. James. 1993. “Human Sexuality, the Priesthood, and a Mature Laity.” The American Catholic Northeast, October. Goldman, Alan H. 1977. “Plain Sex.” Philosophy & Public Affairs. 6:267-287. Gosselin, Henry. 1996. Who’s Sitting in the Pews? Church World. 35:4 Greenberg, David M., John Bradford, and Susan Curry. 1995. “Infantophilia—A New Subcategory of Pedophilia? A Preliminary Study.” Bull American Academy Psychiatry Law. 1:63-70. Groth, Nicholas A., William F. Hobson, and Thomas S. Gary. 1982. The Child Molester: Clinical Observations. NY: Barron’s. Grubin, Don. 1992. “Sexual Offending: a cross-cultural comparison.” Annual Review of Sex Research. (3)201-217. Hackney, H. and C. G. Wrenn, Eds. 1990. “The contemporary counselor in a changed world. In: Loos, Michael, The Synergy of depravity and loneliness in alcoholism: A new conceptualization, and old problem.” Counseling & Values. 3:199-212. Haggett, Louise. 2000. “Is a sexually abusing Roman Catholic priest a pedophile? The case for ephebophilia.” Presented at the 70th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore Hilton, Baltimore, March 2-5. ------. 1999. ibid. Presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Religious Research Association’s “What Do We Know about Religious Institutions and How Have We Come to Know It?” Swissotel, Boston, November 5-7. Haggett, Louise, Tara Hanson and Megan Solo. 1997. “What Factors Contribute to Catholic Priests Breaking Their Vows of Celibacy/Chastity?” Unpublished. Haywood, Thomas W., Howard M. Kravitz, Linda S. Grossman, Orest E. Wasylow, Daniel W. Hardy. 1996. “Psychological Aspects of Sexual Functioning Among Cleric and Non- Cleric Alleged Sex Offenders.” Child Abuse & Neglect. 20:527-536. Hensley, Christopher. 2001. “Exploring the Dynamics of Masturbation and Consensual Same- Sex Activity within a Male Maximum Security Prison.” The Journal of Men’s Studies. 1:59-71. ------.1997. “From Behind the Walls of Confinement: an Analysis of Mississippi Prisoners’ Attitude toward Sexuality.” Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities & Social Sciences. 58:2857. Hermand, Pierre. 1965. The Priest: Celibate or Married. Baltimore: Helicon. Original French title (1963): “Condition du Prête et marriage ou célibat?” Paris: Calmann-Levy. Hill, C.T., Z. Rubin, and L.A. Peplau, L. A. 1976. “Breakups before marriage: The end of 102 affairs.” In Jones, Warren: “Loneliness and Social Behavior” in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman, . NY: Wiley. Hogan-Albach, Susan. 2004. USCCB committee bishops accused of abuse cover-up. 3 members of panel named in lawsuits; criticism called unfair. Dallas Morning News, January 19. Hoge, Dean R. 2002. The First Five Years of the Priesthood. A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. Humphreys, Laud. 1970, 1975. Tearoom Trade. Impersonal sex in public places. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Ibrahim, Azmy Ishal. 1974. “Deviant Sexual Behavior in Men’s Prisons.” Crime and Delinquency. 20:38-44. Jaffe, Richard M. 2001. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical marriage in modern Japanese Buddhism. NJ: Princeton University Press. Jenkins, Philip. 1996. Pedophiles and priests. Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis. NY: Oxford University Press. Jones, Warren H. 1982. “Loneliness and Social Behavior.” Ch. 15 in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley. Jones, W. H. and M.D. Carver. 1991. “Adjustment and coping implications of loneliness,” in: Jari-Erik Nurmi, Sari Toivonen, Katariina Salmela-Aro, and Sana Eronen. 1997. “Social Strategies and Loneliness.” Journal of Social Psychology. 137:764-778. Jones, Warren H., R.O. Hansson, and T.G. Smith. 1980. “Loneliness and love: Implications for psychological and interpersonal functioning, in Loneliness and Social Behavior.” Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley Kalichman, Seth C. 1991. “Psychopathology and Personality Characteristics of Criminal Sexual Offenders as a Function of Victim Age.” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2:187- 197. Kendall-Tackett, K.A., L. M. Williams, and D. Finkelhor. 1993. “Impact of Sexual Abuse on Children: A Review and Synthesis of recent Empirical Studies.” Psychological Bulletin 113:164-180. Kennedy, Eugene. 1993. “Sex Abuse and Catholic Clerical Culture.” National Catholic Reporter, March 19. Kennedy, Eugene C., V.J. Heckler, F.J. Kobler and R.E. Walker. 1977. “Clinical assessment of a profession: Roman Catholic clergymen.” Journal of Clinical Psychology. 33:120-128. Kercher, Glen A. and Marilyn McShane. 1984. “The Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Victimization in an Adult Sample of Texas Residents.” Child Abuse & Neglect. 8:495- 501. Kim, Oksoo. 1997. “Loneliness: A predictor of health perceptions among older Korean immigrants.” Psychological Reports. 81:591-594. Kornblum, Janet. 2005. For Steinem, these are the glory years. USA Today, February 2. Long, Gary Thomas. 1993. “Homosexual Relationships in a Unique Setting: The Male Prison.” Homosexual Issues in the Workplace, edited by Louis Diamant. 8:143- 159. Loos, Michael D. 2002. “The synergy of depravity and loneliness in alcoholism: A new conceptualization, and old problem.” Counseling & Values. 46:199-212. Lynch, Gerald W., Michele Galietta, Margaret Leland Smith, James Levine, Maureen O’Connor, Steven Penrod, Louis Schlesinger, Karen Terry. 2004 The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950- 2002. NY: The John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Magills Dictionary. 1998. Edited by D. Dawson. Westerville, OH: Hans & Cassidy. Marsa, Fiona, Gary O’Reilly, Alan Carr, Paul Murphy, Maura O’Sullivan, Anthony Cotter, and Davi Hevey. 2004. “Attachment Styles and Psychological Profiles of Child Sex Offenders in Ireland.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 19:228- 251. Marshall, Gordon. 1994, 1996. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. NY: Oxford U. Press. Marshall, W.L. 1989. “Intimacy, loneliness and sexual offenders,” in Rokach, Ami. 2001. “Criminal offense type and the causes of ‘loneliness’.” Journal of Psychology. 135:277-291. Maslow, Abraham H. 1987, 1954. Motivation and Personality. NY: Harper & Row. McCaffrey, Joseph D., Monica Maske. 1993. “3 Men Sue South Jersey Priest for Sex Abuse.” The Star-Ledger, June 11. McCarthy, James F. 2002. Bishop Quinn exits abuse panel. Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 10. McLaughlin, Barbara R. 1994. “Devastated Spirituality: The Impact of Clergy Sexual Abuse on the Survivor’s Relationship with God and the Church.” Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity. 1 Medora, Nilufer P.; John C. Woodward. 1991. “Factors associates with loneliness among alcoholics in rehabilitation centers.” Journal of Social Psychology. 131:769-779). Money, John. 1980. Love and Love Sickness. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Moore, K., C. Nord, and J. Peterson. 1989. “Nonvoluntary Sexual Activity among Adolescents. Family Planning Perspectives.” 21:110-14. Morris, Charles R. 1997. American Catholic. NY: Vintage. Musolf, Gil Richard. 1992. “Structure, Institutions, Power & Ideology: New Directions within Symbolic Interactionism. Sociological Quarterly, 33:184. Nacci, Peter L., Thomas R. Kane. 1984. Inmate Sexual Aggression: Some Evolving Propositions, Empirical Findings, and Mitigating Counter-forces. Journal of Offender Counseling, Services & Rehabilitation. Special Issue: Gender issues, sex offenses, and criminal justice: Current trends. 9:1-20. ------. 1983. “The Incidence of Sex and Sexual Aggression in Federal Prisons.” Federal Probation. 47:31-36. National Opinion Research Center (NORC). 1972. The Catholic priest in the United States: Sociological investigations. Andrew Greeley and Richard A. Schoenherr, principal investigators. Washington, D.C.: US Catholic Conference. NewYork Times.1993. “Pope: Celibacy Is Not Essential to the Priesthood.” July 18. Nurmi, Jari-Erik, Sari Toivonen, Katariina Salmela-Aro, and Sana Eronen. 1997. “Social Strategies and Loneliness.” Journal of Social Psychology. 137:764-778. The Official Catholic Directory. 1996. Edited by Kenedy, P.J. & Sons. New Providence, NJ: Reed. Ostling, Richard N. 1993. “Sex and the Single Priest.” Time, July 5. Ostling, Richard N. 1991. “Handmaid or Feminist?” Time, December 30. Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Pub. Peplau, Lititia Anne, Daniel Perlman, eds. 1982. Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy. NY: Wiley Peters, S.D., G.E. Wyatt, and D. Finkelhor. 1986. “Prevalence.” Pp. 15-59 in A Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse, edited by D. Finkelhor. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Powers, William T. 1973. Behavior: The Control of Perception. Chicago: Aldine. Quinn, A. James. 1991. NCCB Guidelines and other considerations in pedophilia cases. Presented in 1990 in Columbus, Ohio, at the Midwest Canon Law Society. Rice, David.1990. Shattered Vows. Priests Who Leave. NY: Triumph Books. Rich, Vera. 1999. “Marry now…or not at all.” London Tablet, October 23. Richardson, John D. 2004. “Isolating frequency scale effects on self-reported loneliness.” Personality & Individual Differences. 36:235-244. Rokach, Ami. 2001. “Criminal offense type and the causes of loneliness.” Journal of Psychology. 135:277-291. ------. 2000a. “Offense type and the experience of ‘loneliness’.” International Journal of Offender Therapy & Comparative Criminology. 44:549-563. ------. 2000b. “Perceived Causes of Loneliness in Adulthood.” Journal of Social Behavior & Personality. 15:67-85. ------. 1990. “Surviving and coping with ‘loneliness’.” Journal of Psychology. 124:39-54. Rokach, Ami, Heather, Brock. 1997. Loneliness: A multidimensional experience. Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior. 34(1):1-9. Rokach, Ami, Koledin, Spomenka. (1997). “Loneliness in jail: A study of the loneliness of incarcerated men.” International Journal of Offender Therapy & Comparative Criminology. 4:168-179. Rook, K.S. “Research on social support loneliness and social isolation: Toward an integration,” in: Akerlind, Ingemar. 1992. “‘Loneliness’ and alcohol abuse: A review of evidences of an interplay.” Social Science & Medicine. 34:405-414. Rossetti, Stephen J. 1994. “Priest Suicides and the Crisis of Faith.” America Magazine, October 29. Rothenberg, Robert E. 1995. The Plain Language Law Dictionary. NY: Penguin. Rubinstein, C. and Shaver, P. 1980. “Loneliness in two northeastern cities,” in The Anatomy of Loneliness, edited by J. Hortag and J. Andy. NY: International Universities Press. Russell, D. 1983. “The Incidence and Prevalence of Intrafamilial and Extrafamilial Sexual Abuse of Female Children.” Child Abuse & Neglect. 7:133-146. Russell, Daniel. 1982. “The Measurement of loneliness.” Ch. 6, in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Peplau, Lititia Anne, Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley Russell, Daniel, L. A. Peplau, and C. Cutrona. 1980. “The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence,” in Jones, Warren H. (1982). Loneliness and Social Behavior. Ch. 15 in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by. Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley.. Schaeffer, Pamela. 1997. “Breaking Silence: Priests with AIDS Are Eager to Talk.” National Catholic Reporter, April 18. Schneider, Hans. 1997. “Sexual abuse of children: Strengths and weaknesses of current criminology.” International Journal of Offender Therapy & Comparative Criminology. 41:310-324. Schoenherr, Richard A. and David Yamane. 2002. Goodbye Father. NY: Oxford. Schoenherr, Richard and Lawrence Young. 1993. Full Pews and Empty Altars. Madison, WI: U. of Wis. Press. ------. 1990. “Quitting the Clergy: Resignations in the Roman Catholic Priesthood.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 29:463-481. Sedlak, A. 1991. National Incidence and Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect:1988. Revised Report. Rockville, MD: Westat. Simmel, Georg. 1995, 1903. “The Web of Group Affiliations.” The Emergence of Sociological Theory, edited by Serina Beauparlant. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Simpson, J.A. and E. S. C. Weiner. 1989. The Oxford Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sipe, A. W. Richard. 2003. Celibacy in Crisis. A Secret World Revisited. NY: Brunner Routledge. ------. 1995. Sex, Priests and Power. Anatomy of a Crisis. NY: Brunner Mazel. ------. 1990. A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. NY: Brunner Mazel. Sullivan, Richard. 1970. “Comment—The Pros and Cons of Conjugal Visits in Prison Institutions.” Journal of Family Law. 9:436-440. Staff Reports. 2004. Bishops accused of sexual misconduct. CST, January 21. http://www.wfaa.com/s/dws/spe/2002/bishops/stories/061202dnmetbishside.1d915.html) Retrieved March 14, 2004. Stravinskas, Rev. Peter M. J. 1991. Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing. Sutherland, Edwin H. 1992. “Sutherland’s Theory: An Example of a Socialization Theory.” Sociology of Deviant Behavior, edited by Marshall B. Clinard and Robert F. Meier. FL: Harcourt. Thomas, Gordon. 1986. Desire and Denial: celibacy and the church. Boston: Little, Brown. Thomas, Judy. 2000. “Report Explores AIDS, Priests.” Associated Press in Kansas City Star. Kansas City, MO., January 29. (http//www.kcstar.com/item/pages/home.pat,local/37743133.129.html).Retrieved January 20, 2000. Tomasello, Michael, Ann Cole Kruger, Hilary Horn Ratner. 1993. “Cultural Learning.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16:495-552. Turner, Jonathan H. 1995. Sociological Theory. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Van Wormer, Katherine, Frederick L. Bates. 1979. “A Study of Leadership Roles in an Alabama Prison for Women.” Human Relations. 32:793-801. Ward, David A. and Gene G. Kassebaum. 1964. “Homosexuality: A Mode of Adaptation in a Prison for Women.” Social Problems. 159-177. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. 1996. Springfield, MA: Merriam Webster. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. 1969. Springfield, MA: Merriam Webster. Weiss, R.S. 1982. “Issues in the study of loneliness.” Ch. 5 in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley ------. 1973. “Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation.” In: Jones, Warren H. 1982. “Loneliness and Social Behavior.” Ch. 15 in Loneliness. A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, edited by Lititia Anne Peplau and Daniel Perlman. NY: Wiley. West, Donald A., Robert Kellner and Maggi Moore-West. 1986. “The effects of ‘loneliness’: A review of the literature.” Comprehensive Psychiatry. 27:351-363. Wilkes, Paul. 1991. “Profiles. The Education of an Archbishop II (Rembert Weakland).” The New Yorker, July 22. Wimberley, Dale W. 1989. “Religion and Role Identity: A Structural Symbolic Interactionist’s Conceptualization of Religiosity.” The Sociological Quarterly, 30:130. Winter Report, The. 1990. Archdiocese of St. John’s. Newfoundland, Canada, 36. Wood, V. Wylie, M.F. and Shaefor, B. 1969. An analysis of short self-report measures of life satisfaction: correlation with rater judgments. Journal of Gerontology. 2:465-469. World Almanac. 2005. NY: World Almanac Books. World Book Encyclopedia. 2005. Chicago: World Books, Inc. Wyld, Henry Cecil & Partridge Eric H. 1969. Complete and Unabridged the Little & Ives Webster Dictionary. NY: J.J. Little & Ives Co. Zonana, H., Gene Abel, John Bradford, Steven Hoge and Jeffrey Melzner. 1998. APA Task Force Report on Sexually Dangerous Offenders. Unpublished. ************************

