12/10/06 - Posted from the Daily Record newsroom
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Priest lives spiritually with wife in Parsippany, outside
tradition
72-year-old says he
plays unique role for community
Anthony
Padovano knew what he wanted to do with his life when he was a teenager sitting
up in bed one night, unable to sleep. He says he had a "quasi-mystical
experience," a calling from God, and afterward told his parents he wanted
to become a priest.
He used another word to convey urgency.
"I need to
be a priest," he told his parents.
Technically,
and he says spiritually, he remains a Catholic priest 32 years after he left
his church ministry to marry a nun he met while teaching a graduate course on
theology. Once ordained, priests always are priests, even though married
priests are not allowed to function as clerics within the church. That creates
some internal stresses, Padovano said.
"The
official church keeps saying you have to live as a lay person, but you're not
one," he said. "It's like telling a surgeon that because you get
married, you can never do surgery again."
Padovano, 72, a
college professor and author who lives in Parsippany, said he once expected
Roman Catholic officials to end mandatory celibacy for priests. He hoped to
return to a church ministry. But that didn't happen, Padovano became a critic
of church leadership, and he decided long ago that it was better to keep
talking about issues in the church than to go back. And, like hundreds and
perhaps thousands of married priests across the nation, he said he has a ministry
outside the traditional boundaries of the church.
"I respond
to pastoral needs," he said.
He did not
attend this weekend's married priest convention held at the Sheraton Hotel in
Parsippany, and said he didn't want to make extensive comments about the movement
that led to that convention -- criticized by some for its connection with the
Rev. Sung Myung Moon. But he applauded the movement's leader, Archbishop
Emmanuel Milingo, who was excommunicated after ordaining married men as
bishops, for taking up the issue of optional celibacy.
Wave of
marriages
Padovano and
his wife, Theresa, were among thousands of priests and nuns who left church
ministries in the 1960s and 1970s to get married. Church historians say the
exodus peaked in 1973 when 900 American priests left their ministries. Priests
who left church ministries at the time often received dispensations that
allowed them to get married, a practice later restricted by Pope John Paul II.
Married priests
are still priests, said Monsignor Robert Wister, a professor of church history
at Seton Hall University, but are not allowed to function as clerics except in
emergencies. They created support groups in the 1980s and lobbied the Vatican
to change its rules on celibacy. Many continued to function as priests, outside
the boundaries of the traditional church. Three hundred married priests
nationwide are listed by a group called Rent-A-Priest. They typically perform
weddings traditional priests won't -- for example, for Catholics who have been
divorced and who have not been granted an annulment.
Padovano does
not belong to Rent-A-Priest but said he does perform weddings. While he once
wanted to return to the church, he said that no longer is his goal. He said he
disagrees with church leadership on a wide range of issues, such as birth
control and the role of women in the church. He advocates lay people having
more say in the church. CORPUS, a national group once headed by Padovano that
represents 1,500 married priests, supports ordaining women as priests, a subject
church officials won't discuss.
"If I went
back and was compelled to serve under (a conservative) bishop, what would I
gain, and what would the people of God gain?" Padovano said.
Issue closed
Theresa Padovano,
65, his wife, also has become a prominent church critic. She co-founded the
northern New Jersey chapter of Voice of the Faithful, formed to provide support
to victims of clerical sex abuse and to promote discussions about changes in
the church. She said a group of married priests and their wives used to get
together to provide support for one another. They expected the church to change
its stand on celibacy for priests -- but Pope John Paul II closed discussion of
the issue.
"We prayed
for it to happen," Theresa Padovano said of optional celibacy. "But I
think the Holy Spirit knew what she was doing. We would have been so grateful
that I wonder if we would have been free to say what we really believe. ... We
wouldn't have been free to criticize the hierarchical system."
The Padovanos,
who have four children and are expecting their first grandchild, joined a
religious community in Nutley, and Anthony said he still has a ministry. He
performs wedding ceremonies that traditional priests won't. Those marriages are
not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, according to experts. But Padovano
said the ceremonies he performs have some benefit to the church, even if church
officials don't see it that way.
"A priest
who is married can reach out to people in a way that keeps them tied to the
church ... as opposed to feeling abandoned and neglected," Padovano said.
He said he
heard his father's dying confession in a hospital in 1987 after at first
resisting. He told his father they were too close for him to hear the
confession. He told him he could find another priest in the hospital. His
father responded that he didn't know how much time he had left.
"I won't
go to anyone else," his father said.
Padovano said
he embraced celibacy when he became a priest, but after he fell in love he
began to see it as an institutional requirement rather than a spiritual one. He
said he wasn't disillusioned about the priesthood.
"You don't
have to be disillusioned to fall in love," Padovano said.
The Padovanos
fell in love over dinner with friends, during theological discussions following
summer classes. Anthony taught in Houston in 1973. He was attracted to Theresa
because she is "an extremely beautiful person." She was impressed by
his progressive theology, including his stand on sexual issues, and remembers
him talking about people having a say about the size of their families. That
was "radical" at the time, she said. When he went back to New Jersey,
and she returned to Montana, they stayed in touch by writing letters and
talking on the phone.
Anthony said he
didn't want to take Theresa away from a life that made her happy. Theresa said
she didn't want to take Anthony away from the priesthood. They had a decision
to make -- accept their love or never see one another again. Anthony told
Theresa he wanted to spend his life with her. He says now that getting married
was a calling from God, every bit as powerful as the one he had when he was a
teenager. Theresa said she also felt a calling. She wanted to set an example.
'Something
new'
"I had the
feeling that the Spirit was doing something unusual, something new," she
said. "There was a need for people to see there isn't a contradiction
between ministry and marriage."
Theresa said
nuns in her community referred to Anthony as their "brother-in-law."
They both said their families understood. They were married on Sept. 1, 1974,
in the living room of the house where they still live and where they raised
their four children. Theresa said their lives have been no less spiritual than
when they were part of the traditional church.
"We see
the home as a sacred place," she said as she talked about laughter in her
house over the years, children playing, taking music lessons, dressing for
Little League games, going off to college and starting their own families.
Abbott Koloff can be reached at (973) 989-0652 or akoloff@gannett.com