McTernan bids angry farewell to priesthood

BY CHRISTINA WHITE
ONE OF England's most outspoken priests is leaving active ministry, it was confirmed this week.
Fr Oliver McTernan, former parish priest of St Francis of Assisi in fashionable Notting Hill, said that he wished to live and work in a "non-clerical environment".
Fuelling speculation that he intends to marry, he said celibacy had lost "its authenticity", and that this was one of the contributing factors behind his decision to leave the priesthood.
Fr McTernan, 55, left his London parish two years ago to begin a sabbatical at Harvard University in the United States.
In an article in The Times on Monday, he described why he had decided to return to secular life. He said his 30 years as a priest in inner London had been a "humanly rich and
spiritually rewarding experience".
But he attacked the "old clerical style of leadership" which, he said, had come to dominate the Church despite the reforms of Vatican II.
"In the milieu of revised clericalism I found myself becoming more uncomfortable and isolated," he said.
"To understand what clericalism means one has only to look at the public trauma that the Catholic Church in the US is cunrently undergoing. The autocratic and secret way in which bishops have dealt with sex-abuse crimes illustrates the clerical obsession with external image."
He continued: "The culture of denial is so ingrained in the clerical mindset that it incapacitates debate on so many issues that are crucial to the spiritual well-being and vitality of parish communities."
Fr McTeman said that issues such as women in ministry, married priests, celibacy and divorce could not be raised by anyone in authority in the Church without running the risk of being marginalised.
"Over the years I have come to recognise in the lives of numerous married friends that marriage calls for even greater commitment and self-giving than celibacy," he said. "Whether I choose to exercise that basic human right to marry in the future is a decision that I consider personal, and that should be respected as such."
The news of his departure was a shock for his former parishioners. When he left Notting Hill in 2000, after 19 years as parish priest, they opposed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's choice as his replacement, campaigning for a priest in the McTernan mould.
Fr McTeman, a champion of liberal Catholic causes, was not afraid to disagree openly with the Church on fundamental issues. He was a charismatic and media-friendly priest who understood the power of publicity, as well as an aggressive opponent of the admission of Anglo-Catholic priests into the Church.
When the "Roman Option" was under discussion in the early 1990s, he was one of five priests who published an open letter to the Catholic hierarchy protesting against the special pastoral arrangements which had been announced for convert priests.
He opposed a general welcome for "these people" when "many of our own people are suffering ... the consequence of major pastoral problems".
In a statement on Friday, a Church spokesman confirmed that Fr McTernan had been in contact with Cardinal MurphyO'Connor.
"Oliver McTernan has indicated to the Cardinal, following his sabbatical in the US, that he does not intend to return to active ministry in the diocese which he has served well. The Cardinal is in discussion with him about his future," the spokesman said.
Fr McTeman declined to be interviewed. "I just want to be able to focus on my work and get on with writing," he told The Catholic Herald.
Editorial Comment: P7