Neil Parado reports on an article by Brendan O'Hallarn in the Jan. 10th Winnipeg Sun. In a
poll conducted by the paper, 82% of the respondents thought the RC Church should repeal its
mandatory celibacy ruling. The article described the work of Neil Parado and Leonard Schmidt. Fr.
Leger of Holy Family parish hoped "that the millennium might have inspired the Pope to reinstate
married priests. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The hierarchical church is not yet ready." Fr.
Leger sees Len as "a valuable addition" to the parish because of his wealth of experience. Parado
writes: "Celibacy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but mandatory celibacy is tantamount to
forcing the Holy Spirit to give the gift to those who are called to be priests." 

Neil Parado also includes an account by Terry Dosh of Minneapolis: On July 17 last, a former
Lutheran pastor, a married man, Lawrence Blake, was ordained for the archdiocese; he joins the more
than 100 other married priests converts from other denominations across the USA. His ordination was
"a cause for joy and concern- joy because a brother has been welcomed to share his God-given talent
as a minister of the word in a wider community of faith by becoming a priest; concern, because his
presence dramatizes the shortage of priests in the Catholic church and the Vatican's regressive
attitude." 

In 1990, Cardinal O'Connor of New York said at the ordination of a former Anglican priest:
"This is a historic moment. We are delighted to have a man in a happy marriage. He will live the
married life that many priests would love to live. It would be foolish to see this as a discipline that
could never change... It would be uncharitable, unjust, and very naive to say that the sense of hurt
on the part of Roman Catholic priests who married and cannot come back is groundless." Rev. Tax
Rosaldo says that the greatest irony of the century is that "married priests were good enough to be
popes and bishops once. Now they are not allowed to say mass by the Pope, unless they were first
Protestants once." 

In a letter to the Philippine Daily Enquirer, Neil Parado writes: "Pope John Paul II urges the Church
to acknowledge past mistakes in order to start a new page in history... Among the sins are the
scandal of division among christians, the use of force to impose the truth, the failure to respect and
defend human rights... What about mandatory celibacy? Arguments against it are either ignored or
brushed aside... It is sad to suggest that the official Church is either too slow or too proud to learn
from experience... Let us pray that in the course of seeking God's forgiveness, the Church
will learn from the past and be more faithful to the Gospel in the future as the Pope himself prays." 

Rev. Dr. Neil Parado, Winnipeg, MB (as compiled by Chris Diamond)