Word: priesthoods
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...from the recognition that his writing was going nowhere. In spite of his gratitude to helpful professors -- part of his earnings from Presumed Innocent went to endow a fellowship at Stanford -- he felt stymied by "academic values about literature, the sense that books could be appreciated only by a priesthood. I thought that a great novel could be read as well by a bus driver as by an English professor. It was not a popular view." He was also convinced that no great novels would be written by him. "It finally dawned on me that I was not James Joyce...
Indeed, the practice has fallen on hard times in the wake of Vatican II. Candidates for the Catholic priesthood no longer pass through the minor order of exorcist en route to ordination. The official baptism ritual, which included an ancient exorcism formula ("Accursed devil, come forward and acknowledge your condemnation . . ."), today concentrates on asking God to / fill the child with his grace rather than expelling the power of darkness...
Many Catholic clergymen are especially hostile because they find it unfair for the church to cut a special deal for these 43 while it bars the return of thousands of men who left the priesthood to marry. San Antonio's Father Christopher G. Phillips, the first married priest to head a U.S. parish, rejects the double-standard complaint, noting that the ex-priests have broken vows taken voluntarily to observe lifelong celibacy. Phillips reports that reactions he has received from Catholic colleagues run the gamut from "great joy to utter disdain...
...Fichter that parishioners, accustomed to celibate clergy, are very demanding and "don't really give much thought to the priest's family." One convert admitted he favors retaining the celibacy rule because "quite honestly, I think that the personal difficulties and family pressures outweigh the benefits" of the married priesthood...
...anthology, Homosexuality in the Priesthood and the Religious Life (Crossroad; $14.95), Salvatorian priest Robert Nugent, who has worked among gay Catholics for twelve years, says estimates on the numbers of homosexual clergy range from "the most conservative 10% to a more reasonable 20%" or higher. He notes that a national survey by vocation directors in men's religious orders showed that, from 1981 to 1985, 5% of candidates accepted for the priesthood identified themselves to the church as being homosexual in orientation...