by Bishop Raymond A. Lucker
Diocese of New Ulm

Nothing causes me greater concern than the shortage of priests in the Diocese of New Ulm and elsewhere throughout the world. Studies and projections into the next ten or twelve years indicate that the shortage will get worse.

In the Diocese of New Ulm very few priests are scheduled to retire over the next few years. However, after 2002 a large number of priests who are currently between 55 and 65 years of age will begin to retire. This will have a serious impact on the diocese between 2003 and 2012.

This issue not only causes me a great deal of anxiety, but given my workaholic tendencies makes me also feel guilty that somehow it is my fault. I think that if I would have only done this or that we would have more priests in the diocese. The fact is, however, that the same problem touches almost every diocese in the country.

While we have a wonderful diocesan Vocations Office and nine excellent candidates in the seminary, we should have twelve or fifteen students in the seminary and all of them would have to be ordained if we hope to replace the active priests who will retire, and to keep up with the growing need for priests in pastoral ministry. Given the same proportion of priests to the Catholic population, the Archdiocese of St. Paul, which is ten times larger than we are, ought to have 100 to 150 students in the seminary. Like us, they are enjoying only a modest increase in the number of seminarians.

As a diocese we have been committed to pastoral planning. Every five years we go through a cycle of planning in which we look at the trends in the diocese in regard to shifting populations, consolidation of schools, migration, industrial development, shopping patterns, health care services, and the like. We also look at the available personnel to serve our parishes. As you know, after consultation in every region and every parish in the diocese, we have issued on a regular basis diocesan Plans for Parishes. We have had to cluster parishes, close some of them, and ask priests to serve two or three parishes as pastors or sacramental ministers.

We started in this diocese an effort which has been taken up and put into practice in many other places in the country, namely the idea of using non-ordained, professionally trained pastoral administrators to serve as parish leaders in our parishes without resident pastors. We are very proud of the fact that we have twenty such competent and committed people serving in our diocese. They do a marvelous job, working hand in hand with the priests, calling forth lay people in ministry, encouraging and supporting parish councils and committees, and ministering to the people of their communities.

Pastoral Administrators are given pastoral charge of the parish by me, according to the norms of Canon Law. At the same time they and all of us recognize that they are not ordained to the priesthood, cannot celebrate Mass, cannot administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, cannot give sacramental absolution for sins. People want and need and deserve to have ordained ministers.

Many people have said to me, "Why couldn’t we have married priests?" I hear this said in not just a few places, but in parish after parish where I go for adult education programs, or with meetings with parish leaders, or on other occasions. Priest groups in this diocese and in other parts of the country ask this question also. "Why couldn’t we ordain married men to the priesthood?"

We have seen for many, many years a severe shortage of priests in Guatemala, where we are happy to serve our mission in San Lucas Toliman. Our priests there provide pastoral care and leadership to twenty-two communities. The mission is also blessed with two retired priests who work with our two pastors. They are able, therefore, to visit almost every one of those twenty-two communities on at least a monthly basis. The next parish down the mountain from San Lucas has two priests serving sixty-five communities. That’s not normal. That’s not the way it should be. Similar conditions exist all over Latin America and in many other parts of the world.

All of us know that the law of celibacy is a church law which can be changed. It is not something that came to us from the revelation of God or from the command of Jesus. Celibacy has been a universal rule in the Western church only since the eleventh century. As we all know, Peter, the head of the Apostles and the leader of the Church of Rome, was married, as were other Apostles, bishops, and priests in the early church. The Catholic Church has married priests in the Eastern Rites. Just recently one of the Eastern Rites in this country indicated that it would return to the practice of having an optional celibate priesthood serving their parishes in the United States. Married priests serve people in the Episcopal Church and in the Orthodox Churches.

Celibacy is a special charism, a gift of God. Celibacy enables persons to commit themselves to a life without marriage so that they can devote themselves entirely to the service of others and the church. Members of monastic communities freely choose a celibate life, and I believe that the celibate clergy has served the church very well.

The question that I ask, and the question that many people ask is, "In view of the pressing shortage of the clergy and in view of the positive teaching of the church on marriage and in view of conditions of our time, would it not be better to change the law of celibacy?" I believe that we ought to change the law and have the option of married clergy. But no individual bishop can change the law. There would have to be a modification of the law of the universal church.

Many young people I talk to who would be excellent candidates for the priesthood tell me that they would love to be priests, but do not want to live alone for the rest of their lives. They want to be married and have a family. I believe that there would be no incompatibility between marriage and the service of God’s people. Ministers of other Christian churches have adequately demonstrated this to us.

When we look back in history, we see that many of the early priests were married, and that the change began to take place when priests began to offer Mass daily. There was the mistaken notion that somehow it would be unseemly to have sexual relations the evening before celebrating Mass.

During the Middle Ages there was the concern that parish property would be handed on to priests’ sons, and this became a strong element in the prohibition of married clergy.

I am close to retirement as bishop of the diocese. I have no illusions that there will be any change in this church law during my time as bishop. Nevertheless, I think we need to pray over the issue, discuss it, and see if there wouldn’t be some way to begin to have the ordination of married men. I believe that many of our committed catechists in Guatemala could be ordained within a very short time. They are men who have proven by their commitment and by their willingness to lay down their lives for their faith that they would make excellent priests.

I bring up this issue because of my concern for the church, because of my love for the church, and because I believe that the Eucharist and the celebration of the sacraments is at the very heart of what we are as a church. We need ordained clergy for that. But there is a church law in the way of our fulfilling the law of God. After all, Jesus said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you shall not have life within you." "Take and eat." "Do this in memory of me." We can not carry out this command unless we have priests.

I believe so much in the centrality of the Eucharist, and in light of this we need to consider the issue of obligatory celibacy of the clergy.

October, 1998