Our wedding took place in total secrecy, in a locked Catholic church in the centre of Birmingham, with no witnesses, no family; only the vicar-general of Birmingham Archdiocese who had been given permission by the Vatican for the ceremony to go ahead. I am a former priest, and once I was granted laicisation in order that I could marry, I was instructed in a formal rescript in Latin from Rome that we should avoid giving scandal to the faithful. My wife and I had had a civil marriage eight months earlier, but now the Church was prepared to permit a Catholic ceremony.
I had been ordained a priest in the Passionist Congregation in July 1957. After a year working in Newcastle upon Tyne I went to Rome’s Gregorian University to study for a doctorate in church history, which I completed in 1961. I then worked as Assistant Postulator for the Cause of Dominic Barberi, a Passionist who was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1963 during the Second Vatican Council. I was also a hospital chaplain.
Eventually reaching the decision that I would leave in order to marry, I applied for laicisation, and returned to England in 1967, and my wife and I married the following year.
Shortly after, I met a former school friend who was leaving the secular priesthood at the same time. We were approached by Fr Conrad Pepler, a Dominican at Hawkesyard Priory in Staffordshire, who had become aware of the large number of priests in the Midlands leaving the active ministry at that time. Thus in Advent 1969 the Advent Group was formed. It met twice yearly at Hawkesyard Priory and provided support for clergy and nuns who had left or were contemplating leaving the ministry and/or religious life.
The group grew rapidly and was eventually visited by Cardinal Basil Hume, who learnt about the various forms of employment undertaken by those who had left (I had secured employment in the Probation Service), and their contribution in the parishes to which they belonged. We also discussed the possibility of re-admission to the active Eucharistic ministry. Members maintained a strong allegiance to the Church, though not all sought laicisation; some had experienced less than helpful reactions from their bishops and superiors and proceeded with a civil marriage as we had initially done.
About 30 of us gathered to celebrate the group’s silver anniversary in 1994. Meetings have become less frequent but contact between members continues to this day. The Advent Group and their families have significantly contributed to their local parishes over the years and have accomplished various forms of ministry and support.
Employment in education and social work roles has held predominance and has provided opportunities for use of skills learnt in the context of priestly ministry and religious life.
The statistics of Clergy/Religious who have left are not readily available. The whole subject has been quietly airbrushed out of history and has, until recently, been largely forgotten in the prevalent discussions about married priests.
Not infrequently, we are asked why priests who left have not been used in recent years, given the dearth of vocations and the reliance placed on Anglican clergy coming into the Catholic Church. I still miss celebrating and distributing the Eucharist, and preaching the joy of the Gospel.
Hopefully the pontificate of Pope Francis will witness significant movement towards a change in the law of celibacy.
Conrad Charles is married with two children and five grandchildren
Above: The author with Pope Paul VI
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A website helpful for priests who are considering leaving is www.leavingthepriesthood.com. I left the Diocesan priesthood in 1998 and found a lack of information about making this difficult transition so decided to set up the website. Corpus also has some very helpful information and groups to meet with if you are fortunate enough to have one in your area.
Former Anglican clergy who are married do present problems to bishops: children have to be paid for so a parish has to be wealthy enough to find £25000 a year; moves are more difficult because children can't be taken out of school willy-nilly - this has a domino knock-on effect with regard to all diocesan priests; many presbyteries are not large enough for a family and, therefore, restrict movement of priests, meaning that the bigger, er ... wealthier parishes, are given to the priests who need to collect children from school and run them here, there and everywhere and, therefore, have less time.
Married priests are not the answer.
As a laicised priest who longs for the opportunity to minister the sacraments again, I have written on more than one occasion to JPII, Benefict and Francis. The only one who replied was Benedict who reiterated the western church's discipline on celibacy.
I fear that, even if a married clergy was permitted, we who have left will not be re admitted. As one correspondent here rather uncharitably noted, we are perhaps regarded as oath breakers (not strictly accurate; as a secular priest, I took no oaths, but an implicit vow when ordained subdeacon. That dates me!). We left the club, and are not likely to be welcomed back.
If I understand correctly what Pope Francis has said he is waiting to be approached by local Bishops' Conferences. So it is up to the whole Church in England and Wales to petition our conference to look at this issue.
