P. Francis Murphy
Resigned Priesls: Sorne Pastoral Concerns. How best can the talents of resigned priests be brought to the service of the Church? The author explores some recommrmded solutions and the problems they pose.
THE CHURCH RECONCILES
Until the early '60's it was inconceivable that a Catholic priest, who had made a permanent commitment to a celibate priesthood, could relinquish his commitment without risking the Joss of salvation and creation of grave scandai. Priests who left were considered to be Shepherds in the Mist. Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII were the first to make quiet overtm¡es to reconcile them to the Church. In response to the departure of thousands of its priests, a new phenomenon in the Church, Pope Paul established a Special Commission of the Cong1:egation of the Roly Office in 1964. This Sacred Congregation developed a procedure, the spirit of which was to be one of merciful reconciliation, with a set of Norms to evaluate the requests for dispensations from the obligations of priesthood. Through this process of Iaicization, a priest becomes a layman and therefore is denied permission to exercise the powers of his priesthood. In 1967, Pope Paul re-affirmed the discipline of celibacy for priests in his encyclical, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. However, at 135
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