The Mandatory Celibacy/Clergy Sexual Abuse Research and Findings--Chapter 10

2010-04-22T12:50:00.010-04:00

Louise Haggett, 2010, All Rights Reserved 1. The Priest Study*--1997 2. The Victim Study*--1999 3. The Adult Victim Study*-1999 4. Homosexuality and Clergy Sexual Abuse* 5. What Were His (Priest) Needs?* 6. The Loneliness Study*--2003 7. General Conclusion* *Featured in The Bingo Report: Mandatory Celibacy and Clergy Sexual Abuse 1. The Priest Study-1997 Intersubjectivity best describes the team conducting the Priest Study at Framingham State College in 1997. Like the public perception of clergy sexual abuse, the team, whose leader was non-Catholic with a 4.0 GPA and led by a Jewish Sociology professor hypothesized that clergy sexual abuse was the same as general population abuse. I, of course, saw differences. These opposing views lent more credence to the research and helped make our findings “objectively true,” probably the best scenario when researching something so controversial." Are factors in a celibate priest committing the act of sexual abuse the same as general population sexual abuse?" became the sociological question. Using Georg Simmel's social “Learning Theory" provided the background for our hypothesis regarding influence on the subculture of the priesthood that might lead to deviance of vows/promises of celibacy/chastity. Was it the subculture of the priesthood or earlier socialization (families and society in general) that dictated sexual attitude and/or behavior? The self-administered questionnaire was sent to 248 random priests from a random list in The Official U.S. Catholic Directory (Kenedy 1996). Thirty-one percent (N=77) responded.

The demographics were well balanced so we had a good cross-section of priest respondents:

8% had been ordained between 1-10 years, every other ten-year period up to 41+ years had between 21-27%.
25% had entered seminary between 13-15 years old; 42% between 16-19 years old; 17% between the ages 20-29 years old; and only 6% over 30+ (probably second-career priests).
69% had dated prior to seminary.
67% were diocesan priests and 31% religious order, almost identical to the actual priest census--66.1% diocesan and 33.9% religious order.

Priest respondents were surveyed regarding their beliefs with follow-up questions to see if their actual behavior correlated with their beliefs. We asked whether they believed that priests in general were divine beings; did they adhere to the vow or promise of celibacy/chastity?; did they believe in divine retribution for breaking vows (was it a sin) and did priests adhere to the vow(s) because of their belief or not. They were then asked if priests in general broke their vows because of sexual freedom in society or because of their own sexual needs.

A separate section dealt with how much the church knew that priests broke their vows. If there was knowledge, how—if at all--were priests disciplined. Lastly, priest respondents were asked if they believed in optional celibacy and whether or not priests should be allowed to marry. This was essentially the same question, following the pattern used for other variables throughout the questionnaire.

Our findings were significant. Of particular interest were the unexpected contradictions from priests in general. Worthy of note was the dichotomy that existed in responses between the attitudes of respondents toward adhering to their promises or vows in contrast with their behavior regarding breaking them. While they said they believed in one thing, the action reported contradicted what they said they believed. For example,

Do you adhere to your vows? 87% said yes.
Do you occasionally not adhere? 43% said yes.
Do priests break their vows? 93% said yes.
Do you break your vows? 87% said no.
Do you believe in Divine Retribution [sinful] for breaking vows? 68% said no.

The Likert Scale which goes from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree was very telling in some of the more difficult questions below such as “sexual needs,” as well as in the responses that might have implicated the Catholic institution regarding what the hierarchy knew, prior to the 2002 revelations. The option “Neither Agree/Nor Disagree” – a noncommittal response – highlighted these variables.

Do priests have sexual needs? 94% said yes.
Do priests break their vows because of sexual needs? 47% were non-committal* or said no.
Does the church acknowledge that priests break vows? Of those who responded, 94% said yes.
Does the church discipline priests who break vows? Of those who responded, 55% said yes and 45% were non-committal or said no.
How often does the church discipline priests who break vows? Of those who responded, 15% said "frequently," 56% said "occasionally" and 29% said, "not often, never or only when it becomes public knowledge," the latter response written in.

