By Brian Scheid
Norwich (CT) Bulletin
March 30, 2002

After 17 years of devoted service to the Archdiocese of Hartford, the Rev. Henry Smolinski was forced to choose between the vocation he had grown to love and the woman with whom he had fallen in love.

"It was a very hard decision because I really enjoyed the work I did and the people I served," Smolinski said. "But I felt I was seriously in love with this person and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."

In 1984, Smolinski got married and left his position in the Roman Catholic Church - a position for which he had taken a vow of celibacy.

Even if he isn't recognized by the church, Smolinski is still a priest.

Smolinski, who lives in Windsor with his wife, still officiates at weddings, wakes, funerals and baptisms outside the church and has become one of more than the estimated 25,000 men throughout the country who are drawn to the priesthood and to marriage.

By breaking their vow of celibacy, those men cannot be on any diocesan payroll and must join in Mass from the pews instead of officiating at the altar every Sunday.

Over the past two months, the Catholic Church has struggled with a growing number of allegations of sexual abuse committed by some of its clergy and cover-ups within its hierarchy. Some critics point to celibacy as the root of the problem within the priesthood, but many doctors, psychologists and priests say there is no evidence that there is a connection between the sexual abuse and living a life without sexual relationship.

'No evidence'

"There is no evidence that I have seen that shows a higher number of acts of sexual misconduct committed by Catholic clergy than in any other group across the country," said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "It clearly is not the case that celibacy is to blame here."

Pedophilia, sexual attraction to prepubescent children, and ephebophilia, sexual attraction to adolescents, certainly are not psychological conditions confined to Roman Catholic priests.

In the Episcopal Church, where celibacy is not a requirement, there have been several cases of sexual abuse of children by clergy. In 1995, the Rev. Bruce Jacques, a former rector at St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, resigned from the church after allegations became public that he sexually propositioned a 13-year-old Kent boy with oral sex as a confirmation gift.

Likewise in February, Kenneth Behrel, a former Episcopal priest, was found guilty of abusing a 14-year-old boy at an Episcopal school in Maryland in the 1980s.

Focus 'unfair'

By linking mandated sexual abstinence to horrific stories of sexual abuse, Roman Catholics are being unfairly singled out, said the Rev. Monsignor Thomas R. Bride, vicar general of the Diocese of Norwich.

While many clergy mention the issue only obliquely, Bride minced no words in a Lenten sermon to his parishioners at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Quaker Hill. "Pedophilia, the sexual abuse of children, is an illness," Bride said. But, he added, "other professions are not getting the public scrutiny that the Roman Catholic Church is getting and that is why I am talking about it with you all today."

Pedophilia an illness

In a subsequent interview, Bride said the news media are creating a false impression.

"This is an illness and this illness invades all kinds of people... men, women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, young and old," Bride said. "It's tragic that the media is just focusing on the Catholic priesthood.

"The focus is wrong in that the focus is only on the priesthood," Bride said. "The evidence is overwhelming that this is not a bi-product of celibacy. I don't believe there's a connection."

The assistant pastor of a large Norwich parish agrees.

"Celibacy's not the issue. That's not the problem," the Rev. Russell Kennedy of St. Mary Church said. "The problem is human nature."

There is a connection

Louise Haggett could not disagree more.

"There is no scientific evidence that directly connects (celibacy and pedophilia) but the problem exists in every diocese and every country where there is mandatory celibacy," Haggett said. "I would never say it's the cause, but there's definitely a connection."

Haggett said that the pattern of abuse is completely different in the celibate clergy and said the church has done little to combat the problem.

"The Catholic institution has also forever discouraged research on pedophile priests," she said. "That should raise a red flag for anyone."

Haggett said that the church has refused to change the way it deals with pedophile priests, the same way it has refused to change its rules of celibacy, which she believes has put the Catholic Church in jeopardy.

Ten years ago, as her mother was slowly dying in a senior assisted living center in rural Maine, Haggett tried to find a priest to visit her mother. But, with the number of priests dwindling across the country, Haggett said she couldn't find a single priest to administer the church's last rites to her ailing mother.

Then she did some research.

Before the 12th century, popes, bishops and priests were allowed to marry, but the Catholic Church made celibacy mandatory in 1139. This has largely been attributed to the church's desire to stop priests from leaving church land and property to their families after they died.

That's basic information to students of church history, but news to most Catholics, many of whom regard a celibate priesthood as having been instituted by Jesus.

Haggett also found that married clergy from other faiths could convert to Catholicism and be ordained as priests by the Catholic Church.

"When I read that the Catholic Church was and is ordaining into the Catholic priesthood married Protestant ministers, I felt a terrible injustice to priests who had the integrity to marry as well as those who want to marry," Haggett said.

Haggett soon met with hundreds of priests who left their positions to pursue the married life. In 1992, she started Celibacy Is The Issue, a group of hundreds of former priests and concerned Catholics who want the church to abolish its firm stance on celibacy.

CITI, now based out of a strip mall in Framingham, Mass., runs the "Rent a Priest" service, an online listing of Catholic priests across the country who have married but will perform pastoral and sacramental ministry. Smolinski is listed on the site, along with two married Connecticut priests and one Hartford deacon.

But top church officials have harshly criticized the service. A Midwest bishop told one priest listed on the Web site to resign from his position in the local Knights of Columbus because of all the scandal he had started in the community.

Smolinski said many Catholics may be offended by a name like "Rent a Priest," but said the intent of his group was very serious.

"We're not trying to be disrespectful," Smolinski said. "We're very necessary at this time."

Always a priest

In the face of any criticism of CITI, Haggett points to a church regulation that says, "After it has been validly received, sacred ordination never becomes invalid."

"Once a priest, always a priest," she said, offering the layman's translation of Canon law number 290.

Canon law number 843 says a married priest cannot refuse ministry if asked.

"This means that if a congregation is without a priest for a Mass and a married priest is sitting in one of the pews, they can request a Mass from him and he will do it," Haggett said.

Haggett said the recent scandal in the Catholic church hasn't shaken her faith, but added it showed how it was the church's time to act.

"If priests today knew how much in the driver's seat they are, they would just get married. Who would replace them?" she asked.

Nearly two decades after he left the priesthood, Smolinski is eager to return. He said the recent scandal might give him that chance.

"The church is going through the wash now," he said. "Hopefully, when the wash comes out, this will be a cleaner church for the people to serve in; married or single, straight or gay - all people."