Priests should be allowed to marry, says Vatican official
“Why should we lose a young man who would have made a fine priest, just because he wanted to get married?”
A Vatican official has said that the Church should revise the requirement for priestly celibacy in the Latin rite.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, an adjunct secretary at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Vatican’s senior sex abuse investigator, told the Times of Malta that the Church should “think seriously about” changing the Western discipline.
“If it were up to me, I would revise the requirement that priests have to be celibate,” he said.
“This is probably the first time I’m saying it publicly and it will sound heretical to some people,” he added.
The 64-year-old archbishop said that the Church should learn from the example of the Eastern Churches, which allow married men the option of ordination to the priesthood.
“Why should we lose a young man who would have made a fine priest, just because he wanted to get married? And we did lose good priests just because they chose marriage,” he said.
Scicluna, who has personally handled multiple investigations into clerical sex abuse on behalf of the Vatican’s doctrine office, made the comments when asked about Catholic priests in Malta who have secret relationships and have fathered illegitimate children.
“This is a global reality – it doesn’t just happen in Malta. We know there are priests around the world who also have children and I think there are ones in Malta who may have too,” Scicluna said.
“A man may mature, engage in relationships, love a woman. As it stands, he must choose between her and priesthood, and some priests cope with that by secretly engaging in sentimental relationships,” he said.
Scicluna, who was a delegate at the Synod on Synodality assembly last October, added that he has previously spoken openly in Rome about his views on priestly celibacy.
The requirement for priestly celibacy was openly discussed at the 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon region, but Pope Francis chose not to mention celibacy in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Christus Vivit.
The topic featured during the 2023 Synod on Synodality at the Vatican in October. The assembly’s synthesis report asked whether it is necessary to maintain the discipline of priestly celibacy in the Latin rite and called for the question to be addressed again in the next assembly in October 2024, noting that “different assessments were expressed” on the topic during the first synod assembly.
In an interview for a book published in October, Pope Francis opposed the idea that changes to Church practice such as introducing female deacons or optional priestly celibacy would help increase vocations.
Asked about women’s ordination bringing “more people closer to the Church” and optional priestly celibacy helping with priest shortages, Pope Francis said he does not share these views.
“Lutherans ordain women, but still few people go to church,” Pope Francis said. “Their priests can marry, but despite that, they can’t grow the number of ministers. The problem is cultural. We should not be naïve and think that programmatic changes will bring us the solution.”
“Mere ecclesiastical reforms do not serve to solve underlying issues. Rather, paradigmatic changes are what is needed,” he added, citing his 2019 letter to German Catholics for further considerations on the issue.
wHAT A breath of fresh air to hear a Bishop call for optional celibacy.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those priests he referred to when he said some young priests
were forced to leave the priesthood when they sought permission to marry.
What a dilemma! I loved being a priest and ministering to people, but
I had to leave the priesthood when I wanted to marry and have a family.
An interesting footnote: I was working in South America and in general,
people don't believe it is possible for a man to be celibate.
It goes against nature.
However, every cloud has a silver lining.
In the course of my 52 years of married life with a wife and 3 children
I have met amazing people outside of the institutional Catholic Church.
Some of these people were former Catholics: lapsed.
Some had left the Church because of the sex scandal and the cover up
by the bishops. A huge loss to the Catholic Church. A huge gain
for many other religious groups.
I tried to point this out to Cardinal Law one day, that married priests
were doing what they wanted to do in the priesthood: feeding the hungry;
sheltering the homeless; visiting the sick and people in prison;
welcoming immigrants and refugees and trying to assist them in
their new country. Unfortunately, bishops like Law chose to put all
their talents towards protecting pedophile priests and lying to
authorities that he knew nothing about the sex crisis, until
a Catholic judge forced him to turn over church documents about
the sex scandal. Unsurprisingly, his initials were all over the
documents. Not only did he know about the abuses taking place, he
kept re-assigning priests to other parishes, where they continued
to abuse and rape children.
The Pope and leaders in Rome rewarded Cardinal Law for "protecting"
the Church by naming him the pastor of one of the main basilicas in Rome,
giving him a chauffeured car and appointing him to the Committee
which names new bishops.
I close by calling for CHEERS AND ACOLADES FOR
ARCHBISHOP SCICLUNA OF MALTA.
My his courage and wisdom and honesty rub off on other
Church leaders.
Not news to many of us who have been affiliated with CORPUS for years. I would add: rather than dropping the requirement for clerical celibacy simply add the choice for marriage for those who want it. In a sense, it would be returning to the ancient tradition of the Church's First Millenium i.e., celibate and married clergy ministering together. Sound familiar? It's happening now. Formerly married Anglican clergy functioning as Catholic priests in US dioceses. It's time.
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