Goodbye Father
The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 19 August 2004
- ISBN 9780195175752
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages320 pages
- Size 142x226x22 mm
- Weight 414 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 1 line illus. 0
Categories
Short description:
In the four decades ending in the year 2000, the number of priests will decline by 40% while the number of Catholics will grow by 65%. Schoenherr sees the priest shortage as the major force for change within the Catholic Church, and his book explores the reasons for the decline as well as its broad implications for the nature and control of the church. Schoenherr argues that mandatory celibacy is the primary cause of the shortage. He predicts that the shortage, along with the feminist movement among nuns and laywomen, doctrinal changes, and the growing pluralism in the church will lead to the end of mandatory celibacy, albeit after bitter clashes with conservative forces.
MoreLong description:
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.
"As convincing in its analysis as [Full Pews, Empty Altars] was in its statistics."--Garry Wills, The New York Times Book Review
