They employ thousands of people and manage large properties. In many ways, however, this group breaks company with other exclusive clubs in America. Not only are its members unmarried, they must be celibate and Catholic priests for at least five years before becoming a bishop. Celibacy is an impossible hurdle for most Americans. Nor does the club cater to the upper-class as do other exclusive clubs.
Most members come from working-class background.
Only 11 percent of the bishops had fathers who graduated from college. Sixty-two percent of their fathers never graduated from high school. And despite their heavy responsibilities, the bishops are poorly paid. To many people brought up in the pre-Vatican II church, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops is an anomalous body in the Catholic church. It does not fit easily into the traditional hierarchical model of the church that places the pope at the top of the pyramid with bishops, priests, and laity at successively lower levels in the church.