Priest organizations around the country, both local and national, should realize that their membership has a serious image problem and undertake programs to improve it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What I think we can do is help individuals understand the church teaching, but also maybe help the church understand the viewpoint of lay men and women about what they want in regard to priests, or how do they want the hierarchy to deal with them?
Whatever flaws or personal failings afflict them, it remains the case that the overwhelming majority of priests and politicians are honourable and honest - seeking to live out their beliefs and serve society.
There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.
The artistic taste of the Catholic priests is appalling and I am most anxious to have a Catholic church in which everything is genuine and good, and not tawdry and ostentatious.
One cannot escape the harsh fact that as a ministerial profession, the priesthood has very serious problems. They are not new. They did not develop yesterday or last year.
I think the strength of the Catholic church is that when it does finally identify a problem, it works to resolve it.
There is good news in the data the strongest support for priests is to be found among the younger generation.
We're seeing a much larger ministry here for the general community. Not just Catholics, but others are calling us too. They're not looking for lawyers or suing their grandfathers, but counseling and healing.
Every kid that goes to Catholic school believes he's going to be a priest one day.
Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.