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Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church
In the last half-century, the number of Catholic priests has plummeted by 40% while the number of Catholics has skyrocketed, up 65%. The specter of a faith defined by full pews and empty altars hangs heavy over the church.
The root cause of this priest shortage is the church's insistence on mandatory celibacy. Given the potential recruitment advantages of abandoning the celibacy requirement, why, Richard A. Schoenherr asks, is the conservative Catholic coalition--headed by the pope--so adamantly opposed to a married
clergy? The answer, he argues, is that accepting married priests would be but the first step toward ordaining women and thus forever altering the demographics of a resolutely male religious order.
Yet Schoenherr believes that such change is not only necessary but unavoidable if the church is to thrive. The church's current stop-gap approach of enlisting laypeople to perform all but the central element of the mass only further serves to undermine the power of the celibate priesthood. Perhaps
most importantly, doctrinal changes, a growing pluralism in the church, and the feminist movement among nuns and laywomen are exerting a growing influence on Catholicism.
Concluding that the collapse of celibate exclusivity is all but inevitable, Goodbye Father presents an urgent and compelling portrait of the future of organized Catholicism.
The root cause of this priest shortage is the church's insistence on mandatory celibacy. Given the potential recruitment advantages of abandoning the celibacy requirement, why, Richard A. Schoenherr asks, is the conservative Catholic coalition--headed by the pope--so adamantly opposed to a married
clergy? The answer, he argues, is that accepting married priests would be but the first step toward ordaining women and thus forever altering the demographics of a resolutely male religious order.
Yet Schoenherr believes that such change is not only necessary but unavoidable if the church is to thrive. The church's current stop-gap approach of enlisting laypeople to perform all but the central element of the mass only further serves to undermine the power of the celibate priesthood. Perhaps
most importantly, doctrinal changes, a growing pluralism in the church, and the feminist movement among nuns and laywomen are exerting a growing influence on Catholicism.
Concluding that the collapse of celibate exclusivity is all but inevitable, Goodbye Father presents an urgent and compelling portrait of the future of organized Catholicism.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2002
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September 19, 2024
THE SOCIOLOGIST'S BOOK IS FINALLY (POSTHUMOUSLY) PUBLISHED
Richard Schoenherr (1935-1996) was professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also wrote 'Full Pews and Empty Altars: Demographics of the Priest Shortage in U.S. Dioceses. '
Dean Hoge explains in his Foreword to this 2002 publication, "Schoenherr ... finished the manuscript in April 1995 and looked for a publisher. But it was too long to publish, and Schoenherr hated to make the necessary cuts... Some of us urged Schoenherr to cut ti down soon before too much time passed. But it was not to be. Schoenherr died suddenly in 1996, and nobody knew if the manuscript would ever be published. We owe gratitude to David Yamane for taking a big scissors and cutting down the manuscript. He cut it by two-thirds... while minimizing any damage to the force of Schoenherr's argument...
"This book answers the big questions: Why is there this shortage of priests? What will it lead to? What else is happening in the Catholic Church, and how is it related to the scarcity of priests? What can be done?" (Pg. vii) He adds, "'Goodbye Father' does not mean the end of the priesthood but only an end to the exclusively male celibate priesthood. Keeping the Eucharist and the priesthood strong is Schoenherr's main commitment..." (Pg. ix)
Schoenherr wrote in the Preface, "If indeed laypeople are to shoulder more ministerial responsibilities in the Church, other issues follow. To what extent will the locus of church power shift from clergy to lay ministers?... committed Catholics are the first interested party I hope to reach in this book... The second party I hope to engage is sociologists, psychologists, historians, and philosophers---including feminist scholars---who are interested in theories of social change...
"My basic premise is that decline in the priesthood population is the engine driving a set of social dynamic forces... the book documents the severity and main cause of the priest shortage... compulsory celibacy... The Church is simply unable to recruit and retain enough male celibate priests to meet the sacramental needs of faithful Catholics." (Pg. xxviii)
He states, "clergy decline has become the major driving force for change in the Catholic Church for three key reasons. First, the priesthood is essential to the eucharistic tradition. Second, it is a critical economic resource. And third, it includes the organization's key office holders who have a monopoly on the fulness of religious expertise and hierarchy of control." (Pg. 12)
He admits, "In 1993, 58 percent of a national sample of diocesan priests still thought that celibacy should be a matter of personal choice for diocesan priests. Of those under 35, however, only 38 percent were in favor of married priests, in contrast to 65 percent in 1985 and 84 percent in 1970. Thus, as the 1990s unfolded, younger priests become more conservative on this issue than many of their older confreres and notably more conservative than young priests of the 1970s and 1980s." (Pg. 24)
He argues, "Priests, seminarians, and those who should be encouraging vocations have become increasingly aware that the institution of compulsory celibacy is theologically nonessential, uniformly repudiated by all other Christian churches, and widely resented by secular priests. Moreover, it has recently become the most cited and documented cause of poor recruitment and retention of diocesan priests in the United States... I see the institution of compulsory celibacy---not the ideal of celibacy itself---standing at the center of that debate." (Pg. 78-79)
He asserts, "The entire analysis in this book is based on the postulate that priesthood is the linchpin that holds together the structures and animates the structuralization of the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, the incorporation of a sacramental priesthood is the mechanism the Church developed to transcend the paradox of hierarchy and hierophany inherent in all religions... The priest shortage draws attention to the various pressures represented in the matrix... and demands a new synthesis among them." (Pg. 124-125)
He observes in the final chapter, "The ordination of married men temporarily dampens the demand for the ordination of women, at least for the hierarchy. For a time, the economic pressure is off because bishops will be able to supply enough priests to meet sacramental demands. relaxing age-old restrictions, however, can generate a surge of hope and new demands for further change... Hence the coalition supporting women's ordination may redouble its efforts, speeding up the demise of male exclusivity." (Pg. 213)
This is a challenging and thought-provoking scholarly study, that will be of keen interest to anyone studying the contemporary Catholic priesthood and its future prospects.
