DOCTRINAL SURVEY VIl
Charles R. Meyer
The Crisis of Faith and Priest/y ldentity There is hardly a )>riest ?Vho at Rome tinte o·r another
ha.• not felt that, no matter· how you tr?t to present it. religion se ems qui te LI-relevant in today's 1vorhl.
Everywhere today Catholics are asking: "What is happening to our priests 1 Why a1·e they leaving?" No doubt there is no single, simple answer to this question. Many who leave do so to man·y. As priests they extolled for others the beauty of the married state. Thel' pointee! out how Christian marriage symbolizes in the most effective way known to man the perfect union that exista between Christ and his Church. They showed how the partners become in a very palpable way images of God himself in his creativity. So they could not possibly fail to appreciate the deep religions significance as weil as the reassuring human consolations the married state affords. Y et the fact remains that Christ himself, the mode! nonpareil of religions !ife as weil as of human perfection, never married. 115