The most significant finding of this study, however, came in the open-ended question that asked about "other factors" that would make priests break their vows. The answers included:

59% because of loneliness, lack of intimacy, marriage and family* 16.9% because of weakness 6.8% because of lack of prayer 6.8% because priests were frustrated with church policies regarding mandatory celibacy 6.8% because of substance abuse 1.7% because of societal pressures 1.7% other issues

*As little as 10% in a "written-in" response is considered significant in quantitative studies, 59%, therefore is very noteworthy.

The research team anticipated a measurable difference in attitudes and behaviors among priests based on their degree of socialization--whether or not it made a difference if they entered seminary before or after puberty, whether or not they dated prior to entry, whether or not the length of stay would solidify their vocation, whether or not they lived in community with other priests (religious order priest) or in a parish house in a more public environment (diocesan priest).

We discovered that the length of time a priest was in the priesthood made more of an impact on his attitude and behavior than any other factor and that it didn't matter if he was a diocesan or religious order priest. We concluded that the long-term socialization pattern within the subculture of the priesthood and not prior socialization (general population) played a major role in the behavior of priests and that their behavior was different from their attitude.

2. The Victim Study-1999

The Loneliness factor in the priest survey—a latent variable—did not become a highlight until 2003 when the findings from the Priest study and the 1999 Victim study were compared in preparation for The Bingo Report manuscript. Because CITI Ministries was continuing to grow and was now subject to a full advisory board comprising over 20 members, the research was beginning to take a back seat to the everyday demands of our website http://www.rentapriest.com/.

After Fr. Tom Economus, National Coordinator of The Linkup (victim support organization) read the Priest Research Report in 1999, he suggested that a study be conducted among Linkup's victim membership because it had never been done. Based on his experience in providing support to victims, he also believed that the victim demography might be different than general population child sexual abuse victims. He offered to take a questionnaire and send it confidentially to the victims on his list. By then, a compatible working relationship had been established with Framingham State College professor Lucille Lawless, a sociologist and criminologist. Prof. Lawless had a keen interest in the subject matter since one of her prior theses many years before had been on the subject of married priests. She offered to mentor me through the Victim Study, something I would have never attempted alone. The Center for the Study of Religious Issues was formed so that the research could be conducted in an independent setting.

I continued to wonder if claims by the church that clergy sexual abuse was the same as general population abuse would bear themselves out if a target population of clergy victims were to be segregated from other sexual abuse victims. The investigation for prior research on child sexual abuse uncovered a 25,000 general population sample from a compilation of 19 prior retrospective studies that was collected by David Finkelhor, a Professor and Director of the Family Research Laboratory now Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. These demographics provided the basis for our study.

I took the project to Professor Lawless and she helped me devise a 29-question survey instrument that would be mailed by Fr. Tom to his list. Eight demographic questions would determine who the respondents were, and the remaining questions would be about their abuse experience. We also included a section on "how much the church knew and what they did about it."

The survey was mailed to 959 reported victims, of which 131 valid instruments were returned. Even though the questionnaires had been sent confidentially, the majority of responses included contact information and many thanked us for our interest in hearing what victims had to say. Surprisingly, 31% of the respondents had been abused as adults so it was necessary to provide a separate report since the Finkelhor's 19-study population ended at 18 years old.

The sociological question was: "Is a Sexually Abusing Roman Catholic Priest a Pedophile?" One of our hypotheses was that victims of priest perpetrators were older than victims among the general population, therefore would not fall into the “pedophilia” category--generally pre-pubescent. The American Psychiatric Association's (APA) 1993 edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) gave no distinction for pedophilia between victims who were four or 15 years old. The word "ephebophilia" (post-pubescent/adolescent victims) had already been coined by Johns Hopkins Sexologist John Money (Love and Love Sickness, 1980) and was currently being used by many researchers.

Our victim study findings indicated vast differences between clergy sexual abuse victims and general population victims when compared to the Finkelhor 19-study compilation of 25,000 general population child sexual abuse victims. For instance,

Duration of Abuse: 68.5% of General population victims were abused only once, compared to 17.5% of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. 56.7% of Clergy sexual abuse victims were abused one year or longer.

Age of Victim: Average general population victims of child sexual abuse were between 7-13 years of age (pedophilia).On the other hand, the average clergy sexual abuse victim was 10-15 years old (ephebophilia).

Gender of Victim: Under 18 years of age, 80% of the general population victims were female. Clergy victims under 18 years old were 93% male.

Age of Perpetrator: Average age of general population sexual perpetrators was early 30s with 33% under 18 years old, whereas 47% of the clergy perpetrators over 40 years old.

Our conclusion recommended that further research be conducted among the priest subculture and that the American Psychiatric Association adopt correct definitions for pedophilia and ephebophilia in new printings of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) as follows:

(excerpt from The Bingo Report: Mandatory Celibacy and Clergy Sexual Abuse [p110].)

DSM-IV-TR (2000) acknowledges various forms of "pedophile" sexual perpetrators such as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, regressed (attracted to children at times of stress), fixated (primarily attracted to prepubescent children), and incestual and nonincestual perpetrators. The concept of rape, also included in DSM-IV-TR, has reached a consensus among the disciplines and creates no confusion regarding related research or treatment or incarceration.

Since there are new definitions available and in common use among the research community regarding child sexual abuse, and since there is documentable evidence that not all child sexual abuse has the same characteristics, it seems appropriate to: 1. Accept and include the following as universal terminology in future printings of DSM to describe child sexual abuse, as well as in sociological and other scientific dictionaries and encyclopedias: A. Infantophilia: Sexual activity, whether physical or otherwise, with an infant child or children (generally age 0-5). (The Bingo Report reviews research by Kalichman [1991], Ames and Houston [1990], and Greenberg, Bradford and Curry [1995] to support this statement.) B. Pedophilia: Sexual activity, whether physical or otherwise, with a prepubescent child or children (pre-pubescent 6-12 [see note below*]). C. Ephebophilia: Sexual activity, whether physical or otherwise, with a post-pubescent or adolescent child or children (post-puberty 13-18).

*New data appearing in Magill’s Dictionary (Dawson 1998) speaks of "precocious puberty" beginning at ages 8 for girls and 9 for boys, where normal puberty onset is indicated for females between the ages of 10-12 and boys between the ages of 12-14. If this is adopted as the norm, it may place many more victims in the "ephebophilia" category.

Until such time as the APA considers more suitable terminology to remedy the current confusion regarding the relevant concepts being discussed, we recommend that the proposed distinctions of infantophilia, pedophilia, and ephebophilia be adopted by the scientific community at large so that future studies can be more reliable.

We also recommended that the APA

2. Subcategorize study populations for future research on child sexual abuse.

3. Use consistent methodology especially regarding demographics and peculiarities being studied.

(The APA reported in January, 2010 that "ephebophilia" would be considered for the next printing of DSM.)

3. The Adult Victim Study

The Adult Victim statistics produced significant findings. Since our general population frame of reference was child sexual abuse ending at age 18, the adult findings were provided as a separate report in The Bingo Report, as stand-alone observations.

The most notable statistic was the dramatic shift from male to female victims among victims beyond 20 years of age--94.5% female and 5.5% males, compared to 93% clergy sexual abuse male victims in the adolescent category. While there was very little research available on sexual abuse in other religious denominations in 1999, which could be compared to Catholic clergy abuse, we found one study which indicated that, "all the Protestant survivors (among the study population) were abused as adults and all were women" (1994 McLaughlin)

Based on our findings, therefore, the only clergy sexual abuse perpetrators or victims that can be compared to general population abuse would be the abuse of adults by priests. Our research findings, therefore, disprove that child sexual abuse by priests is the same as general population abuse. Additional data is available in The Bingo Report: Mandatory Celibacy and Clergy Sexual Abuse (available through Amazon.com or via the bookstore at http://www.rentapriest.com/.

4. Homosexuality in Clergy Sexual Abuse

We investigated homosexuality as a possible factor in clergy sexual abuse for our Victim Report. The only papers we were able to find in 1999 regarding deviant sexual activity in same-sex institutions reported that in prisons the prevalence of homosexual behavior was 69% versus 13% among the general population, and that 90% of the prisoners who engaged in homosexual activity in prisons were heterosexuals who began that practice in the prison system and who reversed to heterosexual activity once released (Ward and Kassebaum 1964).

According to Christopher Hensley (2001) of the Institute for Correction Research & Training in Kentucky, "Men immersed in single-sex environments, such as boarding schools, the military, remote work sites and correctional institutions, have been long known to engage in sexual activities with one another, yet staunchly maintain a heterosexual identity. Sexual activities with other men are defined as simply a response to the deprivation or a lack of mixed-sex interactions. General belief holds that most men engaged in situational same-sex activities would return to heterosexual sexual activities once removed from the segregated environment."

There is further research referred to in The Bingo Report that supports these statements. John Jay College of Criminal Justice has conducted its own research on possible causes of clergy sexual abuse has also indicated homosexuality is not a factor (AP,2009). With reference to priests and male children, logic would tell us that in the era of our study population (victims abused in the 1960s-1980s), there were no female altar servers making young male altar servers more convenient. The fact that girls were “off limits” and boys were okay was also admitted by Fr. Canice Connors at the 1993 NFPC Conference. We therefore conclude that homosexuality is not a factor during the period of our study population.

5. When Was Abuse Reported?

At the time of our Victim Study in 1999:

18% of our total respondents (children and adults) still had not told anyone about their sexual abuse by priest perpetrators.
39% took 20 or more years to tell anyone.
5% reported it twice with many years in between because no one believed them the first time.
3% reported it when it happened.

65% of the respondents said they told two or more people. We concluded that once the secret was out, the more people who were told, the better the healing. Of the people who were told, 28% were church officials, 9% legal authorities, 10% professionals (counselors, etc.), 9% media and only 2.7% parents.

6. What Were His (Priest's) Needs?

The options for response to the priest perpetrator’s needs were Biological (described as natural sexual need), Emotional (loneliness), Authoritarian (abuse of power) and Other (open ended). The respondents were asked to check off as many "needs" as they felt applied.

Over 50% of the victim/survivor respondents retrospectively indicated that the needs their perpetrator(s) had included Biological (natural sexual need) and Emotional (loneliness). A large percentage of clergy victims/survivors today hate not just their perpetrators, but all priests as a result of their own victimization, so we found significant that victims would have any kind of sensitivity towards priest perpetrators.