Richard Schoenherr (1935-1996) was professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also wrote 'Full Pews and Empty Altars: Demographics of the Priest Shortage in U.S. Dioceses. '
Dean Hoge explains in his Foreword to this 2002 publication, "Schoenherr ... finished the manuscript in April 1995 and looked for a publisher. But it was too long to publish, and Schoenherr hated to make the necessary cuts... Some of us urged Schoenherr to cut ti down soon before too much time passed. But it was not to be. Schoenherr died suddenly in 1996, and nobody knew if the manuscript would ever be published. We owe gratitude to David Yamane for taking a big scissors and cutting down the manuscript. He cut it by two-thirds... while minimizing any damage to the force of Schoenherr's argument...
"This book answers the big questions: Why is there this shortage of priests? What will it lead to? What else is happening in the Catholic Church, and how is it related to the scarcity of priests? What can be done?" (Pg. vii) He adds, "'Goodbye Father' does not mean the end of the priesthood but only an end to the exclusively male celibate priesthood. Keeping the Eucharist and the priesthood strong is Schoenherr's main commitment..." (Pg. ix)
Schoenherr wrote in the Preface, "If indeed laypeople are to shoulder more ministerial responsibilities in the Church, other issues follow. To what extent will the locus of church power shift from clergy to lay ministers?... committed Catholics are the first interested party I hope to reach in this book... The second party I hope to engage is sociologists, psychologists, historians, and philosophers---including feminist scholars---who are interested in theories of social change...
"My basic premise is that decline in the priesthood population is the engine driving a set of social dynamic forces... the book documents the severity and main cause of the priest shortage... compulsory celibacy... The Church is simply unable to recruit and retain enough male celibate priests to meet the sacramental needs of faithful Catholics." (Pg. xxviii)
He states, "clergy decline has become the major driving force for change in the Catholic Church for three key reasons. First, the priesthood is essential to the eucharistic tradition. Second, it is a critical economic resource. And third, it includes the organization's key office holders who have a monopoly on the fulness of religious expertise and hierarchy of control." (Pg. 12)
He admits, "In 1993, 58 percent of a national sample of diocesan priests still thought that celibacy should be a matter of personal choice for diocesan priests. Of those under 35, however, only 38 percent were in favor of married priests, in contrast to 65 percent in 1985 and 84 percent in 1970. Thus, as the 1990s unfolded, younger priests become more conservative on this issue than many of their older confreres and notably more conservative than young priests of the 1970s and 1980s." (Pg. 24)
He argues, "Priests, seminarians, and those who should be encouraging vocations have become increasingly aware that the institution of compulsory celibacy is theologically nonessential, uniformly repudiated by all other Christian churches, and widely resented by secular priests. Moreover, it has recently become the most cited and documented cause of poor recruitment and retention of diocesan priests in the United States... I see the institution of compulsory celibacy---not the ideal of celibacy itself---standing at the center of that debate." (Pg. 78-79)
He asserts, "The entire analysis in this book is based on the postulate that priesthood is the linchpin that holds together the structures and animates the structuralization of the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, the incorporation of a sacramental priesthood is the mechanism the Church developed to transcend the paradox of hierarchy and hierophany inherent in all religions... The priest shortage draws attention to the various pressures represented in the matrix... and demands a new synthesis among them." (Pg. 124-125)
He observes in the final chapter, "The ordination of married men temporarily dampens the demand for the ordination of women, at least for the hierarchy. For a time, the economic pressure is off because bishops will be able to supply enough priests to meet sacramental demands. relaxing age-old restrictions, however, can generate a surge of hope and new demands for further change... Hence the coalition supporting women's ordination may redouble its efforts, speeding up the demise of male exclusivity." (Pg. 213)
This is a challenging and thought-provoking scholarly study, that will be of keen interest to anyone studying the contemporary Catholic priesthood and its future prospects.
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