Religion: Can A Priest Be a Husband?

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No one could accuse Pope John Paul II of being soft on celibacy. The Roman Pontiff frowns upon even hypothetical discussions about relaxing the church's centuries-old ban on married priests. Yet this is the same Pope who in 1980 approved an experiment in which 43 married men have become Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. The most recent was ordained in New York just last week. (Some 20 married converts have become priests elsewhere in the West since Pope Pius XII allowed the first such dispensation in 1951.) Although church officials have sought to avoid publicity about the unusual American program, it has been chronicled in a new book, The Pastoral Provisions: Married Catholic Priests (Sheed & Ward; 152 pages; $13.95), by priest-sociologist Joseph H. Fichter of Loyola University in New Orleans.

Not surprisingly, the influx of married priests has met resistance within the ranks of the Catholic clergy. Some of the loudest complaints have come not from traditionalists who think celibacy might be undermined but from liberal priests and nuns. One reason: the U.S. converts are mostly theological conservatives who left the clergy of the Episcopal Church because of that denomination's leftward drift on liturgy, doctrine and discipline -- particularly the Episcopalians' decision in 1976 to admit women priests. Also the wife of one priestly convert told Fichter she had run into resentment from nuns who wanted to become priests.

Many Catholic clergymen are especially hostile because they find it unfair for the church to cut a special deal for these 43 while it bars the return of thousands of men who left the priesthood to marry. San Antonio's Father Christopher G. Phillips, the first married priest to head a U.S. parish, rejects the double-standard complaint, noting that the ex-priests have broken vows taken voluntarily to observe lifelong celibacy. Phillips reports that reactions he has received from Catholic colleagues run the gamut from "great joy to utter disdain."

Fichter thinks that the number of married priests might have been greater had Catholic bishops proved to be more encouraging. As it is, a candidate for reordination as a Catholic priest must undergo an arduous process. Besides filing 13 documents, the prospective convert must take additional theology instruction and endure detailed inquiries into his psychological makeup and the health of his marriage. One requirement, controversial to Episcopalians, ; is that each clergyman convert must undergo ordination at the hands of a Catholic bishop, an unwanted reminder that Rome rejects the validity of Episcopal priestly orders.

"They sure don't make it easy," remarked one of the priests interviewed by Fichter, who quotes all of his sources anonymously. The various steps took one of the candidates 6 1/2 years. And the living is not easy either. Recalled a convert who had earned $50,000 a year in the Episcopal clergy: "I went into debt and lost my credit rating" while awaiting reordination. "For the first time in our lives," said one of the priests' wives, "we knew what it means to live on the edge of poverty."