7. The Loneliness Study--2003

That 60% of priest respondents and over 50% of victim/survivor respondents would acknowledge "loneliness" and "lack of intimacy" as reasons for either breaking celibacy vows or in the case of victims, needs of the priests, suggested further research prior to the publishing of The Bingo Report. A literary review of books and articles on the celibate priesthood was therefore pursued in 2003.

The following quotes appeared in various publications:

Dean Hoge 2002: "Among priests who resigned their clerical ministry, the only thing in common in the four sets of reasons for leaving was loneliness" (102).
James Gill (Hoge, 2002): "...13 stresses that priests have. Number one was loneliness" (102).
Donald Cozzens 2000: "Among priests who came to [him] to announce leaving, few expressed anger at Church, pastor or of unforgiving parishioners. Not one mentioned loss of faith...many did, however, speak of loneliness and a desire for intimacy" (25).
Schoenherr and Young 1993: "NORC [National Opinion Research Center] found resignations more frequent among young priests who found loneliness a personal problem" (222).
A.W. Richard Sipe 1990: "The depth of the aloneness that must be embraced to support celibacy cannot be minimized" (63). "Lonely is one of the most frequent replies when one asks a celibate how he feels" (260). "The person who cannot tolerate true aloneness cannot move beyond this level of celibacy and therefore remains vulnerable to sexual compromises even after years of discipline" (261).
A.W. Richard Sipe 2003: "for priests in for 22-27 years [37-42 years of age--see age of perpetrator], it is lack of companionship rather than sexual discharge that threaten the celibate commitment" (298).*
Archbishop Rembert Weakland to The New Yorker 1991: "Men who leave the priesthood because of loneliness are not weak. They are simply good men who have fallen in love with good women" (53)

*Sipe’s research supports our findings in both the Priest Study and the Victim Study in terms of the longer a priest remains in the priesthood, the more he struggles with loneliness (Priest Study); as well as the average age of priest perpetrators (Victim Study).

Further, general research on persistent intense loneliness clearly demonstrates strong correlations with low self-esteem (in some instances, high self-esteem leading to an authoritative nature), substance abuse, suicide, and crime (Rokach 2001, 2000b, 1990, Kim 1997, Nurmi et al. 1997, Jones and Carver 1991, in Nurmi et al. ibid, Jones 1982, Weiss 1982, Brennan 1982). Researchers also agree that, "Voluntary solitude is not synonymous with loneliness. Lonely people do not voluntarily enter into that emotional state; rather they 'find themselves' feeling sometimes desperately lonely for reasons even they may not fully understand. Loneliness is fundamentally debilitating" (Booth 2000).

One of the reasons “loneliness” may not have been considered, or acknowledged, in the causal factors is that for the hierarchy or for a priest—a male—to admit intense loneliness would be to admit weakness among a subgroup whose persona projects authority and spiritual strength. The idea of being weak makes the priest fallible in a culture that has idealized him as a divine being and puts him on a pedestal with other Catholic icons such as Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is a difficult role to play, tough even for some priest researchers though not so tough when they are reporting on one of their priest research subjects.

Prior to 1993, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM listed "intense loneliness" as a "differential diagnosis" under the heading of "pedophilia." It was eliminated in future editions, however.

Loneliness is discussed in more detail in The Bingo Report.

8. General Conclusion

The church is not questioned when it claims that clergy sexual abuse is the same as general population abuse. Its authority is still believed in some circles. Yet there is so little research on the subculture of the priesthood using mandatory celibacy as a variable that is not present in general population sexual abuse nor other research on same, and the church hierarchy has done a good job discouraging it as previously stated.

Evidence in The Bingo Report indicates that both the demographic profiles of the majority of priest perpetrators and the characteristics of sexual abuse victims that they inflicted are too different to suggest any similarities between clergy sexual abuse and sexual abuse in other segments of society. The only exception would be the sexual abuse of female adults (approximately one-third of female clergy abuse victims among our study population), characteristics of which mirror the general population studies.

We conclude that just as loneliness/depression/low self-esteem/substance abuse/crime/suicide are overlapping problems in general society, the problem of clergy sexual abuse is related to loneliness made more intense because of mandatory celibacy, not celibacy that was freely chosen. Our data indicate that for the majority of priest sexual perpetrators, the abuse is more a result of the length of time they are forced to live a lifestyle without an intimate relationship, be it male or female, than it is a pre-existing condition. This would be consistent with the Gratification Theory coined by behavioral scientist Abraham Maslow, in which he lists as the first level of basic needs necessary for an individual to reach self-actualization [self-esteem]: food, water, sleep and sex (Maslow 1954:16).

We also conclude that, with the exception of a few extreme cases, the majority of perpetrators are neither pedophiles nor ephebophiles when they first enter into the priesthood. In a transcribed speech given in 1990 to the U.S. Conference of Bishops and used in part in several U.S. clergy sexual abuse trials and other published pieces, civil and canon lawyer Bishop A. James Quinn states that there were biological (sex drive) and psychological (loneliness) consequences of mandatory celibacy. An older report that pre-dates the celibacy discussions in the year 1139 indicates that Bishop Imola of Italy told the Council in his efforts to stop the Council’s vote on mandatory celibacy, “When celibacy is imposed, priests will commit sins far worse than fornication. Since some men cannot live by the council [sic] of perfect chastity, they will seek sexual release wherever they can find it” (Barstow 1982:112). More recent research regarding celibate Japanese monks has provided evidence that over a hundred years ago at the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese government abolished mandatory celibacy among Japanese monks because of the deviant behavior that was taking place among them (Jaffe 2001). The church has therefore been aware for many years of the connections between mandatory celibacy and clergy sexual abuse in the United States and elsewhere. The unfortunate victims have been our innocent children.

Finally, there may be accusations of bias regarding this research and report because of my association with CITI Ministries, a married priest ministry. The only reason for my involvement in the research was that I was unable to find anyone in or out of the church or academia who was willing to study clergy sexual abuse as a subculture in order to examine possible differences between that abuse and general population abuse. All studies conducted to date (1996), with the exception of those regarding Infantophilia, combined all victims making it impossible to find potentially hidden statistics and demographic disparities. I had not been prepared to give up a career that would reduce drastically our family’s income and was also not able to obtain research grants due to the controversial nature of the subject matter. I realized, however, that if I did not follow up scientifically on my earlier observations, children would continue to be sexually abused by priests and the pattern might not be broken.

It was crucial that whatever research was to be conducted be both valid and reliable. A diverse academic research team at Framingham State College with the help of Sociology Professor Dr. Marion Cohen, and later the Center for the Study of Religious Issues with sociologist and criminologist Lucille Lawless as consultant and mentor, gave the work the integrity it needed. In particular, Professor Lawless’ assistance was invaluable. My discoveries had been rejected by church reform organizations as was the whole issue of clergy sexual abuse. In fact, one such organization forced me to sign a document that I would not tie my CITI work with the research. There also was resistance at Framingham State College during the Priest Study--threatening calls to Dr. Cohen from church officials trying to stop the study on the basis of the First Amendment, an argument they are still using in some court cases.

“But if any of you causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose his faith, it would be better for you to have a rock tied to your neck and be thrown into the sea” (Matthew 18:6). The Bingo Report: Mandatory Celibacy and Clergy Sexual Abuse, the scientific research from which the above was written is available through Amazon.com and the http://www.rentapriest.com/ bookstore. Louise Haggett, 2010 All Rights Reserved. CSRI99@AOL.COM 207-729-7673 ###

Why I Had to Research Clergy Sexual Abuse -- Chapter Nine

2010-03-16T16:17:00.015-04:00

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived blogs first since the story is being written somewhat chronologically. What is posted directly below is the most recent. Thank you.

In 1996, I quit my full-time sales job so I could return to college in order to learn the methodology of doing quantitative research. Like Karen Silkwood, Erin Brokovich and Rachel Spring to whom I dedicate this and the next two chapters, I felt compelled to investigate more thoroughly observations I had made in the church that did not seem right. It was, however, important for me to do my research in an academic setting so that the findings would not just be anectodal.

Having been a devout Catholic as long as I could remember, I was very overwhelmed by my discoveries regarding the lack of integrity in my church and the fact that I had been unable to raise consciousness about priests leaving to marry, priests secretly married or having affairs. The most egregious of all, however, was the discovery of clergy sexual abuse and I had not been able to find anyone who cared.

Publicity was my forte having previously spent 13 years in advertising and 4 years in television, and by 1996, I had written several news releases and had spoken with several reporters about the church's dark secrets. Whenever anyone contacted me about CITI/Rentapriest (http://www.rentapriest.com/), I would explain the program and then tell them about clergy sexual abuse. The latter was never published by anyone from the Boston Globe to the New York Times to Catholic publications. These were long interviews that apparently never made it past Catholic editors.

I had even witnessed with my own eyes, the first ever presentation given to a group of 300 priests by Fr. Canice Connors, the then director of St. Luke's clergy sexual abuse treatment center near Baltimore, Maryland. The workshop was conduction in May 1993 at the 25th Anniversary National Federation of Priests' Council Conference (NFPC) in Chicago where I had been invited to do a workshop on married priests.

Fr. Connors' goal was to reintegrate into new parish settings, predator priests he said had received treatment and were "recovered" and ready to get back into parish ministry. Fr. Connors' appeal was for sensitivity to St. Luke's "victim" against the "voyeurism of the laity and the press," the reason he was looking to relocate them in unknown parishes.

He explained that "most priest predators are not pedophiles, but rather 'ephebophiles,' that pedophiles have a mental disorder and abuse pre-pubescent children. An ephebophile was described as a predator who was sexually attracted to adolescents up to 19 years of age, indicating that he did respond to treatment and could do normal ministry after "recovery."

Fr. Connors indicated at this 1993 workshop that clergy sexual abuse cases were becoming public in New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Ireland, England, Holland and France, and that St. Luke's representatives were in England that very week, training therapists. (Two months later, Pope John Paul II told the news media that clergy sexual abuse was only an "American problem" [Time Magazine, July 5, 1993].)

