Catholic priests in Poland want to marry

WARSAW: Sixty percent of Roman Catholic priests in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland want the right to marry and have families of their own.

As times change and the social status and respect for the priesthood declines, more and more priests who feel lonely, isolated and misunderstood are considering leaving the priesthood, according to a survey published by Poland's respected Tygodnik Powszechny (TP) weekly which caters for Poland's Catholic intelligentsia.

"Not everyone can cope with the fact that at the beginning of the 21st century priests are no longer regarded as the priest they knew in their youth," Jesuit Father and psychologist Jacek Prusak told TP.
 
But according to an unpublished study, so far only one third of young priests who quit the priesthood do so for the sake of a woman.
 
"The main reason (for quitting the priesthood) are existential problems and ideals," according to the study's author Jozef Baniak of Poznan's Adam Mickiewicz university. "A woman, if she appears, is in the background."
 
"First there is a crisis of the priest's identity and then he looks for someone in whom he can confide his problem," says Baniak.
 
With more than 90 per cent of its population declaring itself Catholic, Poland remains among the most staunchly Roman Catholic countries in the world.