I saw the author's article in the BOSTON GLOBE a few months ago; he writes well and each chapter hits at a key church problem. Fortunately he has ideas for reform and change. Great contribution to the debate on the contemporary Catholic Church. Here is sample of how the book reads:




DANIELLE KINKEL AND JOHN KINKEL
A solution to the priest shortage
By Danielle Kinkel and John Kinkel |Boston Globe February 24, 2005

NOW THAT former priest Paul Shanley has been convicted and the pope is out of the hospital, Catholics can face other troubling realities. But time is running out. The church is in deep trouble, and we're not even talking about the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Over the last 25 years it has seen a steady erosion of the priest population. The latest figures are hard to think about. But Lent is a time to deal with reality.

For the first time in recent years, statistical reports have shown that the Roman Catholic Church has a shortage of about 160,000 priests worldwide, if we use staffing standards of 1978 when John Paul II became pope. US churches need about 10,000 priests. The number of priests has remained relatively stagnant during this pontiff's rule, but church membership has grown by 250 million. In the United States, for every one priest who is ordained, three are dying, retiring, or leaving for various reasons.

To reverse this trend, bishops must bring the church out of its tailspin. The focal point is figuring out how to recruit and train new priests -- and quickly. Otherwise, more churches will have to close.What can be done?

First, everyone knows that ordaining women is a papal no-no and will not be acted upon in the near future.

Second, calling back the 20,000 US priests who have left to marry in the last 30 years is not going to fly. The reason is that the church forgives, but it does not forget. The bishops do not want a new crop of priests to marry because they have taken a vow of celibacy and it would look like backsliding. The thought of priests searching for soulmates on eHarmony.com is shocking to most bishops. Plan B to the rescue.

The church has about 14,000 deacons in the United States who are serving the church in a variety of capacities, including baptisms. They are one step away from the priesthood, but between them and the priesthood is a huge chasm. About 90 percent of these men are married. Thus, they don't qualify unless the church decides to ordain married men who are already members of the clergy class.

With one stroke of a pen, US bishops could demand that the Vatican acquiesce and allow them to begin training and ordaining married deacons. A few more years of study by these men could yield as many as 5,000 new priests for US dioceses alone. Other countries could follow suit.

The ordination of married deacons would forever change the US church and Roman Catholicism. First, it would provide full-time leaders that bishops are now unable to recruit because the priesthood is tied to celibacy. By ordaining married deacons, fewer churches in Boston and elsewhere in the United States would have to close and local parishes would be invigorated with new leaders who could better understand the needs of the church and its families.

Second, over the years these men could help formulate church policy in terms of family values and fiscal responsibility; they are experienced because they pay bills every month and raise children.

Third, the vast majority of Catholics would be delighted to see that the bishops can do something right. Catholics could be proud of the institution once again.

Such a change could be the first step toward parish renewal. Finally, we would have a success story. More envelopes would be dropped in collection baskets -- no small matter considering the financial problems the church is facing. Ordaining married deacons would be a way for the church to solve one of its biggest problems and to move on.

Danielle Kinkel is a graduate student at Boston College. John Kinkel, her father, is a former priest and author of the forthcoming "Chaos in the Catholic Church."

Best book I have even read about the problems of the Catholic church. There are many solid suggestions on how things could be improved. The article below by Lawn Griffiths shows this book is having an impact already.

Publication:East Valley Tribune; Date:Saturday, July 30, 2005 ; Section:Spiritual Life; Page:102


Proposed: A practical solution to priest shortage

LAWN GRIFFITHS TRIBUNE

It seems wishful thinking to hear Catholic leaders confidently say that young Catholics will increasingly choose religious life and reverse the evergrowing shortage of priests and nuns. Something rather amazing would have to trigger such a turnaround.

Just as the Army is falling short of its recruiting goals month after month, the Roman Catholic Church worldwide is running hopelessly behind in filling its ranks of men and women of the cloth. Both the military and Catholic religious life entail major sacrifice: Military service means the possibility of losing one's life or being permanently injured. Becoming a Catholic priest or nun means not being able to marry or to have children.

The Catholic Church benefited hugely in the 1960s from the Vietnam-era draft, which caused an inordinate number of Catholic males to go into seminary and obtain military deferments. Had there not been that draft threat, research suggests, notably fewer would have gone to seminary - and the priest shortage would be even more severe today. When the draft ended in 1973, seminary enrollment plummeted, according to professor and professional researcher R. John Kinkel's soon-to-be-published book, "Chaos in the Catholic Church: A Call for Reform."

We continue to hear wishful thinking from the church hierarchy that prayers will prompt eager and eligible Catholics to enter seminaries.

Just 27 seminarians are under care of the Phoenix diocese, which numbers nearly half a million Catholics. One priest was ordained last spring, and two are in line for next year - paltry numbers given the enormous need.

Progressive Catholics say letting priests marry, opening the priesthood to married men, and dropping the maleonly requirements would cause a torrent of enrollees.

Kinkel, who was in the priesthood for 12 years before leaving in 1979 for marriage and family, has a solution that he calls practical and centrist: Take the church's talented and tested deacons, give them a little more training, and ascribe them the full faculties, duties and authority of the priesthood.

That more than 90 percent of them are married men would just have to be accepted for the greater good.

About 14,000 deacons now work in U.S. parishes, handling such duties as baptisms, weddings, funerals and bringing viaticum to the dying. Deacons also may preach, administer the sacraments and teach. They may not celebrate Mass, hear confessions and absolve sin, administer the anointing of the sick or administer the sacrament of confirmation.

"These people have been trained, these people preach on Sunday, they baptize children, they assist at hospitals, they are on the payroll," Kinkel said. "All of this bespeaks a resource there, and so I say, `Why not?' "

"Do you want to close churches or keep them open? Do you want to have people in Africa have Masses or not?" said Kinkel, who has written op-ed columns on the issue in such papers as The Boston Globe and Detroit Free Press. "To me, it's getting to a point that if you don't do something, you've got a lot to answer for." He points to college student surveys that suggest seminary enrollments would quadruple if the celibacy requirement were dropped.

Kinkel quotes studies showing the worldwide priest shortage at about 160,000. "If we use staffing standards of 1978 when John Paul II became pope, U.S. churches need about 10,000 priests," he wrote in a Globe commentary, co-authored by daughter, Danielle Kinkel, a Boston College graduate student.

The diaconate was brought back into the church by actions of Vatican II, just in time to help offset the labor losses as the priest population waned. In 1972, Phoenix's diocese was among the first to ordain deacons, and today there are about 225, 160 of whom are active. Twenty are in training in the 2006 class and 15 for 2008.

Deacons typically hold full-time jobs outside the church or are retired. Phoenix diocese deacons have a median age of 62. They are expected to work eight hours per week in the parish, but actual time varies. They are described as "unsalaried clergy." Only a fraction of deacons would want - or be able - to move on to the priesthood.

"Even if only onethird were selected, that could give the church about 4,000 new priests in a few years" in America, Kinkel said.

"In the United States, for every one priest who is ordained, three are dying, retiring or leaving for various reasons," the Kinkels wrote.

The irony is that the planet's largest organized religion, Roman Catholicism, cannot fill its primary frontline jobs - the priesthood.

"As Catholics, we are not at a place where we can spread the gospel or even maintain our religious practices without people" Kinkel said.

(...)




R. John Kinkel