Some are Catholics who see their church as stuck in the past.Others are believers who happen to be divorced, pregnant before marriage or gay.
A few just can't find a priest when they need one. Roman Catholics shunned by the official church are "renting" married priests in times of crisis and celebration.
They turn to http://www.rentapriest.com, a Web site with 2,500 Catholic priests in a national database known as "God's Yellow Pages."
Virtually all the priests in the database have left their official clerical ministries due to the Roman Catholic Church's mandatory celibacy rule, but they continue to conduct weddings, usually for a fee, while performing baptisms, last rites and funerals for free, in keeping with the practice of officially recognized priests.
"We are doing Jesus' work and apparently the church isn't," said Louise Haggett, director of Celibacy Is The Issue (CITI) ministries, which runs the site and helped arrange 3,000 weddings last year.
The group also is working to change the Catholic church's ban on married priests. Haggett said the Internet is a popular source for rent-a-priests because there is a shortage.
Twenty-seven percent of U.S. parishes lack a resident priest, according to a U.S. Conference of Bishops study.
Priests are aging, churches are closing and fewer priests are being ordained.
The church knows there are fewer priests than decades ago but there are plenty to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful, said Ron Menty of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
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