World National
©World National / Roger-Luc Chayer

'Rent-A-Priest' Gaining Popularity

It's called God's Yellow Pages online, linking hundreds of Catholic priests to couples looking for someone to marry them or baptize their children.

But these Catholic priests are married and therefore unrecognized by a church that demands a vow of celibacy.

NewsCenter 5's Ed Harding reported that while some call the Web site known as "Rent-A-Priest" blasphemous, thousands of people are flocking to it.

Six years ago Ron Ingalls, an ordained Catholic priest, offered Mass for the first time in over two decades. Ingalls left the church in the 1960s and married eight years later. Today he has two grown daughters. He says he felt too confined by the church's rules.

"It wasn't celibacy, it was the discomfort I had in the strictures of the institution. I wanted it to be much more open and much more liberal and much more accepting of diversity," Ingalls said.

The retired high school teacher said that the home Mass he served six years ago reconnected him to his religion by letting him minister in an unorthodox way. He connected with Louise Haggett, founder of the Framingham-based CITI Ministries, which stands for Celibacy Is The Issue.

The organization's Rent-A-Priest Web site connects married Catholic priests to people in need of one for a wedding or baptism. Haggett calls her customers marginalized Catholics.

"It is more important to them that they are being married or their baby baptized by a Catholic priest, a man they feel has been anointed by God, than it would for them to be married by a justice of the piece or recognized by the Catholic institution," Haggett said.

The thousands of people who use Rent-A-Priest might be divorced and unable to remarry through the organized church without an annulment. They may feel a connection to Catholicism, but not a total commitment or they want to marry outdoors which the Catholic Church doesn't allow.

"I was brought up Catholic and it's still very dear to my heart," Steve Clouter said.

Ingalls married Steve and Amy Clouter a few years ago. The Clouters had parted ways with the church over doctrinal issues like celibacy, homosexuality and the right to choose.

"We wanted to be sensitive to our parents and grandparents who are still very religious and would want the ceremony performed by a priest," Clouter said.

The Archdiocese of Boston would not speak on-camera, but said by phone that these ceremonies are not "valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church" and they are "concerned there is possible confusion and misunderstanding" about that.

"I make it absolutely clear that in the eyes of the church they will not be married. In the eyes of the state, they will be because they have a license," Ingalls said.

"Married Catholic priests are very holy people. People flock to them. They are like pied pipers of the unchurched," Haggett said.

The Diocese considers CITI Ministries to be a dissenting group. Ingalls believes that he provides an outlet for the spiritually disenfranchised.

"I'm sad about the fact that some of these people are being lost to the church. I still consider myself a Catholic. I respond to a need that people have. I think that's the right thing to do," Ingalls said.

According to the National Association for a Married Priesthood, since 1970, 23,000 priests have resigned to be married.