Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church

By Richard A. Schoenherr

Book Overview

In the last half-century, the number of Catholic priests has plummeted by 40% while the number of Catholics has skyrocketed, up 65%. The specter of a faith defined by full pews and empty altars hangs heavy over the church.
The root cause of this priest shortage is the church's insistence on mandatory celibacy. Given the potential recruitment advantages of abandoning the celibacy requirement, why, Richard A. Schoenherr asks, is the conservative Catholic coalition--headed by the pope--so adamantly opposed to a married clergy? The answer, he argues, is that accepting married priests would be but the first step toward ordaining women and thus forever altering the demographics of a resolutely male religious order.
Yet Schoenherr believes that such change is not only necessary but unavoidable if the church is to thrive. The church's current stop-gap approach of enlisting laypeople to perform all but the central element of the mass only further serves to undermine the power of the celibate priesthood. Perhaps most importantly, doctrinal changes, a growing pluralism in the church, and the feminist movement among nuns and laywomen are exerting a growing influence on Catholicism.
Concluding that the collapse of celibate exclusivity is all but inevitable, Goodbye Father presents an urgent and compelling portrait of the future of organized Catholicism.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195082591
• ISBN13: 9780195082593
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.5" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Helpful to More Than Catholics

Not coming from a Roman Catholic tradition, I've been intrigued by the debate surrounding the celebacy of the priesthood and the male exclusivity of the clergy. After all, other denominations have moved ahead, not without struggle to be sure, but moved nonetheless, to model what it means for all of God's people to have a place at table, and to officiate in the offerings that the table provides.Richard Schoenherr's "Goodbye Father" provides powerful insights to those of us laypeople who struggle with one's appropriate role in the church, and who are looking for a deeper analysis of this religious tradition.In his discussion of why dropping celebacy will happen prior to changing the patriarchy of the ministry, Schoenherr defines how the embeddedness of patriarchy, the decline of that partriarchy in other denominations, and the depth of the debate about marital-status exclusivity contributes to his thesis. That discussion provides clues into the struggle the church faces, but also gives hope that the stance on celebacy can change.That today's issues are now indicative of Schoenherr's predictions demonstrate the wisdom with which the author presents a significant contribution to the role of men and women in the church. This book deserves a read by anyone concerned about those roles, regardless of the denominational background of the reader.

The Key to the Crisis in the Church

Goodbye Father attends to the heart of the crisis facing the U.S. Catholic Church-the quality of pastoral care for the people. Schoenherr understands that the religious care of the people revolves around an ordained priesthood and the Mass, so the quantity and quality of priests truly matter. For Schoenherr, life is a paschal mystery in that people are involved at every moment in linking their lives to the life, death, and ressurection of Christ. The liturgy makes that connection more powerfully present in people's lives. The limitation of the Catholic priesthood to celibate males denies people who are thirsty for spiritual life an adequate level of religious care. The ordination of married people and women promises a greater number and deeper quality of priests. Goodbye Father is informative of my thinking and formative of my aspirations. It humbly invites us to think more deeply and act more courageously in regard to what may well be the will of God.

This Book Looks at Big Picture

Goodbye Father: the Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church" by the late sociologist Richard Schoenherr deserves a lot of praise for its brilliant analysis of the priest shortage, present and future. But the real value of the book, in my opinion, is its insistence that the shortage cannot be viewed as some interesting but isolated phenomenon. As David Yamane, who took over the editing of the book after Schoenherr?s untimely death, notes in the Introduction, the shortage is only one manifestation of a whole network of interacting trends pressing for change in many directions. Here are the others:* A decline in dogmatism and a rise in pluralism of world views.* A demise of the cultural control that developed out of the church?s European and Western origins.* Doctrinal changes coming out of Vatican II, particularly those that have weakened belief in the absolute superiority of celibacy as a way to holiness.* The erosion of male control over church ministry, largely due to the feminist movement, especially among nuns and laywomen.* Increased lay participation in ministerial and sacramental roles.* A growing recognition of the "saving power" of the Scriptures.In other words, the book analyzes how all these trends are working together and argues that isolating one or the other and working on it alone is not going to get the church out of the mess it's in. It's a heavy read but I don't see how any thoughtful person can dismiss its overwhelming logic.

Focusing on the Heart of the Matter

In the past few years, Catholic clergy and laity alike have expressed concern about and frustration with Vatican policy governing church practice and policy. The Catholic church has long held that ordination to the priesthood is reserved for males, that homosexual behavior is sinful, and, of course, that pedophilia is wrong. In addition, the church has severely limited the extent to which laity can participate in the governance of the church. Until recently, the laity has done little more than gently resist the first practice, question the second and agree with the third. Recent revelations about the extent to which pedophilia has been practiced among Catholic priests and the efforts undetaken by some high ranking church officials to hide this information, has shocked, then angered and finally mobilized laity and priests to resist autocratic church policy and to work toward church reform. Laity are now insisting on a voice in church governance and access to church records in order to avoid scandals in the future. Perhaps if the clergy and laity had taken seriously Richard Schoenherr's 1993 book Full Pews and Empty Altars, they would have begun their efforts to reform the church earlier and even avoided the present crisis. In that book, Schoenherr accurately predicted the decline in the number of priests over the next couple of decades and the implications of this decline for parish life. However, church authorities either ignored or disparaged the findings of this careful social science study and the laity was not activated by its important message. The initial reaction of the clergy to Schoenherr's latest book, Goodbye Father, posthumously published in 2002, has been lukewarm at best. However, if early published reviews of the book are an indication, the laity is poised to take this study into account as they work for change in the church. In Goodbye Father, Schoenherr moves beyond his earlier work. He presents convincing theoretical and empirical arguements leading to the conclusion that the shortage of US clergy and the changing composition of the US laity will necessarily result in voluntary celicacy for clergy and, within three or four decades, to the ordination of women. The conceptual structure Schoenherr builds to support his conclusion is scholarship at its best and the data analysis is careful, precise and sophisticated. This book should be read by laity interested in change in American society in general and reform of the American Catholic church in particular. It provides important insights that can guide strategies to increase laity participation in church policy and to strengthen and enhance church ministry. It should be ignored by clergy and laity, and in particular by church hierarchy, at their own peril. To ignore the insights, forecasts and conclusions of this brilliant book is to deprive oneself of a deeper understanding of the profound changes taking place in the contemporary Catholic church. These insights, in turn, should su

Can the Catholic Church be Saved?

If the Catholic church is to retain a central role in the spiritual life of Christians, if it is to be a sacramental representation of the church, Catholic clergy and lay members alike must take very seriously Richard Schoenherr's important new book, Goodbye Father: the Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church (Oxford Press). Schoenherr shows, on the basis of years of careful research and his great love of the Church, that the tradition of an exclusively celibate male priesthood is about power and the maintaining of control, not about the spiritual life of Catholics. Schoenherr's analysis predates the Church's recently uncovered scandals involving child sexual abuse by clergy and the covering up of that abuse by church officials. But anyone reading his book can understand how a power structure that excludes women who are called to be priests and silences a strong laity will, over time, end up undermining the spiritual health and the very sacramental purposes of the Church. Such a power structure has left the Church open to abuses of power in many forms -- harming children in the current scandal and the Church itself so long as this patriarchical power dominates. Schoenherr is not without hope; he provides a strong vision for a more vibrant, spiritually whole Catholicism. A must read for all who hope the Church can be healed.