It Is Heartbreaking to Read of Clergy Driven to Suicide by Impossible Burdens

Letters to TheTablet

10 December 2016

It is heartbreaking to read of clergy driven to suicide by impossible burdens.
Our bishops are a disgrace to refuse the invitation of the Pope himself to ask Rome to consider the ordination of married men. Instead they continue over-burdening their priests quite unnecessarily.
Simon Bryden-Brook
London SW1

17 December 2016

The disturbing account of increasingstress among priests Megan Cornwell givesus follows hard on the alarming descriptionby Fr Brendan Hoban of the situation inIreland, where he calls the diminishingdiocesan clergy a “lost tribe”. Both drawattention to a number of contributorycauses: overwork, isolation and loneliness.While there is no necessary link betweenthese and priests’ enforced condition ofcelibacy, its concomitant “aloneness” is anexacerbating factor. Admitting mature,married men to the priesthood could make asubstantial contribution to mitigating thepressures on the celibate clergy by relievingtheir workload by widening their circle ofsupport to include these new colleagues andtheir families.

MIKE KERRIGAN AND CHRIS MCDONNELLCHAIR AND SECRETARY, MOVEMENT FORMARRIED CLERGY

ALMOST A YEAR AGO you kindly publisheda letter from my son Dominic asking why noconvincing reasons have ever been putforward by our bishops for not ordainingmarried men. Last week you published fourletters on clergy stress, following the articleby Megan Cornwell. I have long suspectedthat there is a connection betweenobligatory celibacy and the stresses ofpastoral ministry.I have two questions for our hierarchy:what are the theological (not the utilitarian)reasons for not ordaining married men?;and, if there are none (because if there are,logically, I should not be a priest!), why hasthe hierarchy not taken up Pope Francis’offer of considering the matter if the localbishops’ conference approach him to do so?In the words of one of your contributors lastweek: just asking.

(FR) BRYAN WELLSORPINGTON, KENT

I READ MEGAN CORNWELL’S article withdismay. Our diocese will lose almost half ofour priests to retirement, ill-health or deathover the next 10 years, yet our bishops seemunable to manage this other than to mergeparishes or overload their brother priests toa point of despair, in some cases suicide.This is a self-inflicted wound. With a littlelateral thinking, men, perhaps retired, couldbe appointed to share the daily burden ofcaring for Christ’s flock locally – authorisedto celebrate the Eucharist, to officiate at ourweddings, to baptise our infants, to visit oursick, to bury our dead. Does that really callfor years of study and intensive training?

JOE NORTONHEMEL HEMPSTEAD, HERTFORDSHIRE