6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Married Catholic Priests Who Continue Their Ministry, August 2, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Free Priests: The Movement for Ministerial Reform in the American Catholic Church (A Campion Book) (Paperback)
Actually, I'm the author and just came across Free Priests on the Amazon list. Frankly, the book did not get much attention, although it is the only complete history of the organized efforts by married priests to work for church reform and even to go beyond asking and waiting for reform and acting on what they believe is their right as ordained priests. There are perhaps 20,000 married priests in the U.S. Someone has projected that some time in the next century there will be more married priests than celibate in this country! The book probably gets a little boring at times, in that I attempted to record as accurately as possible the organizational steps taken by married priests since after the Vatican Council until 1992.
The seeminly futile struggle of these idealistic men (and more often than not, their wives) is part of the larger struggle by "liberal" Catholics to make the church more democratic. However, the "conservatives" seem to be firmly in control of the institution and little progress has been made in the effort to make the church more responsive to the people and more atuned to modern ways of looking at things.
I would hope that Free Priests might sit there on library shelves and some day be of value when the history of the church in this country is written. Bill Powers. Feel free to contact me at WFPowers2@aol.co
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A FASCINATING HISTORY OF EFFORTS TO ALLOW MARRIED CATHOLIC PRIESTS, October 4, 2010
This review is from: Free Priests: The Movement for Ministerial Reform in the American Catholic Church (A Campion Book) (Paperback)
William F. Powers (born 1934) served as a Catholic priest for ten years, then married, and became a Professor of Sociology. He and his wife Ann have two children. This 1992 is a history of efforts by ex-priests to reform the Catholic Church (particularly about the priestly celibacy issue), and covers the formation of groups such as the Society of Priests for a Free Ministry (SPFM; which later became the Fellowship of Christian Ministries or FCM), and the Corps of Reserve Priests United for Service (CORPUS).
He writes in the Foreword to this 1992 book, "One issue that has apparently lost---whether a married clergy acceptable in the American (Roman Rite) Catholic Church---is the subject of this book. An associated question, raised by the title 'Free Priests,' concerns what shape the priestly ministry might have taken if the rule of celibacy had been made optional."
Here are some representative quotations from the book:
"(Charles) Curran went on to review his experience with priests who wanted to marry and the Church's response. At the time, the Church required that priest first marry civilly and then apply for a dispensation from celibacy post factum in order to be freed from the state of sin created by the religiously invalid marriage. Curran advocated ante factum dispenations, arguing that it was morally wrong for the Church to require that a man do evil in order to be dispensed." (Pg. 18)
"(Thomas Merton's) accidental death by electrocution stunned many who looked to him for guidance, including NAPR leaders. Merton had agreed to serve on the NAPR board. His name ... appeared on the early literature of the organization." (Pg. 26)
"(Paul Mayer) became a stereotypical hippie... He divorced Gail in 1975, lived in a tent commune in the Northwest, fathered a daughter, went to India and sat at the feet of a guru, never held a regular job ... and along the way advocated a long shopping list of Eastern formulas for happiness. He never found it himself." (Pg. 83)
"Once again, a free minister was abandoning the movement. But there were others to take his place as there have been throughout the years." (Pg. 139)
"(T)here is another dimension to (Peter) Brennan's life that marks him as an unusual figure in the free ministry movement. Most free ministers were ordained priests first and then married. Brennan married BEFORE he was ordained a priest. More than that, he subsequently had himself consecrated a bishop. He has done what few free ministers have ever done: He has ordained priests and even consecrated a bishop." (Pg. 193)
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