I publicized my notes from the NFPC Conference the following October (1993), but they were not picked up by any member of the press. It was obvious to me that the media knew about these church crimes but chose to keep the information quiet. One Washington Post reporter explained to me that most bishops visited press rooms regularly and their presence to Catholic reporters and editors kept them "in tow" regarding bad church publicity.

My curiosity regarding further research also peaked because of the many denials by the church that mandatory celibacy was related to clergy sexual abuse. Sociologist Fr. James Gill wrote several articles including one in American Catholic arguing that the matter "should not be investigated" because there is "no conclusive evidence" that mandatory celibacy is connected to clergy sexual abuse. The July 2, 1993 issue of National Catholic Reported (p.3) reported that when a Canadian Ad Hoc Committee on clergy sexual abuse was named to study the problem and issue its recommendations, the Canadian bishops gave "specific instructions not to study the nature and causes of sexual abuse."

During the question/answer period at the NFPC workshop for priests, I introduced myself, perhaps one of only two women present, and suggested that a scientific study be done to see if there is any connection between mandatory celibacy and sexual abuse since no study had ever been conducted. Fr. Connors' answer was that it "would be a tremendous waste of time and money" because "there is no connection." Yet, in the weeks that followed when the first case of Federal Racketeering (RICO) was made against the church in New Jersey, Pope John Paul II told the news media that "celibacy is not essential to the priesthood." (NYTimes, July 18, 1993)

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on November 24, 1993 that in a Philadelphia abuse case, the archdiocesan attorneys were counter-suing parents, blaming them for not discovering that their child was being abuse. (Priests of course threatened children with stories of being damned to hell if they told.) The WSJ piece also related stories of other victims being subjected to private investigators hired by the church and wiretaps for use by defending attorneys.

In the very public Fr. James Porter case in Fall River Massachusetts, one of the plaintiffs told the court that the church had held back $5000 from the final settlement in a "hush money" escrow account. There were also numerous unsuccessful gag orders attempted on other Boston attorneys because of the numbers of pending cases and in the $119 million Dallas case, the church's attorneys attempted to have the judge removed prior to his judgment being written.

The Catholic hierarchy then and even today (2010) in Europe is having influential people believe that clergy sexual abuse is no different than sexual abuse among the general population. From the beginning as a bewildered Catholic, I saw "smoke and mirrors," defined as something intended to disguise or distort in order to draw attention away from an often embarrassing or unpleasant issue. It was almost unbelievable to me too.

Because my discoveries were all simultaneous--married priests, priests secretly married, priests in sexual relationships, priests sexually abusing adolescents; the church hiding the fact of married priests, blackballing some from obtaining jobs, suggesting to some that they have affairs instead of leaving to marry, denying that abuse was happening and finally denying that mandatory celibacy was connected--all these reasons made me feel compelled to research the abuse by priests. "Was it indeed the same as general population abuse or did mandatory celibacy make a difference?"

#30

CITI's International Connection-- Chapter Eight

2010-02-27T08:09:00.010-05:00

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived blogs first since the story is being written somewhat chronologically. What is posted below is the most recent. Thank you. CITI's first "live" introduction to the international movement of married priests occurred at a 1993 U.S. married priest conference where I happen to be seated next to the Rev. Dr. Heinz-Jurgen Vogels of Germany. Heinz was president of the German married priest movement and he and Lambert Van Gelder of The Netherlands had helped Paolo Camellini found the International Federation of Married Priests (see previous chapter), which first meeting was held in Ariccia just outside of Rome. Theologian and author Heinz saw the value of CITI's mission, and suggested that I attend August's Madrid conference of the International Federation. My French pretty much forgotten (I didn't speak English 'til I turned seven), I invited my sister Pauline who was both fluent in French and Spanish to come along, promising some touring after the conference since attending a religious conference was not enough of an incentive for her to travel to Spain with me in the middle of the summer. Though she had been supportive of my work thus far, she was accustomed to first class hotels and wasn't excited about committing to five days in a convent in the outskirts of Madrid during the hottest month of the year when everyone in Spain is at the beach. "Outskirts" is putting it mildly. We took a plane to Madrid, a train as far as it could reach, then a bus as far as it would go, and finally had to awaken the only taxi driver in a village from his siesta so that he could drive us the rest of the distance. We were dragging big suitcases across dirt paths in this little town in a 100 degree/100% humidity climate, following someone who spoke only Spanish and hoping he was taking us to the right place. Pauline remembers explaining to the taxi driver that we were traveling to attend a married priest conference. He stopped the car, turned to us and said, "There's no such thing as 'married' priests." And, so began my education through her translation, and in three or four days she was able to explain CITI's mission in both Spanish and French without my assistance. The convent itself was 15th century vintage with obviously no air conditioning except in the auditorium and the bedrooms were probably designed for cloistered nuns of that era--10 x 12, a small lavatory and two wire spring beds with just sheets and a bathroom down the hall. It was too hot for blankets. In fact, everyone on our floor left their room doors open to catch the slightest breeze, nonexistent for five days. The dining room reminded us of the eating scene in the movie, "Oliver." Unaccustomed to European meal habits, it seemed we were hungry all the time and of course, there were no vending machines. But, like other married priest conferences I had attended, the joy of the gathering was in the beautiful sacred people we met daily and experiencing the international flavor of talks and presentations in different languages. Because of the meekness I had previously witnessed among the beautiful gentle and spiritual married priests and their spouses, the strength that I saw in the global gathering enlightened me to the power and courage they had in numbers, especially with their colleagues across the waters. Neither individual organizations, nor individual married priest groups, nor individual convents nor retreat houses would ever stand up to the Vatican by themselves. Collectively, however, they had "chutzpah." Apparently, a few months before the conference when it became public that the International Federation of Married Priests would be meeting at the Dominican House of Studies in Madrid, the Papal Nuncio contacted the Convent Director threatening to "permanently close down [his] entire operation if he allowed married priests to meet there." The Convent Director responded to the Papal Nuncio that he "wanted that in writing, explaining which law he was breaking; otherwise the Congress would be held as planned." No letter came and the meeting was held without incident. Rent A Priest was met with mixed emotions by the various countries. Though the French booed me off the stage, others like England, Australia, India, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ireland and some in Spain were supportive. The people from the Philippines called CITI the Number One married priest movement in the world, this after only one year in existence. What made CITI different as a new organization was that it was started and run by lay people and our mission was to serve those among the public who needed sacramental and pastoral care, defying any church law that opposed the ministry of married priests. All other married priest organizations at the time were founded and run by married priests and the mission of most was to engage or attempt to engage in dialogue with the hierarchy to try to get the church to change the law of mandatory celibacy. These priests obeyed their promise to their respective bishops that they would not celebrate Mass. The European movement, with the exception of CITI's three new allies Paolo Camellini, Heinz-Jurgen Vogels and Lambert Van Gelder, never accepted CITI as one of its affiliate members. We were too different and they especially didn't like the name Rentapriest. We were later contacted by Kirche Intern, Austria's Catholic magazine who subsequently ran a three page story on CITI/Rentapriest, leading to two new Rentapriest-type movements in Austria and Switzerland. They did not survive, however, because they used a less catchy name and the organizations were run by married priests rather than lay people who could stand up to the hierarchy if need be. There were splits between Camellini and the International Federation during the next year and Paolo and Heinz scheduled their own international synod similar to the original (Arricia), in Assisi in 1995 and then another in Atlanta, Georgia USA in 1999, the latter at which I was invited to preside. The international synods were profound gatherings of married priests and other interesting parties from throughout the world. Without a specific agenda, something the left-brainers were not understanding especially in Atlanta, everyone came to the meetings with inspirations/papers that arrived at a common goal--almost like the people had been hand-picked by the Holy Spirit. At the Assisi meeting for instance, the majority of profound papers presented from several countries spoke of the future of the Catholic Church in the form of small faith communities--like the early days of the church. Former Carmelite contemplative, Donna Amy Podobinski and her Holy Ghost Father and husband William presented a related paper on Freedom-Unity-Integrity, now a new blog, accessible through the rentapriest website. A retired Venetian judge presented a paper on the corruption in the Vatican; and I, on clergy sexual abuse being a rampant international problem, something I would later study from a scientific basis. (See The Bingo Report: Mandatory celibacy and clergy sexual abuse available on Amazon.com). #30

