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Open 'God's yellow pages'
31/08/2006 14:14 - (SA)
Albany - Some are Catholics who see their church as stuck in the past. Others are believers who happen to be divorced, pregnant before marriage or gay. A few just can't find a priest when they need one.
Roman Catholics shunned by the official church are "renting"
married priests in times of crisis and celebration.
They turn to www.rentapriest.com, a website with
2 500 Catholic priests in a national database known as "God's yellow pages".
Virtually all the priests in the database have left their
official clerical ministries due to the Roman Catholic Church's
mandatory celibacy rule, but they continue to conduct weddings,
usually for a fee, while performing baptisms, last rites and
funerals for free, in keeping with the practice of officially
recognised priests.
"We are doing Jesus' work and apparently the church isn't,"
said Louise Haggett, director of Celibacy Is The Issue (CITI)
ministries, which runs the site and helped arrange 3 000
weddings last year.
The group also is working to change the Catholic church's
ban on married priests.
Haggett said the internet is a popular source for
rent-a-priests because there is a shortage.
Priests are ageing, churches are closing and fewer priests
are being ordained.
Haggett founded the site in 1992 when her mother was in a
nursing home and unable to find a parish priest.
CITI locates, recruits, certifies and promotes married or
gay Roman Catholic priests. Haggett said 21 canons in church law
validate married priests.
But the church does not recognise these priests because they
violated their vows, said Ken Goldfarb, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
The church does recognise some married Protestants who
became priests later in life.
"These rent-a-priests have already taken their vows, then
married. That's the distinction," Goldfarb said.
- Reuters
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South Africa
