A Europe defrocked

BY PIERS MCGRANDLE
THE PROSPECT OF a priestless Europe may soon become a reality, warn five leading Catholic theologians in a wide-ranging international study.
Their alarming analysis forms the backbone of Europe without priests?, a report published next month and edited by Jan Kerkhofs, a Jesuit emeritus professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.
The authors portray Catholic Europe, with the exception of Poland, at crisis point, as it confronts a rapid decline in the number of priests and religious.
Tens of thousands of parishes in Europe have no resident priest and in many countries the average age of priests is between 65 and 70, and steadily rising. Lay people are being given unpaid or paid positions to replace them,
In France alone, the
number of priests has declined from 41,000 to 30,000 in under 20 years.
The authors propose various solutions to the present crisis, including the redistribution of available priests, a promotion of the laity,the ordination of married men (or viri probati) and women.
But according to the authors of Europe without priests?, it is communities, rather than priests,that hold the key to the future well-being of the church.
"The local faith community must feel itself really responsible for its vitality,and be encouraged to take concrete decisions... only in this way will the Gospel be able to take on new forms in postmodern culture".
They envisage a scenario where priestless communities celebrate the eucharist, "even if this celebration does not fully correspond to the ordinances of a sacramental celebration".
Communities will also anoint the sick and pray for forgiveness with those who wish to confess their sins, "even if this celebration does not amount to the express form of the sacrament of penance".
No attempt is made to disguise the radicalism of the message. "Pastoral councils are making it clear that things cannot go on like this and that new perspectives must be opened up", the authors note.
Much of the blame at the attenuation of the church has been put on "cultural change, coupled with a crisis over the content of faith and the way in which the Church is understood.
"Urgent reflection cannot be postponed; in almost all areas, around the magical year 2000 the situation will have developed further; in fact it is hard to imagine an aggiornatnettro from a body of priests whose average age is fast approaching seventy".