My thanks to one and all for the very enlightening comments to my blog. I did in fact write to Pope Francis in similar vein in February, but have as yet received no reply. Conrad Charles.
Martin: "Clearly this is nonsense."
Precisely my point. The Church is saying we can't have married priests and yet we have married priests. To replace a Catholic priest who is also called to marriage with an Anglican priest who is married defies all logic and rational argument. It's time for this double standard, two-tier ordination system to end. Celibate priesthood is, after all, a man-made rule.
Surely now, more than ever, we should be moving beyond closed-minded legalism to a period of open-minded discernment, seeking to recognise the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are offered the Church.
I'd like to thank those brothers who have shared their thoughts here. Their courageous, insightful and moving witness will surely bear fruit. The humility with which many "inactive priests" have continued to exercise a discrete ministry is a blessing to their communities and a remedy to the kind of institutional clericalism which the Church has always been prone to.
"some are heavily involved in the Parishes, as Catechists, Readers, and Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist. "
Isn't this illegal?
"if you think you might ever want to be a Catholic priest, get ordained as an Anglican first."
Clearly this is nonsense. It is merely an attempt to make provision for people who are converting. Apostasising from Catholicism to Anglicanism and back again would not only be frowned upon, it would probably render you ineligible.
Sara: "All the sociological implications of married priests still apply, which are a lot for bishops to get a hold of ...."
They seem to handle the implications of married clergy quite well when it comes to Anglicans.
The message would seem to be, if you think you might ever want to be a Catholic priest, get ordained as an Anglican first.
John: arrogant smugness does no one any good.
I appreciate that for some, if not most, priests who left active ministry to marry, the hurt of being prevented from doing something they intended to devote their lives to is still present. Moreover, inviting these priests to resume active ministry could in the short term help with the growing shortage of parish clergy, whatever difficulties this may raise for bishops and other priests, as mentioned by Sara.
But Phil Little has hit the nail on the head: the current paradigm which (con)fuses priesthood with clericalism no longer serves the Gospel. The apparent reluctance of most of our bishops to address the problem in new ways, as opposed to simply exhorting us to pray harder for vocations, and as exemplified by Cardinal Nichols' reported statement that the shortage of priests is "not a pressing issue" suggest that, by and large, the hierarchy are too wedded to the status quo to offer constructive leadership on this.
Perhaps the one good thing to come out of this crisis may be that, if numbers of priests decline to the point where Catholic parish life in its present form is unsustainable across much of the country, the Spirit will, for the sake of the Gospel, prompt us - or drag us kicking and screaming - into developing other ways of being as local church communities, and of exercising priestly, and for that matter episcopal ministry.
I'm sorry, but this is just so much whining drivel. Mr. Charles and the others like him are essentially oath-breakers--men who deliberately chose to abandon their solemn promises to God and the Church and betrayed both.
What a great insight into the secret workings of the Church. Most lay persons never knew such rules applied and wonder how could they be enforced?
Unless someone said they were a religious, and had left to marry, it is unlikely anyone in a big city parish would ever know, Why even tell anyone?
Why even go through such demeaning event, or is it a ceremony? Would you have had your families there?
How sad, not only for you but also for humanity.
Many a family was torn apart with the treatment of non catholics in weddings. The clergy and religious were dreadful in many country towns especially and to this day many a family has never taken a seat inside a Catholic Church except for funerals of parents. Even then some only go to the graveside.
So glad you shared this with readers. There is a long way to go before understanding and compassion are seen in religious who are supposedly showing the way to all in the Church. The recent insights into the abuse of children have been bewildering to many parishoners and yet there doesn't seem to be any effort to deal with it, More secrets and more inappropriate decisions and actions sem to be the norm.
Other peope are also pleased you shared your experiences and share them too, Hopefully you have an understanding of how distant most clergy and religious who haven't married are from grasping the challenges faced by families.
Maybe you could write to Pope Francis and tell him so he has real information for his Synod on Families.
Dear Conrad,
"The Melchizedck Society" was first formed in the Portsmouth Diocese in the lead up to the new Millennium, 15 years ago.
