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	What's Happening to Our Priests? By Tom Roberts National Catholic Reporter [United States] April 27, 2007 http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007b/042707/042707b.htm It's a fair question. No matter how much one might wish for a change in the ordained ministry to include married men or women or both, the fact is that at the moment the priesthood is exclusively celibate males, and many are serving under severe strain. Part of the strain, of course, is because of declining numbers and increased demands. Not a small part of the strain for some results from the clergy abuse crisis. NCR arguably has spent more ink and pages on the clergy sex abuse crisis than any other publication since we first broke the story in 1984. Yet nagging questions of justice continue to pester the community and perhaps none is more significant than the question of justice for priests. Joe Feuerherd explores some dimensions of the problem in a story on in today's issue. It is a difficult tale to tell because priests in the midst of canonical processes are reluctant to talk. Others are reluctant to criticize a system that too often appears arbitrary and even capricious and is made all the more difficult to assess because much of the deliberation occurs in secret. We'll follow next week with a story by Emiliano Huet-Vaughn that looks at the morale of priests and how their lives and ministry have changed and been reshaped as a result of the abuse crisis.
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