Professor Mary Ann Glendon

Professor Glendon sees hope in Legionary vocations and formation

February 24, 2002 -- During an interview about issues in the Catholic Church on the ABC News program "This Week," Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School pointed to the Legion of Christ as a positive example of priestly renewal in the Church.

In recent years, the Vatican has tabbed Professor Glendon to serve as a representative at various international gatherings such as the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing. She is currently a member of the Boston Archdiocese´s Social Justice Commission.

The ABC interview was conducted by George Stephanopoulos, formerly a close advisor to President Bill Clinton and now a correspondent for ABC News. In part, the interview included the following exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Professor Glendon, as we look at that question--the church is also facing a shortage of priests--should it consider opening up the vocation to more married priests?

PROFESSOR GLENDON: Well, again, I think that the married priesthood is not a solution to the problem of the shortage of priests. It might be a solution in the sense that the ratio of priests to the faithful would change. If we look at the example of other churches that have opened the priesthood to women and married clergy, we see that their memberships have declined precipitously. I don´t think that that´s the solution. I think the solution is, just as Professor Groome was saying, we need a serious renewal. That would involve a renewal of the seminaries to make them the kinds of places where young men would happily go and where parents would happily send their sons. If we look at the Legionaries of Christ, for example, a new order, their seminaries are overflowing, their vocations are flourishing. So it is a time for reflection.

Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University. She writes and teaches in the fields of human rights, comparative law, constitutional law, and legal theory. Her most recent book, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the uiversal Declaration of Human Rights, is the story of Mrs. Roosevelt´s proudest achievement: the framing of the U.N.´s declaration of rights that belong to everyone on earth simply by virtue of being human. In 1994, Prof. Glendon was appointed by Pope John Paul II to the newly created Pontifical Academy of Social Science. In 1995, she was nmed to the Holy See´s Central Committee for the Great Jubilee 2000, and headed the 22-member delegation of the Holy See to the Fourth U.N. Women´s Conference in Bijing. She also serves as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.