Saturday, July 5, 1997

Married priests continue to tend to spiritual needs of Roman Catholics

By Kristin E. Holmes

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA - The paperwork alone was daunting. But John Montagna, a divorced Catholic, wanted to wed his fiancee in a Catholic ceremony.

So he plowed through the application for an annulment of his first marriage. And when he had finished the 10 typewritten pages, his parish priest told him: Sorry, the forms had been revised by the Trenton, N.J., Diocese. He'd have to start all over again.

Instead, Montagna and his fiancee, Teri Praul, took stock. Their faith was important to them. But so was time. Annulling his marriage could take a year or more. Montagna, at 44, wanted to start a family, like, yesterday.

He gave up on the annulment, but got his ceremony anyway. On Feb. 3, 1996, the Ewing Township couple were married - by a priest who had resigned from the Philadelphia Archdiocese in 1974 and was, himself, married for nearly 20 years.

"I never stopped my ministry," said the Rev. Joseph McOscar, who has 35 weddings scheduled so far this year.

Throughout the nation, priests who have left the institutional church can be found still tending to the spiritual needs of Roman Catholics - the disillusioned, the divorced, and those who simply say they can't find a cleric when they need one. The priests preside at weddings, funerals, baptisms and Masses held off church property. Some are single. But most are married, with families.

Theologians agree that once ordained, a priest is a priest forever. Under canon law, however, anyone who resigns from the formal church may no longer administer its sacraments - except to grant absolution to a person in danger of dying. Anything else is not recognized by the church.

The Holy See staunchly defends a celibate clergy on theological and canonical grounds.

"Celibacy is not based on pragmatic reasoning," said the Rev. Frederick Miller, professor of systematic theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, the theological school of the Philadelphia Archdiocese. "Jesus lived a chosen life in the single state for the sake of his kingdom. Celibacy is first and foremost an imitation of Christ."

In May, in a ruling aimed especially at married priests, the Vatican reiterated that prohibition.

That has not stopped, or even slowed, McOscar, of Greenwich, N.J. Or the Rev. Joseph Ruane, who frequently leads Mass for an independent Catholic congregation that meets in a Philadelphia-area apartment building. Or the Rev. Robert Daly, who presides at services at a New Jersey funeral home when Catholic families with no parish affiliation need a clergyman.

The priests say they make it clear to couples such as the Montagnas that their marriages, legal under civil law, are illicit under church law.

"Yeah, it's upsetting," Teri Praul Montagna said. But, she added, "I don't look at us as being outcasts, but as trailblazers."

"I may not like the way the government works," John Montagna said, "but I still consider myself a citizen - just like I don't like the way the red tape in the church works, but I still consider myself a devout Catholic."

As does Daly, who resigned from the Newark Diocese in 1970 and now has two daughters. "Being married," he said, "in no way detracts from or lessens my commitment to Christ."

Daly is among 29 priests in Pennsylvania and New Jersey who are listed in a recently released directory of alternative Catholic clergy, "God's Yellow Pages." The booklet, containing the names of 202 priests throughout the country, was compiled by a Massachusetts-based group called Celibacy is the Issue (CITI), one of several national organizations advocating optional celibacy in the priesthood.

"I just believe that people need to know that these priests are available," said CITI founder Louise Haggett.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops does not keep figures on priests who leave the ministry, according to a spokeswoman. But the 1993 book "Full Pews and Empty Altars" places the number of priests who left active ministry in the formal church from 1965 to 1990 at 20,000; currently the Roman Catholic priesthood has 48,100 members, the spokeswoman said.

Nine of every 10 who left did so to get married, the book said.

Haggett, of CITI, contends that married priests should be welcomed back into a church now in desperate need of clergy. The Vatican's acceptance of married Episcopalian priests into the Catholic priesthood amounts to favoritism, she said.

Organizations such as CORPUS (also called the National Association for a Married Priesthood) and the Federation of Christian Ministries, a Philadelphia-based organization whose activities include licensing married priests to perform civil wedding ceremonies, have long argued the merits of optional celibacy.

The Rev. Anthony Padovano, a married priest and president of CORPUS, maintains there are provisions of canon law that actually compel a priest, married or not, to administer the sacraments when the faithful request it or in "emergency" situations.

Studies show that about 75 percent of lay Catholics favor optional celibacy, according to Dean Hoge, a professor at Catholic University, in Washington, D.C. His 1993 study for the National Federation of Priests councils found that 58 percent of working priests surveyed felt that celibacy should be a matter of personal choice; 52 percent agreed that priests who have resigned should be invited to reapply for permission to function as priests again, whether they are married or single.

"I left the church with the idea that I would go back when the church accepted optional celibacy. But I didn't expect it to take this long," said Ruane, who has been married for 25 years. "I've accepted the fact that I won't be able to go back. I miss it."

When McOscar left the Philadelphia Archdiocese to care for his ailing parents and mentally disabled brother, he continued saying Mass and celebrating the Eucharist - in his own home for his family. He joined the secular work world, eventually becoming a human resources manager for an autistic children's service agency.

Four years ago, he was asked by a coworker to witness the marriage of a woman who was unable to get an annulment, but still wanted a Catholic ceremony. Father McOscar talked with the couple and, before agreeing, asked himself a question: "How would Jesus respond?"

At about the same time, Dignity, an organization of gay Catholics, asked McOscar if he would consider saying Mass. Again he asked himself: "How would Jesus respond?"

He now celebrates Mass with the group once a month.

The use of such priests as McOscar "amounts to an insistence on the part of certain Catholics who may feel alienated by the activities of the institutional church, that they nevertheless still consider themselves Catholics," said Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic Thought at Temple University. "They turn to this body of people and want to have their concerns met by them."

Married priests have been celebrating Mass for the Community of the Christian Spirit for more than 25 years.

Every Sunday, the small feminist Catholic congregation of about 60 meets in the library of the Women's Center of Montgomery County in the the Benson Manor apartments in Jenkintown, Pa. The Mass is an informal service of conversation, secular and religious readings, and the Eucharist. Sometimes the celebrant is Judy Heffernan, a woman who feels called to the priesthood. Sometimes the celebrant is Ruane.

The community's decision to celebrate with married priests came when one Philadelphia archdiocesan priest who frequently said Mass with the group announced he was getting married.

"It seemed very strange that because he was getting married, he couldn't celebrate liturgy with us again," member Mary McLauglin said. "I don't think marriage or sex should have anything to do with it."

What should? "Religious calling," she said, "... and education."

In April, priests on both sides of the issue came together at a Brigantine church for the funeral Mass of the Rev. James McKusker, a married priest who had previously served in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Celebrating the Mass on the altar in full vestments were about 20 area priests still in the church.

Sitting among the congregation were an equal number of married priests.

"It was a bit awkward between the two factions, like teenagers on the first date," McOscar said. The priests who had remained in the institutional church "were there because they recognized Jim as a friend - and even though he was married - he had been a brother priest."

(c) 1997, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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