PARISHES DESPERATE FOR YOUNG PRIESTS LOOK TO LAITY.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM Staff Writer

In Roman Catholic schools across the San Fernando Valley, youngsters pray each day for the priesthood -- prayers urged by church leaders facing a critical shortage of pastors that's changing the face of neighborhood parishes.

With the Roman Catholic clergy aging and a shortage of newly ordained priests to replace retiring pastors, plans are evolving to divide the duties of pastors among churches or even to allow lay people to take over parish operations.

Currently, 18 of the pastors who oversee the Valley's 50 or so parishes are 66 or older, and could retire in the next five years, say officials with the Los Angeles Archdiocese. With an average of one new priest being assigned to the region each year, the church is looking to the laity for answers.

``The Catholic community has a responsibility to bring forth from its midst the leadership it needs, the ministers it needs and most definitely the lay involvement,'' said Bishop Gerald E. Wilkerson, who oversees a region of the Los Angeles Archdiocese that covers the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Wilkerson will head a bimonthly meeting today of his San Fernando Pastoral Regional Council -- a group of priests, nuns and lay members that has been grappling for months with ideas to keep the region's parishes running with fewer and fewer priests.

The meeting -- held at the former Queen of Angels Seminary, where priests no longer train -- is the group's last before a Nov. 18 conference in Woodland Hills. There, Cardinal Roger Mahony will review results of a survey of Southland parishes on the crisis in the priesthood.

``The majority of the laity has no clue,'' said Kathleen Schwartz, a lay member hand-picked by Mahony to sit on the regional council. ``Because of that, we have to develop a comprehensive plan to make sure the people in the pews understand.''

Church is thriving

Already the shortage is having an impact, Wilkerson said, noting that his office gets frequent calls from parishes looking for priests to help with their Sunday Masses.

While the priesthood is dwindling, however, the church is thriving. The archdiocese boasted nearly 4.4 million Catholics in 2005, about two-fifths of the population of Los Angeles County.

Locally, results of the survey, completed June 1, favored appointing nonclerical parish life directors to handle the business of the church, leaving the ordained to celebrate Mass and administer sacraments.

``PLDs'' could be men and women from religious orders or trained laity. Four Southern California churches are now run by these directors. Though there is some fear that the Vatican would object, Wilkerson said canon law allows for lay parish directors.

``It could be a deacon, a woman religious (nuns) or laymen and -women,'' Wilkerson said. ``They must have all the academic requirements -- probably a master's in religious studies or theology.

``If you're going to lead a parish, you need to know canon law, Scripture, the whole nine yards. They would be leaders.''

Also favored was an option called ``twinning,'' in which two churches would share one pastor.

``Clustering,'' in which pastors would share a number of parishes, got a lukewarm response, and consolidating parishes by closing some churches earned a resounding ``no'' vote.

It's in God's hands

For Msgr. Peter Moran, the 67-year-old pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Northridge, the solution lies in God's hands.

``I'm sure the Lord is still calling men and women to ministry in the church,'' Moran said. ``It's up to us as faith communities to foster that call and make the vocation more inviting.

``It's a complex issue with complex answers. The solution, first of all, is to try to build up the priesthood, build up vocations, by alerting people of the parish that the need is now and going to be greater in the future.''

That means priests must make the priesthood look appealing as a calling and lifestyle, parents must be willing to nurture vocations in their sons -- and perhaps, someday, their daughters -- and Catholics must step back from society's demands and lead more spiritually fulfilling lives, he said.

Schwartz is surprisingly outspoken about the problems in the priesthood, particularly about the roads that led to the mounting crisis.

When the priesthood was thriving, she said, a large contingent was gay. It was an honorable life for a man for whom marriage wasn't an option.

``That's not to say there aren't a lot of straight priests, but a lot of gays were drawn because their options were limited,'' she said.

Looking at options

It was Schwartz who proclaimed at one pastoral council meeting that while Catholic schoolchildren had been asked to pray for the past year for vocations, God is answering those prayers by forcing the church to look at options.

She is a member of a growing Catholic call for married priests and women in the priesthood. She also advocates even greater involvement for deacons and lay people, who for years have been performing some duties of the priesthood -- distributing communion, hearing confessions, performing weddings and delivering sermons.

``I personally believe the Holy Spirit is saying it's time to change,'' Schwartz said. ``If we don't have enough priests, what do we do? We, the laity, have to step up. We have to take on responsibility.

``And the church has to eventually recognize that while the numbers are declining in the priesthood, we have a strong faith base. But 50 percent of us can't be priests.''

Both clerics said they don't oppose women and married men in the priesthood, but Wilkerson noted that those possibilities come with a new set of problems.

``If we have a married clergy, that would bring a whole other set of struggles,'' Wilkerson said. ``We'd deal with married priests who have divorces, affairs, out-of-control kids, kids in jail. It's not just, `Let's have married priests and everything will be wonderful.'''

The direction must come from the Vatican, Moran added.

``Personally, myself, I have no objection to married or women priests for the future if that is the will of the Holy Spirit coming through the Holy Father. We see the work the laywomen are doing in the parish; we see the work married people are doing in our faith. I see only blessings coming from that.''

Society to blame?

Wilkerson and Moran blame a society growing more complicated and more materialistic for the slim numbers entering the priesthood.

Both are from an era of larger families in which parents were proud to see sons and daughters enter religious life. After all, there were still more children to ensure they could both boast a son in the priesthood and a bevy of grandchildren.

Moran was the youngest of an Irish family of 14 that produced three priests and two nuns. It was a time when families shared meals, chores, playtime and evening prayers. Fathers worked, mothers raised kids and material possessions weren't so much the focus.

And it was a time that sex was a private matter, a gift from God to be shared in marriage. It wasn't the stuff of headlines that embarrassed a church, scarred young victims and depleted church funds to settle lawsuits.

``We've lost the sanctity of our sexuality, and we've paid the price,'' Wilkerson said. ``We have to take back the gift of sexuality God has given us.''

The church sex scandal is just a piece of the problem, Moran said.

``I have no doubt it's put a damper on young men approaching the church or vocations,'' he said. ``But if God is calling young men today, that ultimately will not be a hindrance. There are a lot of negative forces working ... secularism, the priest scandal. Dedicating one's life to a life of celibacy in the priesthood demands a vocation.

``God is calling young men, yet there are these in our culture. One thing is certain: It doesn't worry me because the Lord is in charge. He will raise up the vocations in his church.''

pat.aidem(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Eucharistic Minister Carol Schultz, center, and Msgr. Peter Moran offer Communion wafers during Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Northridge on Wednesday night.

(2) Eucharistic Minister Carol Schultz offers a Communion wafer during Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Northridge on Wednesday night.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer