Alex discussed with Fr Peter Scally this evening in Have Your Say, the subject of compulsory celibacy in the light of today's meeting in Rome. My letter of dispensation is very restrictive. It is prepared to take a valuable resource like myself and others and prevent it from being used for the benefit of the church. What other organisation which had spent so much time and money on its training would do this ?
"a priest who has been dispensed by this process itself loses the rights proper to the clerical state, and the honours and ecclesiastical offices; he is no longer bound by other duties connected with the clerical state he remains excluded from the exercise of the sacred ministry, with the exemption of those matters in Canons 976, 986§2, and therefore cannot give a homily. Moreover he cannot perform the extraordinary ministry of distributing holy communion nor can he undertake a leading office in the pastoral sphere.
Likewise he cannot fulfil any duty in Seminaries and in comparative Institutions. In other institutions of a higher grade of studies, which in any way depend on ecclesiastical Authority, he cannot perform an administrative position or the office of teaching." (from the rescript of dispensation from clerical celibacy)