Catholics cast wider net with rent-a-priest service

Some are Catholics who see their church as stuck in the past. Others are believers who happen to be divorced, pregnant before marriage or gay. A few just can't find a priest when they need one.

Catholics shunned by the official church are "renting" married priests in times of crisis and celebration.

They turn to rent a priest, a website with 2,500 Catholic priests in a national database known as "God's Yellow Pages".

Virtually all the priests in the database have left their official clerical ministries due to the Catholic Church's mandatory celibacy rule, but they continue to conduct weddings, usually for a fee, while performing baptisms, last rites and funerals for free, in keeping with the practice of officially recognised priests.

"We are doing Jesus' work and apparently the church isn't," said Louise Haggett, director of Celibacy Is The Issue (CITI) ministries, which runs the site and helped arrange 3,000 weddings last year.

The group also is working to change the Catholic Church's ban on married priests.

Haggett said the internet was a popular source for rent-a-priests because there was a shortage. Twenty-seven per cent of US parishes lack a resident priest, according to a US Conference of Bishops study.

Priests are ageing, churches are closing and fewer men are being ordained. The church knows there are fewer priests than decades ago but there are plenty to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful, said Ron Menty of the Catholic diocese of Albany.

"Sometimes the reason why people go to this source concerns the rules, regulations and expectations of the church," Menty said. "Sometimes a priest outside the community feels freer in providing services."

The going rate for a wedding in New York is about $US500 ($768).

Haggett founded the site in 1992 when her mother was in a nursing home and unable to find a parish priest.

CITI recruits, certifies and promotes married or gay Catholic priests. Haggett said 21 canons in church law validate married priests.

But the church does not recognise these priests because they violated their vows, said Ken Goldfarb, spokesman for the diocese of Albany.

The church does recognise some married Protestants who became priests later in life.

"These rent-a-priests have already taken their vows, then married. That's the distinction," Goldfarb said.

Richard Hasselbach, who married after he was a priest for 13 years, defends the organisation because many people are turned off by what he calls the inflexibility and rigidity of "the corporate Catholic Church".

He routinely marries people who are divorced, pregnant or gay and counsels people who were sexually abused by Catholic priests. He performs marriages outside of church buildings. The Catholic Church does not allow wedding ceremonies to be held outside.

Jim and Mary Ann Graves of Batavia, Illinois, were married in their back yard by Bob Scanlan, whom they found on the website. Both were raised Catholic, married for the first time in the church, and then divorced. Together they have eight children.

"We never considered an annulment because it's a real hassle," Mary Ann Graves said. "We were looking for something different than the first time, but we wanted a religious and spiritual ceremony."

Faith is a relationship with Christ and not about rules and dogma, Hasselbach said. "Once you're a priest, you're always a priest," he said. "If I fail to respond to the call to minister, I do at my own peril."

- REUTERS