Roman Catholics: Priests in the Secular World

More and more U.S. Roman Catholic priests are giving up their parishes for secular life. The reasons are many: some have chafed too long under arbitrary authoritarian discipline; others have succumbed to love of a woman. Still others have, in the old-fashioned phrase, simply lost their faith. While the break with the ministry is still an emotionally harrowing experience for most, this growing battalion of unfrocked clerics are finding it easier to marry, raise a family and get a decent job. The ex-priests are no longer the pariahs of Christianity.

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