Ostriches in Rome

Catholic bishops from around the world have chosen to bury their heads in the sand. Apparently, even that uncomfortable pose is preferable to taking the steps necessary to deal with what many of them call the greatest problem facing the Church today--the acute shortage of priests.

Meeting for the first time since Benedict became pope; the bishops emerged from a three-week-long conference reaffirming the requirement of priestly celibacy. In a stunning display of cognitive dissidence, the men meeting in Rome also enthusiastically endorsed the central role of the Eucharist in Catholic life. But thousands of the faithful are denied the sacrament on a regular basis because there is no priest anywhere around.

When the bishops assembled in early October, prelates from the most developed countries to the least told tales of parishes without priests. New Zealand's Denis Brown, according to the Catholic News Service, insisted that isolated villagers "have as much right to participate in the Eucharist" as anyone else. He then asked why it's OK for former Anglican priests who are married to function as Catholic priests, while Catholic priests who marry are not.

Why indeed? And why is it OK for priests in Eastern rites to be married but not those in the Western, or Roman, rite? The answer echoes "Fiddler on the Roof"--tradition. Priestly celibacy is not a matter of dogma or theology; it's one of discipline and tradition. And, as it did with the proscription against meat on Friday, which was imposed as a discipline on the faithful for centuries, the Church can simply change the rule.

But the bishops have emphatically decided not to. In fact, when early reports from the secret meeting revealed the mere fact of discussion about the celibacy rule, the Vatican cracked down on the prelates' access to the press. Yet another case of firmly inserting head in sand--stop talking about the issue and it will go away. Still, no matter how much the men married to tradition wish it weren't so, the shortage of priests presents an eventually untenable problem for an evangelizing church.

The Vatican's own statistics show a 52 percent increase in the numbers of the faithful between 1975 and 2002, to more than a billion worldwide, compared to a static number of priests at less than half a million. In the United States, the Catholic population grew from about 49 million to a little more than 64 million, while the number of priests declined by 22 percent, down to about 45,000. And the situation is getting worse. A sociologist at Catholic University has found that for every 100 priests who die or leave the priesthood, only 30 to 40 replace them.

Now the Vatican is sending out signals that it will instruct seminaries to refuse to admit celibate homosexuals, which is likely to cut down even more on the numbers of men opting for ordination.

Allowing priests to marry might not totally make up for the shortfall, but it could certainly help alleviate the dire situation of more than a quarter of U.S. parishes that are priestless. Other Christian denominations in this country have seen the ranks of their clergy, who are allowed to marry, grow at the same time that the Catholic numbers dwindled.

There are, of course, some practical problems associated with a married priesthood. The Church would be responsible for supporting the wives and children and would experience the same difficulties as other institutions in trying to reassign entire families instead of single men. And there's the potentially embarrassing question of the size of priests families, with parishioners curious to see whether their pastors might be practicing birth control.

Still, ending the ban on marriage is the easiest fix for the problem. We would prefer that the Vatican allow women to become priests--a decision that would probably solve the shortage overnight. Women make up more than 80 percent of the lay people performing some form of ministry in the Church. But Pope John Paul II firmly shut the door on even discussing women's ordination, calling the all male clergy a matter of doctrine, not discipline.

If the bishops succeed in shutting down debate on an end to celibacy as well, they will be condemning countless Catholics around the world to a life where the blessings of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, are not available. Then what does it mean to be a Catholic? That's the question these men need to pull their heads out of the sand and answer.

Steve Roberts' latest book is "My Fathers' Houses: Memoir of a Family" (William Morrow, 2005). Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by e-mail at stevecokie@gmail.com.