Volume > Issue > There's No Priest Shortage

There’s No Priest Shortage

AN EXCESS OF DISGRUNTLED LAITY

By James E. Tynen | October 1997
James E. Tynen is an Assistant Director of Student Activities at the University of Pittsburgh.

The perceived scarcity of priests in the Catholic Church is called a crisis. Observers wring their hands and warn that the Church will fall apart if she can’t get more priests. This may, however, be less a crisis than a blessing.

Let’s examine an oft-proposed cure. Liberal Catholics say the Church will have to ordain married men (and women). This, they promise, will release a flood of eager, well-educated young professionals to become priests (and priestesses), thus saving the Church.

But does the Church want a flood of eager, well-educated young professionals? Let’s look at other areas which were visited by such floods in our recent past:

· A horde of young urban planners was released on our cities. The cities turned from centers of civilization into crime-ravaged wastelands.

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Why Don't People Read the Spiritual Classics?

Show me a classic and I’ll show you a book few people read unless they’re…

The News You May Have Missed

The Company We Keep... Alienation Nation... The Army's Humanist Victory... Fixing God's Mistakes?... America's Own Bling Bishop... Swearing Off... Awful but Lawful... Asian Malaise

The Lure of Beauty

Catholicism isn’t the only beautiful religion. There is also Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Hinduism, and so forth. Why pick Catholicism over them?