Somebody check the water up in NYC. First Cardinal Egan, now the Jesuit editors at America magazine are suggesting the Catholic church consider married priests.

Everyone knows that ordinations in the church are drastically declining and the church has not been able to stanch the flood. There were 5,700 fewer Catholic priest in 2008 then in 2000.

“Silence and fervent prayer for vocations are no longer adequate responses to the priest shortage in the United States,” America says.

The mags “modest proposal” is: “What about the recruitment and training of married men as priests? Married priests already minister in the Catholic Church, both East and West. … As we face the challenges of the priest shortage, some of the more than 16,000 permanent deacons in the United States, many of them married, who experience a call to priestly ministry might be called to ordination with a similarly adapted discipline. In addition, the views and desires of some of the more than 25,000 priests who have been laicized (and are now either single or married) should also be heard.

The editorial is nuanced and respectful, though for many it may recall what happened after America espoused a number of opinions considered unhelpful by the Vatican.