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Case Investigator Maurice Geary, formerly of St. David's Church in Detroit, is "happy as hell that I'm on the outside." A civil rights militant, he left the priesthood after the archdiocese tried to demote him from his parish assignment to a lesser job. Unlike many former clerics who still regard themselves as priests but inactive ones, Geary has abandoned any sense of the ministry. "I wasn't looking to start my own church," he says. "Why should I light a candle and play games by celebrating the Mass in the basement?"
Gray Zone
Some former priests retain strong feelings for their clerical past. Former Jesuit Eugene C. Bianchi is now married and teaching theology at Emory University in Atlanta. He is also President of the Society of Priests for a Free Ministry, which claims some 1,000 priests (some married, some not) exercising a sort of freewheeling ministry around the U.S. Writing in John A. O'Brien's recent book, Why Priests Leave, Bianchi argues that "some of us will have to move into a gray zone" the better to try new styles of priesthood, but looks gratefully on his Jesuit past "as a preparation for a new mission." Occasionally, the pull of the past can draw a priest back to the official ministry. Bearings for Re-Establishment found that one priest-client was disgruntled principally because his bishop had refused his many requests for transfer from a lonely country parish; Bearings found him a new bishop and sent him happily back to work. Many more, however, would agree with Thomas J. Durkin, a former Philadelphia priest now directing Bianchi's group from San Francisco. Even if the celibacy rule is lifted, says Durkin, going back to parish life "would put me in a situation that a lot of Protestant ministers are leaving."
In the first years that followed Vatican II, priests who abandoned their vocation often had a hard time. Shunned by former colleagues and sometimes even their families, they found employ ers suspicious of their past and their training inadequate for secular life. Sociologist Schallert learned that many had particular difficulty in adjusting to mature relationships with women: "Girls sometimes tell them, 'You act like a 14-year-old boy.' " Even wearing a necktie could be a trauma.
All that is changing. Pope Paul has made it much easier for dissatisfied priests to gain dispensations from their vows; counseling services like Bearings, Washington's Career Programming Institute, and San Francisco's Next Step provide advice about jobs, psychological help (if needed) and often sedately swinging parties for ex-priests to meet other men and women who have jumped over the wall. Career Programming has placed former clerics in jobs paying as much as $35,000 a year. Even though some priests may have mainly theological backgrounds, explains a Bearings counselor, businesses are increasingly interested in them because liberal-arts graduates are "trained in clear thinking."