CITI-The Formative Years: Getting to know you--Chapter Seven

2010-02-12T16:11:00.005-05:00

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived posts first since these are written chronologically with the following being the most recent. Thank you. The first two to three years of CITI's existence were spent becoming educated about church reform and connecting with the reformers themselves. I am still amazed today at the opportunities that were afforded me so that I could become fully engrossed--a crash course so to speak--in church reform. Those who are sports professionals or are in the academic or medical arena or politics will understand the subculture climate to which I am referring. It is literally like stepping onto the threshhold of another world. I was never aware of this quiet revolution among people who were dissatisfied with the way the Catholic institution was run at its highest level, with particular groups well seasoned in the issues--and had been for as much as 10 or 15 years at that point. I soon discovered that my reading material would henceforth begin with National Catholic Reporter's weekly independent newspaper, religious academic studies and the myriad nonfiction books that had been written by theologians, mystical theologians and especially resigned/retired priests and nuns. I needed to catch up on so much, beginning with the Vatican II Synod. It is amazing what Catholics in the pews don't know, even today. It took me a few years of reading plus attending "church reform" conferences of every sort in order to be brought up to date and understand the innuendos especially at the church reform round table meetings. I guess it was also important for me to know personally founders of these various organizations because the Holy Spirit seemed to put them all in my path--either via personal meetings or in witnessing their presentations. Besides the thousands of married priests I met, memorable people include Joseph Girzone, author of the Joshua series of spiritual books; Margaret Starbird who researched Mary Magdalene and Jesus as husband and wife; Edwina Gately, another saintly lay woman whose inspirations led her to open safe havens for Chicago's prostitutes; German theologian Hans Kung; Frances Kissling whose work to protect "choice" in America will go down in history...and many others. Even though CITI was just getting its feet wet, the Holy Spirit was also making sure that our own existence was being recognized around the reform movement as well. Perhaps the most phenomenal experience during the early years was attending the International Federation of Married Priests' Conference in Madrid, in August, 1993 a year and a half after CITI's founding. Backing up just a bit, in the spring of 1992, I had been given a copy of "Shattered Vows" by David Rice, an award-winning journalist and married priest now living in Ireland. The book featured several transitional stories of married priests from various countries and talked of their mistreatment by several bishops because of their new status. It was heart-wrenching to read what they and their spouses endured because of their decisions. For instance, German theologian Heinz-Jurgen Vogels was excommunicated when he married Renata and lost his Church editing job, helping edit the complete works of Albert the Great. The Pope lifted the excommunication once Heinz divorced Renata, an annuled Catholic, but Heinz never regained his job with the Church or elsewhere. He and Renata are still living together, however. One particular priest's story was profound. Paolo Camellini who lived in a remote Italian town had been approached by Carla, a woman who had previously been confirmed a mystic by several among the Catholic hierarchy. Carla had been married and had a revelation to approach Paolo, a parish priest, and relay the message that they were to be married and dedicate themselves to the cause of married priests. "Jesus had told her that he wanted married priests, but only in holiness, "holy as priests and holy as spouses." Paolo wrote to his bishop and was dispensed from his celibacy vow within weeks so they could marry. I was particularly moved by that story because I too believed I was called to the mission of married priests in the United States and like Carla, felt a special closeness to St. Teresa of Avila though I didn't know why at the time. When I read the story of the Camellinis, indeed when I finished reading "Shattered Vows," I contacted David Rice in Ireland. I wanted to talk to David and I wanted to meet the Camellinis. David discouraged me because of the language barrier and the remoteness of their home in Italy. (Note: "Shattered Vows" had been published in Ireland and became a best seller in eight languages throughout Europe. When it was first published in the U.S., however, 89 pages implicating the bishops were eliminated. An unabridged paperback version was later released and its U.S. publisher immediately purchased by the Catholic institution. The unabridged version never made it to the U.S. book shelves.) On our second day in Madrid just as the International Conference was starting, I was setting up my little exhibit table with materials on CITI when a reporter approached me to ask if I knew where Paolo Camellini was--he had an interview appointment. I said, "Camellini is here?????????????" The next hour was spent looking for him--I had no idea what he even looked like. When Paolo was finally pointed out to me, my sister and travelling companion Pauline said, "Why he was sitting right next to you at last night's general session." There were 700 people in attendance!

I located an interpreter and asked Paolo if I could meet with him privately. I needed to share my CITI vision with him. Paolo said during our discussion that the "message/vision/inspiration/revelation" we each received was the same: 1. We must pray that priests be allowed to freely choose between celibacy and marriage so that the sinfulness in the priesthood can stop. 2. Vite, vite, vite! (Hurry, hurry, hurry!) Too much time has been wasted--too much damage has been done. Over the next few days, I would sometimes sense that someone was staring at me. I remember piercing eyes, stares that would say, "Who are you?" And perhaps what others had already said, "You're not what I envisioned God would send to help us." I had been told by many that married priests prophesied that someone from the "pews" would someday come to their rescue. Of course, they probably expected a clone, not some mainstream Catholic lay woman. It was obvious that Paolo wanted to communicate directly with me; the language barrier was very frustrating. We didn't know if we would ever see one another again. (Ironically, I was scheduled to live in Rome for a year back in the 1960s. The office job, however, was cancelled the day before my trunk would be shipped. Had I gone, I would be fluent in Italian.)

Some award winning ads and ABC-TV 20/20--Chapter Six

2010-02-08T14:25:00.003-05:00

The responses from the February 6th ad in National Catholic Reporter in 1992 inspired me to reach out to more people, but I needed to find a way to get to the people on the street, not just priests, religious, and the new subculture I discovered in the process--"church reformers"--people who had spent years trying to get the church to change their rules regarding birth control, married priests, women priests, abortion, gays and other issues in the church that they felt were antiquated. In fact, I was invited to attend the second meeting of a new coalition of these organizations, 25 or 30 individual groups later to be named Catholics for Renewal or COR. Run by mostly resigned priests and nuns (only two of us around the table were lay folk), their strategy was public statements of protest about the way things are, that would be signed on by various organizations supporting the particular issue in question. Since CITI's work became more of a ministry to the public rather than an advocacy to the institutional leaders, the decision was made to drop out after a few years.

With $10,000 in the bank and a background in advertising/marketing, it was obvious to me that I needed to begin creating awareness among the Catholic on the street regarding mandatory celibacy, shortage of priests and the fact that there were 20,000 priests who married, somewhere out there in the U.S. Since regular news releases on mandatory celibacy were getting nowhere, I became inspired to write a few ads, something I had never done in my thirteen years with a major Boston advertising agency. I had done some media buying and was their first female account executive back in the early 1970s--more the business end than the creative side of advertising.

I hired a media-buying service to research the best publications for CITI's consumer ads. My needs: small space, regional, quick turnaround as oppose to long due dates for copy. While the media-buying service was reviewing the market, I was doing my own research: finding which dioceses had the worst shortages combined with the highest percentage of Catholics. The top media recommendation was TV Guide Magazine, pocket size in those days. It was also a good buy because their 30% discount for nonprofit organizations and placing space as a "house" agency made the ads more affordable.

One-quarter-page ads were scheduled in 7 out of 106 U.S. TV Guide markets during the spring of 1992. Copy was geared toward the general public, asking for comments and letters regarding mandatory celibacy that would be sent to the bishops. At the same time, I wrote a series of corresponding small space ads that were directed to the bishops and would run in NCR. These poked fun at the silliness of the law of mandatory celibacy, perhaps the first time anyone publicly made wisecrack comments about anything in the church.

Just for the heck of it, I entered a batch of ads in the prestigious New England Hatch Awards advertising competition. CITI's series of the following five ads were among the few hundred chosen out of 2,300 entries for public exhibition at the Prudential Center in Boston (as did other CITI ads for the following two years). This creative work was being recognized alongside topnotch print ads for such nonprofit advertising clients as the Archdiocese of Boston. What a rush!

More importantly, the response to the TV Guide advertising was overwhelming. These ads reached people like myself--those who had never heard about the impact of mandatory celibacy on priests and nuns. (At this point, I had heard that many priests had married nuns.) TV Guide later wrote that they had not received this many comments on any advertising in 13 years...and we had run ads in only 7 out of 106 TV markets. One woman wrote TV Guide, "To whoever has charge of ads in TV Guide: Will someone please send me a copy of the TV Guide that had an ad in it about an organization trying to get people to try and get permission for priests to marry. I lost this copy and I want to send for this literature...I am 93 years old and I'd love to see this problem solved before my days are over. P.S. Mother of 10, Grandmother of 40 Great grandmother of 32."

The overall public response was 90% in favor of optional celibacy in the priesthood with the most popular comment from people who couldn't understand how priests were counseling about marriage if they themselves were not married and had not even lived at home with their parents since they were 12 or 13.

One of the ads ran in the New York City edition of TV Guide and caught the attention of the producers of ABC-TV's 20/20. They subsequently interviewed various people and produced a 20 minute segment on mandatory celibacy that ran the following December, the first of its kind on national television.

No response ever came from the hierarchy of the church regarding the above ads that had been running every other week in National Catholic Reporter, though I did meet an Archbishop at the annual November bishops conference in Washington D.C. My one question to him was, "How can the church justify throwing out the front door, priests who marry when they bring in the back door, married priests with families from other denominations and ordain them into the Roman Catholic priesthood?" He replied, "When a priest is trying to decide whether or not to leave, there is a lot of love and understanding on the part of the institution; but when he walks out that door, resentment sets in." That this comment would come from a man of God confirmed what I had read in books like Shattered Vows (Rice, David) about the shabby treatment of priests who marry.

CITI founded--Chapter Five

2010-02-07T13:56:00.002-05:00

In December 1991, nine months after Mom's death, I read an article in Time Magazine (12/31/91) about the Blessed Virgin. There was a paragraph in which her virginity was compared to mandatory celibacy in the priesthood. A quote from a Vatican official read, "The church doesn't have a problem with sex. The world does." Having become newly enlightened about the secret sexual world in the priesthood, I found the Vatican statement somewhat strange specially since I also had just read a 15-page story in Vanity Fair (12/91) about a clergy sexual abuse problem in New Orleans, LA. The abuse had been hidden for two years from the courts because the district attorney (Harry Connick, Sr) was a friend of the priest and he "didn't want to embarrass Mother Church."

I suddenly became curious, went to the library and plugged in the word, "celibacy."

Over the next few weeks in early 1992, I did some cursory research and found the following that I had never known about American priests:

Jesus' disciples were married men, except for John (too young).
Mandatory celibacy was a manmade law, passed in 1139.
In the first twelve hundred years of the church's history, popes, bishops and priests were married.
20,000+ priests had left clerical ministry in the United States (110,000 throughout the world) since late 1970s, 90% to marry.
There was a 90% drop in seminarians.
Over 2,000 parishes had no resident priest (5,300 parishes in the 2000s)

When I read, however, that since the early 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had been ordaining into the Roman Catholic priesthood, married Protestant ministers and in some instances, placing them in the same parishes where priests were being defrocked because they married, I saw such an injustice toward cradle Catholic priests that something snapped inside my soul. I couldn't believe that I had never learned any of these things, either in church or parochial school or among the many priests and nuns whom I had befriended over the years as an adult church-going Catholic. (I later discovered that this was a program under the direction and jurisdiction of Bernard Cardinal Law, a key figure in the 2002 clergy sexual abuse revelations.)

Had I been living in a vacuum? Did other mainstream Catholics know this? How could it have been going on so quietly? Is the world of religion different from the "secular" world, I thought? What is going on here?

