By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Savio Russo has no regrets about leaving the priesthood to start a family (from left: Angela, 20, Becca, 12, wife Robbie and Tricia, 14) But he has struggled at times to find such rewarding work. (Craig Ruttle photo)

Savio Russo loved being a priest.

The Cincinnati man taught high school, counseled the sick and presided over baptisms, funerals and weddings.

But after 14 years, he felt something was missing. "It was a pretty exciting life," Russo, 59, says today. "But it was lonely."

He blames that loneliness on the celibacy required of priests, a rule that Russo says ultimately drove him from the priesthood. Now married with four children, he regrets that his desire for a family meant he could no longer be a priest.

Questions about celibacy are being raised as U.S. Catholics struggle with a severe priest shortage.

"How do you get more priests? Go to optional celibacy," says Dean Hoge, author of Evolving Visions of the Priesthood. "The priest shortage would be over."

A survey for Hoge's book found that 71 percent of lay Catholics and 53 percent of diocesan priests support optional celibacy.

But the church is not a democracy, and rewriting rules that have been in place for 800 years is no easy task. Any change in the celibacy rule would require the approval of the Vatican, which has shown little support for that move.

The pope believes a priest can best serve his flock if he is solely devoted to his church, and not distracted by demands of family life.

The archdiocese does have one married priest - the Rev. Gregory Lockwood, a former Lutheran minister. The church accepts ministers who convert from other faiths, even if they are married at the time.

"I'm glad they let me work, but I have a very special spouse," says Lockwood, who also has five kids. He's wary of optional celibacy because the priesthood is hard on families. "People really underestimate how much people depend on you," he says.

Other problems include the difficulty of supporting a family on a priest's $20,000 salary, the prospect of priests getting divorced and the pitfalls of transferring entire families to new parish assignments.

"It's one thing to move a priest from Cincinnati to Wapakoneta. It's another to move a priest, a wife and four kids to Wapakoneta," Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk says. "Many see ordained married men as a quick fix. It's not quick, and I'm not sure it's a fix."

Supporters of optional celibacy say Americans are transferred and juggle low-paying jobs all the time.

They believe that ending the celibacy rule would draw thousands more prospective priests to U.S. seminaries, where enrollments have dropped from 6,600 to 3,400 over the past 30 years.

"We are unnecessarily restricting the priesthood, and that's not serving the church well," says Sister Christine Schenk, director of the reform group, FutureChurch.