Two items of interest

[hedgehog]

1. My very viable parish (3600 members, 200 kids in Faith Formation, 30 people in the choir) is being closed because the bishop decided that this is the way to address the priest shortage.

2. My married daughter is stating studies at the seminary for a Doctorate in Divinity.

[nyc 4 Biden]

1. That is horrible.

My solution to the priest shortage is to allow priests to marry and have families. I honestly feel this would revitalize the faith. I'm not a biblical scholar, so someone correct me if this is strictly prohibited in the new testament.

[hedgehog]

2. I fully expect that the entire structure of the Church is about to change.

It's not a matter of married priests or women priests but an entire reform of the role and function of priests. What should have been an organic evolution is going to hit us as a revolution , though. We've got some tough times ahead.

[Beer Snob-50]

3. it is not addressed in the new testament

yes, the 12 apostles were men however there is mention of women hanging out with them.

[tjwmason]

4. S. Peter was a married man.

Even today there are many married Catholic Priests - former-Anglicans have frequently been Ordained with dispensation from celibacy, and in the Eastern Catholic churches they've always been happy to Ordain married men. Nowhere it is claimed that the celibate Priesthood is doctrine, it's only ever been a discipline of the Latin Church and as such is open to change (just like the rules on which days one has to fast, for example).

What effect it would have is debatable - Anglicans and Protestants are having significant problems with recruiting clergy (at least in England which is where I know) and married folk is the norm among them.

[shrike]

5. And we have three priests at our parish

Which, admittedly, is an aberration. We just got word that one of them is being moved because of the sudden death of a pastor at a nearby church.