Vänner,
Katoliker i England och Wales har startat en namninsamling för att förmå sina biskopar:
– att vidta konkreta åtgärder för att möjliggöra prästvigning av gifta män.
– att uppmuntra en diskusion om kvinnan och ämbetet.
– att inbjuda präster som gift sig och lämnat prästuppgiften att återvända.
Det är en mycket angelägen namninsamling som även fått stöd av präster och biskopar.
Gert Gelotte
Petition for the Admission of Married Men: Give us priests!
Catholics petition their bishops
Over 2,000 Catholics have already signed a petition asking the bishops of England and Wales to take practical steps towards ordaining married men to the priesthood. It also calls on the bishops to encourage discussion of the role of women in ministry – and to invite Catholic priests who resigned to marry, to return to active ministry.
Broad support
Prominent Catholics supporting the move include Baroness Williams, Lord Patten, Lord Cotter, Dr John Pugh MP, writer and journalist Margaret Hebblethwaite and sociologist Professor Michael Hornsby-Smith. Senior clergy who have signed include Canon Joe Carter (Manchester), Canon Bob Spence (Lanchester), Canon John McNamara (Orpington), Canon Terence Walsh
(Southampton) and Mgr Paul Hypher (Bentham). Catholic Bishop Crispian Hollis of Portsmouth, among others, has publicly supported the ordination of married men.
Success in Australia
This initiative follows the success of a similarly worded petition in Australia which obtained over 17,000 signatures and has resulted in the bishops there putting the issue on their agenda. The possible ordination of married men has been raised as an urgent matter by bishops worldwide for over thirty years, and is becoming pressing now in this country as the shortage of priests worsens, parishes are merged and the average age of the clergy rises. We note with concern that the number of active priests in England and Wales has declined by over one third since 1958 while the number of retired priests is five times what it was then. <A.E.C.W Spencer, Digest of Statistics of the Catholic Community of England and Wales, 1958-2005. Vol. 1, Table 3.6.1, pp.100-101.> A precedent has already been set in this country by the ordination of married clergy from the Church of England many of whom were received into full communion with the Church following the ordination of women.
With this in view we wish to express our belief that Catholics have a right to participate regularly in the community celebration of the Eucharist and that our religious leaders have the pastoral duty <Lumen Gentium 37, (Second Vatican Council)> to ensure that they have a sufficient number of authorised presiders to ensure their full and regular participation in the Mass wherever there is a settled and committed Catholic community. We believe that the Holy Spirit may be telling us that we are not sufficiently open to the emergence of new forms of relevant ministries.
Petition Sunday 29 June
The organisers of the petition are asking clergy and parishioners to designate Sunday 29 June as ’Petition Sunday’ when signatures will be collected after mass all over the country. By happy coincidence this day celebrates St Peter (and St Paul), Jesus’ foremost apostle and a married man, according to the gospels. All signatures need to be submitted by 1st September for presenting to the bishops at their regular November meeting,
Further information
Full information about the Petition and the opportunity to sign online can
be found at www.marriedpriests-ew.org .
Further information can be obtained from:
Sister Myra Poole SND <MyraPoole@aol.com> – 020 8874 7364 – religious
sister, former headteacher
Professor Michael Hornsby-Smith – 01483 569 524 – sociologist and
author
Dr Michael Winter – 020 7281 9633 – married priest, former seminary
professor, theologian, author and former chair of the Movement for a Married
Clergy
Simon Bryden-Brook <brydenbrook@talk21.com> – 020 7235 2841 –
secretary and press officer, Catholics for a Changing Church
Maureen Robinson – 0191 258 3468 – widow of a Catholic priest,
initiator of the petition in this country
