THESE PRIESTS STAY

Much has been written about the priests who leave the Church in large numbers every year; but little is known about those who, having confronted the same problems and anxieties as their displaced brethren, choose to stay in the ministry. The ten priests who have contributed to this book explain their experiences and their reasons for remaining -- in considerable detail -- sparing neither the shortcomings of the Church and their fellow clergy nor their own weaknesses and failings. Predictably sexual difficulties figure in these first-person narratives; but the crisis, when it comes, seems to be one essentially of loneliness which manifests itself in dissatisfaction with the celibate life. Certainly, there is an obvious resentment toward it, and a sometimes explicit and always implicit plea that the priest did not understand what was involved when he was ordained. The priest-contributors, for the most part, write under their own names, and their ""confessions"" make interesting, if somewhat uneven, reading. The book will certainly be controversial.