25th anniversary for ex-priests, wives

National Catholic Reporter, July 28, 1995 by Patricia Lefevere

GARNERVILLE, New York -- Two of them had known each other since they were teens. Some had played on the same sports teams in the minor seminary. All nine had graduated from Immaculate Conception Seminary on Long Island between 1957 and 1964. And all bore that indelible, but invisible, mark of ordination.

Yet all nine abandoned celibate clerical life within a few years of the end of Vatican Council 11. They left the priesthood, they said, not because they loved the church less but because they also felt called to love a woman and to share life with her.

In the years since, they have never forsaken the church nor each other. Their solidarity rounded another corner July 15 when the nine former priests of the Brooklyn-Queens diocese gathered at the home of Tom and Eileen McCabe to mark their 25th wedding anniversaries.

The nine couples, who traveled from Virginia, Long Island and Connecticut, had married within months of one another in 1970. Five of the brides were former Dominican, Josephite or Mercy nuns. Their combined offsprings now number 26--eight of them adopted. In dripping swimsuits, shorts and straw hats, they were hard to imagine in religious garb.

As their families and friends gathered in 100-degree heat for a backyard liturgy, renewal of vows and a picnic, one "significant other" was missing. That person was Pope John Paul II, said homilist Fr. Tom Mannion, who traveled from his retirement home in Gold Beach, Ore., to be with the men and women he had supported for some 30 years.

This is an amazing day," Mannion said. "This has never happened in the history of the church, so mark it down. It may never happen again."

Mannion praised the pope for his recent outreach to women and to Protestants but said the pope was "frightened; these are anxious painful moments for him. ... He's afraid to let the Holy Spirit come in and do what the Spirit does."

Mannion is the former pastor of St. Ann's Parish in Brooklyn, where three of the nine priests had served during his tenure.

The others left parish work for marriage, but Mannion never left them. St. Ann's rectory remained a haven for priests who had found another calling. Many of the nine had their children baptized at the church, which was merged into another Brooklyn parish in 1990.

The festivities were as much about Mannion's 50 years as a priest -- his mission to married priests and his desire to promote dialogue about celibacy, women priests and a married clergy -- as they were about nine silver wedding anniversaries. Some wept as couples professed their devotion to one another, exchanging gifts of wheat as a symbol of how God's creative breath enters husband, wife, child, society.

Many laughed as Mary Gannon thanked her husband, Gerry, "for accepting the renegade feminist in me. ... A vow is a vow is a vow: I'll be your wife for the rest of my life." Gerry proposed: "Stay with me; the best is yet to come."

John Mulhern told his wife, Luz, how his love and respect for her were greater today than in 1970 and how he expected them to grow yet more. Maureen and Pat Kenny spoke in unison: "Supported by the sacrament of marriage ... we are ready to remain wheat to one another."

Mannion later told NCR how priests who had left the priesthood before the council were "persona non grata." But these nine, whose ordination classes sustained a fallout of 40 percent to 60 percent, began to challenge the church on celibacy. They felt free to talk, to struggle and to push."

Not all of this was due to "a '60s mentality," he said. Another factor was the introduction of psychology classes in seminaries. Not all priests left to marry, he said, but "most were looking for a deeper relationship." The celibacy law coded and covered their ability to make a decision about marriage, Mannion said.

"Celibacy is very important," he said, "but not an end in itself. ... We shouldn't be seminarians. We shouldn't be in hot houses. We should be able to look at a woman and say, `She's nice.'"

Citing the past 25 years, during which nearly 20,000 well-trained priests have married and thus lost the right to function as priests, Mannion exclaimed: "What a waste! These are proven people, proven Catholics. Yet very few bishops have the courage to incorporate them into their diocese."

In Mannion's view the church has diminished itself by not using these men in ministry. Three of the nine former priests have earned doctorates since they wed; others work in labor, insurance and social services; two have recently retired.

George Shreck admitted that he does "precious little" in his local parish, though "they know I'm there." Ken Larkin and wife, Helen, have stood in the pulpit to instruct children preparing for the sacraments.

Mulhern is the only one of the nine who chose to live in the parish in which he had worked as a priest, and it took the diocese "about 15 years to stop being upset with me for doing it," said Mulhern, who remains active and whose wife is the parish secretary.

Shreck and Larkin, along with Tom McCabe, Pat Kenny, John Hyland and Joe Dougherty founded the Renewal Coordinating Community, or RCC, in 1988. Its goals are to reform the church through dialogue and action and to serve others, especially the poor, by working for justice and the celebration of diversity. RCC membership comprises more than 500 lay, religious, active and married priests in the New York City area. In October it will conduct its seventh annual conference at Madison Square Garden.