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Even these disturbing figures do not adequately show the depth of the church's clerical crisis. In the past three years, the world population of Catholics has increased by 13,800,000—but there are fewer and fewer replacements for the priests and nuns who leave. Vatican statistics indicate that the number of seminarians dropped from 167,000 in 1964 to 147,000 last year. Across the U.S., hundreds of financially hard-pressed parochial schools are closing, partly because they do not have enough teaching nuns to stay open. Five years ago there was one priest for every 1,380 Catholics, worldwide; today the ratio is one for every 1,435.
Spies, Not Battalions
The Roman Catholic Church, of course, has always suffered defections from the ranks of its vow-bound servants. But in the past those who left usually went as single spies, not in battalions. The best-known rebels were usually heretics like Luther or prophets ahead of their time, like Hugues Felicite Robert de Lamennais, the 19th century activist French priest whose political liberalism prefigured modern Christian Democratic movements in Europe. Some left in shame, branded as social or spiritual misfits. Others were simply embittered by their personal experience in the church, or were unwilling to meet the stern demands of religious life. The latter reason impelled Monica Baldwin to quit the convent; she gained a measure of religious notoriety in the 1950s with her bestselling autobiographical explanation, / Leap Over the Wall. Today, in her 70s, she regrets her departure, and attributes it to "self-will and spiritual infidelity." For years, America's best-known ex-priest was former Franciscan Emmett McLoughlin (People's Padre), who left the church when his superior tried to transfer him from his work at what is now Phoenix's Memorial Hospital, where he is still administrator.
Hotly outspoken ex-priests in the McLoughlin style are the exception today. Far more leave with a deep respect and even love for Catholicism—or at least for what it might be. Keenly disturbing the church is the quality of the exodus clergy. Says Jesuit Sociologist Eugene Schallert, who has just completed a study of 317 departed priests: "Those who are leaving are some of the best men in the church—some of the most intelligent, most enterprising, most charismatic. They are occupationally top men, capable of holding down really good jobs."
Challenge to Authority
The new defectors include college presidents, provincial superiors, theologians and chancery executives. Among them is James P. Shannon (see box, page 54), onetime chairman of the board of the Association of American Colleges and one of the few U.S. bishops to earn a doctorate from a secular university. Next month the ranks of former nuns will be joined by 315 members of Los Angeles' Immaculate Heart Community, including its president and former Mother General, Sister Anita Caspary (see box, page 55). Five years ago, the nation's most publicized advocates of convent renewal were Sister Jacqueline Grennan of Missouri's Webster College and Sister Charles Borromeo Muckinhern of St. Mary's College, Notre Dame. Both have since left the religious life. Sister Jacqueline is now Mrs. Paul Wexler and the new president of Manhattan's Hunter College.