Clerical celibacy poll
• Absurd Inurbane Witless
Enforced celibacy is evil hogwash. Unsurprisingly many American priests would like for optional clerical celibacy to at least be talked about. Most of the Catholic laity says they'd accept married priests.
Perhaps if mandatory celibacy diminishes the Catholic Church is America it serves a purpose.
The ranks of American priests have fallen by more than 25 percent in the last 40 years. According to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, diocesan and religious-order priests fell from 58,632 in 1965 to 43,634 in 2003. In that same time, the number of parishes without a resident priest rose from 549 to 3,040. ...
Although priests were married in the early centuries of Christianity, celibacy gained force and eventually was made an absolute requirement by the Council of Trent in the 1500s. But the council noted that the rule was church law, not a divine law - "discipline," not "doctrine," in church parlance - a distinction that allowed the possibility of later modification.
Jim Remsen, Philadelphia Inquirer: Celibacy poll coming to Phila.