The Late Canon Scantlebury was very keen to engage those priests who had left active ministry in an annual social gathering. He circulated all the Parish Priests of the Diocese to ask if they knew of such men in the Parishes. Having received many replies he invited them to Bishop’s House for afternoon tea. Bishop Crispian Hollis fully backed the enterprise. The first meeting was a huge success, if a little uncomfortable for the hosts and the quests.
Immediately after the first meeting it was decided to have lunch on a Saturday to enable all to attend. We also thought that a Parish setting for the lunch would be more suitable. The organizers were convinced that the gathering should be purely social without any agenda. We did introduce a time of reflection and prayer before lunch.
Wives and Children were always included in the invitation and many of these have attended over the years.
For many years we called the guests “inactive priests”. While we recognised that this was an inadequate description we struggled with a more appropriate name. Over the years these men gave evidence that they were far from inactive. Some are heavily involved in the Parishes, as Catechists, Readers, and Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist. I have heard stories over the years which clearly indicate that these men have never left Priesthood and they continue to be
I share a similar past with Conrad, except I have 3 children and no grandchildren. I am a member of CORPUS Canada, and a group of us on Vancouver Island still gather monthly, but mostly for fellowship around a potluck dinner. There was a time when most wished to become reactivated in the sacramental ministry of the church, especially at a time when there were parishes without resident priests. However it was clear that the preference of the bishops, even among the few progressives, that it was preferable to deny the sacraments and Sunday mass to church members than to allow married clergy to resume ministry. Obviously clergy who are open about with whom they sleep are a threat to those who are not (allowed to be) so open.
Now many years later, few desire to have anything to do with formal ministry, and perhaps something good actually came out of the prohibition. What is not needed in the church is a cosmetic change - the same style of priestly ministry but with a slightly happier clergy. The old paradigm of ordained clergy simply doesn't work and even the new Pope suggests that it has produced a rather pathetic and toxic clique who run the church. A new paradigm is needed and this will only come out of necessity rather than thoughtful reform. As good as some of us might have been, the old order of Melchezedec was a rotten institution and it did not deliver the spiritual genius of the Jesus revolution to the people. May we rest in peace.
I'm in an analogous situation, being an ex-sister married to an ex-priest. I also know lots of other married ex-priests, including some who are laicised and some who are not, but all of whom are still practising Catholics. A few thoughts:
1. We knew what we were doing when we left and chose marriage. It's very hard seeing people go without the Sacraments, but ex-priests are not first in the queue to help the situation, because there are two lots of difficulties to address- the married part and the ex-priest part. All the sociological implications of married priests still apply, which are a lot for bishops to get a hold of, plus the further problem of being, shall we say, deserters. The attractions of going back to minister for those who have left are obvious, but the problems for the bishops, not to mention other priests, in allowing this to happen are also obvious. Or if they aren't, they should be.
2. Having said that, it would be nice if the restrictions given with laicisation could be loosened after, say, seven years' penance or something. Laicised priests can't even be readers at Mass, or teach theology in a Catholic context, no matter what the need. Surely that could be loosened up?
3. Preaching the joy of the Gospel is something everyone is able to do.
4. I wish there were an association for ex-sisters.
Conrad, it is good that by writing you ensure that the Advent Group does not disappear from memory.
I have experienced time and again the great apostolic work undertaken by former priests and religious. Long may it continue. And long may the practice continue whereby such great folk are encouraged to play the fullest possible role in our church.
One of my nicest memories is of a very elderly man in Lanzarote who after the Sunday homily in Spanish was invited to the lectern to deliver an animated English "translation". The first time I experienced this I went up to the man after Mass and asked if he was a deacon. He replied by telling me that he was a former priest from Wales. I have many times since experienced the great
priestly wisdom of this former priest and his "translations".
That aside, my own question has always been why there should be any preference given to priests who lost/changed their vocation/calling over and above men who experienced the call to marriage first and remained faithful to their calling and then later experienced the call to ordained priesthood?
Then, for me, there is the increasingly challenging question of the limiting role of women in our church.
Finally, I welcome the new interest of retired bishops in the issue of married priests and hope that the discussion will continue. I did manage to recruit a former Anglican priest, now RC priest, to the staff of my last school and we all enjoyed his contribution to our spiritual lives.
Don't bank on it pal.