In January, 1992, I felt that God was calling me to a mission when I heard the following at Sunday Mass:
"See my servant whom I uphold; My Chosen One in whom I delight. I have put my Spirit upon (her); (she) will reveal justice to the nations of the world. (She) will be gentle--(she) will not shout nor quarrel in the streets. (She) will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. (She) will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. (She) will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. (She) won't be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in (her)." (Isaiah 42:1-4)

I had never felt so singled out by any passage heard in church before and I knew God was calling me to do something very important. I just didn't know what!

In my research on mandatory celibacy, I discovered an independent Catholic publication, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). I decided to run a small ad in NCR just to see what kind of response it would draw.
The following ad ran on February 6*, 1992:

*It's a little freaky that as I write this today, it is February 6.

Expecting to hear from other mainstream Catholics like myself, imagine my surprise when the letters I received over the next two weeks came from priests and married priests thanking me for "being involved," some including money without even knowing who I was. Some of the responses:

From a priest in New Jersey, "...you've touched many (perhaps more than you realize) individuals and given them healing and hope."
From a priest in New York: "...those of us who are interested in getting involved in this cause are given caution signs or veiled warnings by the hierarchy...for these reasons there are probably more priests interested, but who find themselves unable to say much about the matter...My fervent prayers are that someone in authority listens to the voice of the people...The unfortunate situation is the silence of the American bishops and Rome. The official policy is that, we've seen this all before (in the last 8 centuries) and if we hold out in silence it will all go away..."
From a priest in Pennsylvania: "...Many good men are lost to the priesthood through Celibacy; plus the very high degree of effeminacy indirectly caused by Celibacy."
From a priest in Africa: "...I saw your ad in National Catholic Reporter...Here in Africa, Celibacy is absurd. To me it seems obvious that the first, and essential, step to forming an African Christianity is to eliminate mandatory celibacy."
From a former seminarian in Ohio: "I am a former seminarian who would be a current seminarian if it weren't for this issue."
And from a seminary director (by phone): "...Priests are not human. They are divine."

Having experienced the loss of my parents, especially Mom with whom I was so close, reconnecting with my friend and learning about her priest lover, reading Time and Vanity Fair, feeling called by God to a mission and finally receiving these responses to the ad, I decided that I needed to get involved. Just then, my husband Dick and I received a major sales bonus from our previous year's sales achievements (we had been partners in a sales firm for seventeen years). Dick bought himself a member at the local golf and country club and I put my share in the bank and founded Celibacy Is the Issue (CITI), having no idea what I would do next, only that I didn't want anyone's senior parent like mine to die without seeing a priest.
#

My Story -- Chapter Four

2010-02-06T13:40:00.001-05:00

Our parents both died of heart disease 5 weeks apart in February/March 1991. This was after a year of illness--angiograms, angioplasty, pacemaker, congestive heart failure, etc. My Mom was 76 and Dad was 83. My siblings and I (10 including spouses) spent the bulk of 1990 traveling to Maine from as far as California to spend one to two weeks in rotation to take care of them, offering support when one of them would be in the hospital, and generally seeing to their comfort. In December 1990, a major celebration took place over the holidays because they both seemed to be doing well and we were all together once again. But the day after Christmas while we were all still in Maine, Dad developed a blood clot in his leg and was hospitalized and died there six weeks later on February 19, 1991. Dad was basically a good man. He worked hard, played hard and made a difference in our lives. He was a self-starter, self-taught and a self-made man. With little education as a youngster (no high school), he managed to run the sales departments of one or two franchised auto agencies in my hometown. He was also a land developer and built houses. Above all, he enjoyed politics. He and his Sunday morning cronies would love it when Washington notables Edmund Muskie or George Mitchell would drop in on their discussion group. And former Senator Bill Hathaway lived on the second floor of our two-story home for a few years when he first moved to Maine to establish residency for his upcoming career in national politics. Dad ran for the local city council a couple of times and was part of the that council for one term. During the period he was in office, he noticed funny things going on with the city's books and exposed the information to the local media, cleaning up mess in Lewiston. He also enjoyed writing "letters to the editor" about various local issues. In fact, as he lay in his hospital bed in early February 1991 just before his death, he received an invitation from the Chair of the New Library Building Committee inviting him to be on that committee because he had expressed so much interest in the project via his letters to the editor. Dad did have some demons which manifested themselves in alcohol abuse. In light of recent revelations regarding clergy sexual abuse in Canadian boarding schools, some family members attribute some of his behavior to possible Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse at a Catholic boarding school he attended in the province of Quebec in his adolescence. He had also prevented my brother from becoming an altar boy or even attending any Catholic all-male religious retreats, and he did not attend church with us for as long as I can remember. Mom was a homemaker and our "angel." She was loving, caring, spiritual and an avid churchgoer who put priests on pedestals. She was also a "gatherer" in the sense that she loved being around people. I remember as a youngster how she would load up the car with all the neighborhood kids and take us to the beach on a hot day. All we needed do was ask and help pack a picnic basket. Mom too, had a limited education. She had to quit high school in her senior year in order to work and help support a houseful of 13 children. She was an avid reader and particularly enjoyed historical novels, especially books on the Civic War, and would engage in discussions and debates with her closest brother, a disabled World War II veteran who was also a voracious reader. Because my husband Dick and I lived in Massachusetts and owned property in Freeport, Maine, we spent a lot of time with my parents before they died. We typically visited them one weekend a month during the winter and they would come to Freeport in the summer. They, as we, enjoyed playing cards so we always managed to include a few games of Pinochle after a feast of lobsters. In fact, the family buried in my parents' casket, their respective little card game "dime purses." Winters can be difficult in Maine because of many snow and ice storms and Dad's hospitalization in late December 1990 presented a problem in terms of my Mom's care. Her congestive heart failure was unpredictable and she would have difficulty breathing, landing in the hospital every other week it seemed. It was especially hard during my Dad's hospital stay because she would extend beyond her own physical energy in order to visit him daily. She could no longer live alone, did not want any other relative or stranger in the house and would not leave Lewiston to come live, even temporarily, with one of us. Hence, the family decision was made to find a suitable one-bedroom apartment in a nearby assisted living facility, providing there would be no problems if we came to spend a few days with her. The facility also assured us that any of her non-breathing bouts would be attended to professionally if she were alone. In our search for the most suitable place, it did not occur to us that there may not be a weekly Mass in their non-denominational chapel. Since 90% of the facility's occupants were Roman Catholic--mostly French--certainly a priest/chaplain would come to visit every week, so we thought. When I visited Mom after the first two weeks of her five or six-week stay and discovered that there had been no priest there the entire two weeks, I decided to ask around to see if someone would visit her. One priest agreed, but never went I later discovered, and she never saw a priest again until she was nearly comatose in the hospital three days before she died in March, 1991. Living in the Boston diocese where priest shortages were either safely hidden or not yet severe, I had no idea about the dire need for priests. That it was a problem in the Midwest and other parts of the country never made New England press unless someone were to read religious newspapers and magazines. At Dad's funeral, an old parochial school chum whom I had not seen in 35 years came to visit. She had continued to live in our hometown and was now 50 years old and divorced. During our conversation, I asked, "So what does someone our age do for excitement around here?" to which she replied, "Oh, my life is quite complete. I've been involved with a priest for thirteen years." My mouth nearly dropped to the floor. I had never heard of such a thing. That my friend should talk so openly about this, especially to someone whom she had not seen in this many years was a shocking as the message itself. My friend and I reconnected over the next few months when I would come to Maine to help clean out the old homestead and get it ready for sale. It was during these lunches and dinners that my eyes were opened to what I now know is a "farce"--celibacy in the Catholic institution. She told me that many "housekeepers" who walk the malls on Saturday afternoons with their parish priest are not really "housekeepers," that many priests were secretly married, a fact that was later confirmed to me by a Pentagon official especially among priests in the military. My friend also said that 20,000 married priests had left their clerical ministry since the late 1960s mostly to marry. As a devout traditional-bordering-conservative Catholic at the time who attended church regularly and was teaching CCD (religion classes to youngsters), this information astounded me. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a married priest! (When a parish priest was replaced in a particular parish, I like others just presumed that he had relocated to another parish, not left to marry.) In order to prove to me that there were "sexual shenanigans" going on in the church, my friend showed me a very explicit book about the male and female anatomy. Written by a Canadian priest, it educated and discussed for other priests the combination of spirituality and sexuality. The little book was so worn, it was obvious that it had seen many hands. #

Is Canon Law like the Catechism?--Chapter Three

2009-10-17T08:50:00.002-04:00

During a break at a recent Bible Study, I was talking with someone about married priests and the canons that allow for and validate their sacramental ministry. The individual asked, "Is Canon Law like the Catechism?" I was shocked by her question, apparently she didn't know about Canon Law. Later, however, I was reminded that I too had no idea what Canon Law was back in 1992. Our parochial education was more about The Catechism than it was the internal workings of our religion--the laws that the hierarchy use to govern the church or those that empower the people in the pews. Crossing the threshold into the world of church reform is like being on the inside of academia among the politics of the profession, or being in the political world itself. These are really "other worlds" unto themselves--a different subculture. I didn't realize this when CITI/Rentapriest propelled me into the church reform movement in 1992, but living it for the next four years made me curious about the origin of Judaism's "3-tenet" religion. Because of all the Catholic protesting going on regarding so many issues beyond a married priesthood (divorce and remarriage, women priests, homosexuality, etc.) I wondered if Jews had their own reform issues some years before that might have led to the branches of their religion: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform (plus a few in between), so that Jews with particular philosophies could worship together in respective groups. Somehow, I wondered if this might be a solution to church reform in Catholicism. A good friend of mine loaned me a copy of The Jewish Book of Why (Kolatch) in which I read of a "Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch who believed in harmonizing Judaism with the ways of the world and in maintaining a working relationship with all elements of the Jewish community." He wrote the book The Nineteen Letters about Judaism by Ben Uziel back in 1836, a book that was very hard to find. It, however, was translated into English in 1995 by a Rabbi Elias in Israel. The manifesto is a clever but fictitious dialogue between a philosopher and a youthful intellect challenging the identity and religious belief among Jews, and is fascinating for anyone to read, not just Jews, because these spiritual challenges can apply to anyone. The 19 Letters not only opened my eyes to reform issues in general, but especially how similar both religions are and that many of our Catholic traditions were adopted from the Jewish religion. Since the early Christians were none other than Jewish converts, it makes sense. Some of our similarities include:

They have Circumcision (bris); we have Baptism.
They have Bar/Bat Mitzvahs; we have Confirmation.
The Torah (Old Testament) that is central to Jewish worship is kept in a curtained "ark" in synagogues; in the Catholic Churches, a Tabernacle holds the Communion Host, and both are isolated from the public when not in use.
We each have a Sabbath, though on different days.
Vestments are an important part of each religion's rituals.
We have both have had dietary laws--some Jews still don't eat pork or shellfish; Catholics used to not eat meat on Fridays, now observe the law only during Lent.
Our hierarchy even wear a Catholic version of the "Yarmulke," a type of cap worn by Jewish men during worship.

