In 1968, Thomas Groome was ordained as a priest.
Even then, he wondered about the requirement that priests remain celibate.
"I
was in an old Irish seminary back in the late '60s, early '70s," he
tells NPR's Rachel Martin.
"At that time, we thought everything was
going to change," because the church had recently made changes to the
mass.
But in the years following, the rule didn't change, and
Groome became more and more conflicted about his own celibacy. He slowly
started to realize it wasn't nurturing him and giving him life.
"In
fact, it probably was becoming destructive of me," he says. "And I
think that's one of the dangers of obligatory celibacy, that it can lead
to self-destructive and outer-destructive behavior. It's a hazardous
lifestyle."
Groome had a moment of clarity during a 30-day
retreat. "By the 18th day I began to realize that I was fooling myself,"
he says. He'd been a priest for 17 years. He decided to take a year's
leave of absence.
During that time he spent time in a Trappist
monastery and considered becoming a Jesuit priest. "My attitude was, if
I'm going to live this celibacy, then let me live it in community,
because part of my difficulty was the loneliness of it."
But in
the midst of his time away, he met a woman and fell in love. He applied
for dispensation from Rome and eventually married her. Groome says
marriage has enriched his faith enormously.
"I've often said
I'd love to go back and re-preach some of the sermons I gave on
marriage," he says. "Now that I know a little bit more about it, I
wouldn't be nearly as self-righteous and as advising, either, because I
know the challenges of it."
He thinks marriage could be a positive force
in the lives of other priests, too.
"In many ways," Groome
says, "my marriage has become a tremendous call to holiness for me."
But
if the rules ever change, he'd seriously consider returning to the
priesthood.
"Certainly. I'd be very excited about the possibilities."