Priests lives threatened for leaving the priesthood?

[KathieAnn]

I am reading a book (Far From Rome, Near to God), which is about 50 priests who left their vocation. I am trying to refute their flimsy doctrinal reasons for leaving. That’s not too hard but many of them claim that once they decided to leave, they had to sneak away or seek refuge because their lives would be endangered. The time and place of this type of allegation seems to be prior to 1960 and in Europe, particularly Spain. Does anyone know if there might ever have been a time or a place when priests were coerced into staying - when police would hunt them down at the behest of the superiors of the men leaving? Was there ever such a time, even hundreds of years past, when men were forced to stay in the seminary or coerced into taking vows?? Just wondering if there are any buffs out there who know a bit of this kind of history or is aware of men making these allegations and have found them to be false.

Thank you!

 

[promethius]

i cannot speak with 100% certainty, but i would strongly doubt the claim. it seems more a malicious attempt to play anti catholic propaganda off of people’s fear of the inquisitions than a statement of fact.

the only thing i can see would be, far enough back in spains history, a priest leaving the priesthood would be a serious offense, and the people, not the church, might ostracize the priest, though i strongly doubt that the priest would be killed.

 

[meep]

Given the era of these claims, I suspect they are no more accurate than those of some schismatic group (I don’t remember the name) whose ‘pope’ is hiding in the hills of Montana or someplace because they think the Vatican wants to hunt him down. By acting as if they have something to fear, perhaps they justify to themselves the idea that the Church is to be feared.

 

[CatholicNerd]

meep:

Given the era of these claims, I suspect they are no more accurate than those of some schismatic group (I don’t remember the name) whose ‘pope’ is hiding in the hills of Montana or someplace because they think the Vatican wants to hunt him down. By acting as if they have something to fear, perhaps they justify to themselves the idea that the Church is to be feared.

Pius XIII! LOL Doesn’t live too far from me… truecatholic.org/pope/ Yup. Crazy guy. And his vestments look soooo fake, too. LOL