Apart from our hierarchical structure which contrasts Judaism's Home Rule, we believe that Jesus was the Messiah, not just another prophet.

There are also major differences between Catholicism and Judaism in the process used to arrive at practical laws for worship and conduct, and this is where Canon Law and our Catechism come in:

In Judaism, great emphasis is placed on the Torah (Old Testament)which contains the Ten Commandments. The Talmud is a written version of the old Jewish Oral Law and is an explanation of the Torah. The practical applications of the Talmud are then published in The Code of Jewish Law, all direct descendants of the Torah. So the evolution of Jewish follows as such:

1. Torah (Old Testament)

2. Jewish Oral Law, based on Old Testament

3. Talmud, written version of Oral Law

4. The Code of Jewish Law, taken from Talmud which is based on Old Testament

The Catholic lineage, on the other hand, is not so clearly defined. Our original "catechism" was called the Didache and was written in the first century of Christianity. (McBrien, Richard. 1981. Catholicism; Minnesota: Winston Press). It too, was an interpretation of the Old Testament; the New Testament had not yet been published. The Didache evolved through the centuries to our current Catechism, the newest 1995 version of which is a combination of the Old and New Testament, non-infallible Catholic teachings and Canon Law, a body of manmade laws by the church hierarchy, first published in 1917 just prior to the first printing of the original Catechism (1918). The evolution, therefore: 1. Old Testament and only a few chapters of the New Testament 2. Didache (original name of Catechism), based on above 3. Catechism and Canon Law were published almost simultaneously in the early 20th century, and were a combination of Old Testament, New Testament and non-infallible Catholic teachings (laws made by the Catholic hierarchy) with newer versions more of the same. So, while the Code of Jewish Law is a direct descendant of the of the oral law (Talmud), a direct descendant of the Old Testament, the Catechism is a conglomeration of the Old and New Testaments, the Code of Canon Law, and non-infallible Papal Declarations. Because Catholics are taught the Catechism, they are not aware of the body of laws that appear in The Code of Canon Law, even though several sections are written to empower the laity (i.e., inviting a married priest to celebrate Mass inside a Catholic Church building when no other priest is available). These appear in Book II entitled "The People of God", part I of which is called "The Obligations and Rights of all the Christian Faithful." The Rentapriest website (http://www.rentapriest.com/) lists the 21 canons that empower the people of God to use married priests without permission from anyone. #30

What do the Bishops Say about CITI/Rentapriest?--Chapter Two

2009-10-11T06:58:00.001-04:00

The question, "What do the Bishops say about CITI/Rentapriest?" has been asked, especially by conservative Catholics and the media. Our experience with bishops since 1992 has been a positive one. Only one, however, has made a public statement supporting of our work. In the early days of CITI's existence, I was introduced to Bishop Michael Kenny of Alaska. I wrote and sent him materials. He responded that he would be happy to serve as a "behind the scenes" board member. He unfortunately died of a brain aneurysm several months later. While attending a workshop at a Directors of Religious Education Conferences (DRE) in Washington, D.C., I asked a pertinent question at the end of Bishop McCarthy's talk, and at the same time introducing myself and Rentapriest to him and the audience. After he responded, he pointed his finger at me and in front of 350 people said, "Don't stop what you're doing. God bless you." On another occasion in the late 1990s, I was on my way back to the airport after attending the Call to Action Conference in Milwaukee, WI. The only other passenger on the airport shuttle bus was Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm, MN. I was aware of the tremendous shortages of priests in his diocese and so during our conversation, I asked the Bishop what he would do if we placed married priests in some of his priestless parishes. He replied, "Oh, I would have to stop it." I then asked, "What if no one complained?" He said, "I would look the other way." I contacted one of the married priests in the area and asked for names of parishioners so that I could call them. Unfortunately, the married priest was unsure and called Bishop Lucker for his approval. Naturally, the Bishop said, "No." His public approval would have sent a red flag to Rome. (Lucker was obviously saying, "Just do it!" but don't ask/tell me about it.) For several years, one Maine married priest has celebrated Mass, at the request of the congregation, when the regular priest presider is not available. The Bishop has known and does nothing, presumably because he is aware that his flock is well taken care of. A later meeting with an East Coast bishop revealed that he refused to accept into his diocese, married priest converts from other religions in protest of priests who married. I applauded his position. During the very early days of CITI, I attended one of the Bishops' Conferences and met with a midwestern Archbishop. I was really curious about the injustice (I felt) between the use of married priest converts, while priests who married lost their "faculties" in the church. When asked "Why?", the Archbishop responded, "Resentment." I said, "Resentment? What do you mean?" He replied, "When a priest is in discernment about whether to leave and get married or stay in the clerical priesthood, there's a lot of love and understanding on the part of the church. But, when he walks out that door, 'resentment' sets in." I thought, what a strange attitude from Jesus' representatives on earth. So, the bottom line messages are: 1. "Mandatory celibacy" is about "resentment" for those who have the integrity to leave when they struggle with lack of intimacy or they fall in love. (We certainly have heard enough stories since 2002 about priests who hide behind the collar and abuse women and children.) 2. If a parish is without a priest for Eucharist, especially during the holidays/holydays, they can invite a married Roman Catholic priest to celebrate, without obtaining permission from anyone. Just do it! According to Canon Law, the bishops have an obligation to the people of God, to provide sacramental ministry and if they cannot send a cleric, a married priest in your congregation will do...and chances are, the bishop will look the other way. #30

Rentapriest, the name--Chapter One

2009-10-06T21:49:00.003-04:00

So, let's begin with the name "Rent A Priest." When I became aware of the severe shortage of priests in 1991 (almost everywhere except New England where I live), my inclination was to find out why we had not seen news articles about churches that had already closed by then in San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere. I had been a pay, pray and obey Catholic all of my life--attended parochial school, served the public at church suppers, taught religion classes to youngsters as well as being a weekly communicant at my local church. Yet, I had never heard--ever--that 20,000 priests had left clerical priesthood to marry in the U.S. between 1968-1992; that Canon Law says they are priests forever and by using certain Canon Laws, the public can bypass a bishop and request sacramental ministry from a priest who married--that their sacramental ministry would be valid. When I read in my research, however, that as far back as 1980, the church hierarchy began inviting Protestant ministers to convert to Catholicism and become ordained into the Catholic priesthood, yet were throwing out the front door priests who married, something about a terrible injustice made me snap inside. It happened right in Maine where I live. Rev. Harry Vickerson from the Buxton area was relieved of his church duties when he married, but was replaced with a married priest convert with wife and family. My professional background had included marketing, advertising, television and sales. That I should write news releases about my newfound discoveries was therefore a normal reaction. Armed with the research I had done, the newly-f0rmed CITI (Celibacy Is the Issue) began releasing data to the news media. The instant positive response I expected, however, never came. This was nothing new to reporters. Their reaction was something like, "Celibacy in the priesthood? That's been around for 860 years. Ho Hum!" A few months later, I met married priest canon lawyer Rev. Delmar Smolinski of Michigan. He handed me 20 years of his research to justify his own ministry as a hospital chaplain in a local Catholic hospital. I sent the 21 canon laws to one of the authors of The Code of Canon Law and asked, "Is this legitimate?" He said, "Yes!" OK, so here I was sitting with this new knowledge from my cursory research: 1. The realization that celibacy was a manmade law passed in 1139 because the church wanted the homes where priests lived; in some instances, they even sold their wives and children into slavery (Thomas, Gordon-Desire and Denial). 2. Canon Laws that say priests are priests forever and people could call them to ministry without permission from anyone. In fact, there are 21 such laws. And no one in the media--the threshhold to the public--cared. Meanwhile, I was hearing horrible stories about married priests being blackballed in their communities by their bishop and having difficulties getting decent jobs to support their families. Some had been told to move as far away as 500 miles. All had been told to put their chalice in the closet and, "Don't you dare celebrate Mass." I prayed. During the summer of 1992, I prayed. "OK, God, you've given me all this. So, what for? What do you want from me anyway?" I honestly didn't know what to do next. One of my sisters came to our Maine cottage for a visit in September. She slept upstairs, I downstairs. The following morning, she said, "You talked all night in your sleep. What was going on?" I told her about this dream I had, so vivid that it was like a vision. I saw a brochure in pale blue paper stock. On the cover were a pair of male hands holding the Eucharistic Host the way a priest does when he is consecrating it. The difference was that there was a brilliantly shining ring on the third finger of his left hand. Above the image were the words "Rent A Priest." That day, I called my canon lawyer friend and another married priest and together, we developed the brochure still being used today. Another friend, artist and illustrator Patricia Woodward designed the logo--an illustration of the image described above. It too is still being used today.

Media recognition and interest was almost instantaneous. Over the next five years, Rentapriest publicity attracted Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, Time Magazine.com and front pages of the New York Times and International Herald Tribune along with scores of newspapers, magazines and online media. Belgium, Austria and Switzerland TV stations sent their camera crews to our front door and we were also featured on the BBC and CBC (Great Britain and Canada). No longer was celibacy a "ho-hum" issue and Rentapriest attracted not only the public, it brought married priests out of the woodwork, especially the 60 Minutes segment that ran in January 1995. CITI, through Rentapriest.com, has provided sacramental and pastoral ministry to over half a million people in the past ten to twelve years.