(LifeSiteNews) – The Corps of Reserved Priests United for Service (CORPUS) announced this week that they disbanded late last year due to low membership after advocating for the Latin Church to allow married priests and other heretical reforms for over 50 years.
In a July 6 article first published in the National Catholic Reporter, CORPUS announced that it had closed in December 2024 due to the old age of many of its current members and a lack of new, younger members joining the organization. The heterodox apostolate, founded in 1974 and not recognized by the Catholic Church, had supported the ordination of married men to the priesthood, ordaining female “priests,” and allowing the faithful to use birth control.
CORPUS was founded in 1974 by men who had left the priesthood to marry but still wanted to remain active in priestly ministry and chose “their conscience over Church policy,” per its website.
“Falling in love did not necessarily mean falling out of love with priestly service. Unfortunately, the church would not allow requests by priests to marry and remain active in a parish,” the website states.
While the Eastern Catholic Churches will ordain married men to the priesthood, the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church does not permit married clergy, albeit with some rare exceptions such as the married clergy of the Personal Ordinariate for former Anglicans.
In Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 post-apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis, the pontiff wrote in defense of this teaching:
In union with the great ecclesial Tradition, with the Second Vatican Council and my Predecessors in the Petrine Ministry, I affirm the beauty and the importance of a priestly life lived in celibacy as an expressive sign of total and exclusive dedication to Christ, to the Church and to the Kingdom of God, and consequently confirm its obligatory character for the Latin tradition (n. 24).
READ: Cdl. Kasper: Francis wanted to ‘change’ priestly celibacy, but Benedict XVI, Cdl. Sarah intervened
CORPUS’ site also laments that despite the progressive reforms in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, two key reforms they had hoped for: the welcoming of a “married priesthood” and allowing the faithful to use birth control failed to come to fruition.
“Two of the most anticipated reforms (of the Second Vatican Council) were the acceptance of birth control and the welcoming of a married priesthood. … Sadly, Pope Paul VI favored the counsel of his close Bishops over the overwhelming majority opinion of the Commissions. In 1968, birth control was banned; in 1972, an exclusive celibate priesthood was reaffirmed.”
Here, the organization appears to be referring to Pope Paul VI’s landmark 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which did not “ban birth control” but rather affirmed the constant teaching of the Church that Catholics are not permitted to use birth control. CORPUS also seems to be referring to the pontiff’s 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, which reaffirmed the celibate priesthood.
In addition to supporting married priests and birth control, the organization supported the ordination of women to the priesthood, offering links to various heterodox sites such as Womensordination.org, on its website.
The Catholic Church has consistently taught that ordination to the priesthood is reserved to men alone. Therefore, it is impossible for women to receive validly the sacrament of holy orders.
CORPUS was also a member of the International Church Reform Network (ICRN), an international heterodox network of priests and progressive “reform” movements.
READ: Dissident Catholic priests helped establish group supporting LGBT activism, abortion: report
Clerical celibacy has become a hotly debated topic among the Church hierarchy in recent years has often been raised, with activists proposing ordaining married men as a solution to the crisis of low numbers of priests in the West.
The debate over priestly celibacy has been particularly prominent in light of the controversial Amazon Synod, which suggested that having married priests could be a “pastoral” solution for the region. Several prominent heretical German prelates such as Cardinal Reinhard Marx have also advocated for “married priests,” and the ordination of female “priests.”
READ: Pope Leo XIV affirms clerical celibacy, urges bishops to embody ‘holy and chaste’ Church
Last month, while addressing bishops and seminarians, Pope Leo XIV affirmed Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy and urged the bishops to embody a “holy and chaste” Church.
