"Banned by the Pope"/ Newsweek/"Women, whom the church treats as second-class citizens, are hurting most today..."

Charlie Curran

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/04/banned-by-the-pope.html

"The Vatican had finally had enough. “One who dissents from the Magisterium as you do,” the letter said, “is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology.”

"Despite that rebuke, I remain a committed Catholic, a priest in good standing, and a professor of Catholic theology (albeit at a Methodist institution). I also continue to care deeply about the church, which I believe is facing a crisis that predates the sex-abuse scandal of recent years. Today, about a third of people who were raised Catholic have left the church; no other major religion in the United States has experienced a larger net loss in followers in the last 30 years..."

"Now, I’m not wholly at peace with would-be reformers placing all the emphasis on the celibacy issue. Women, whom the church treats as second-class citizens, are hurting most today; changing the laws that forbid male clergy from marrying will do nothing to speed women’s path to the priesthood. We should treat rewriting the celibacy laws as an initial edit—a change on the way to redressing the multitude of other needed reforms. Even at the risk, I’d argue, of getting an unfriendly letter one day from Rome."

Curran is a Catholic priest and a professor of human values at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.