The latest profession to feel the impact of freelance consultants is
the
priesthood. A website named rentapriest.com is offering the services
of Catholic priests who have left the church, either to marry or because of
other differences over the Vatican's increasingly hard-line doctrines.
The priests perform weddings, divorces and absolution, among other services;
some of their clients are refused service by the mainstream church because of
its doctrines (such as those on divorce), and others simply find the
waiting lists too long.
Catholic canon law does not provide any means of unordaining an ordained
priest; however, the Catholic church does not recognise the renegade priests,
or any sacraments performed by them.