It’s time to change the rules around celibacy

HAVING MARRIED AND WOMEN PRIESTS IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

FORTY years ago and more, I was convinced mandatory celibacy for priests was unnecessary and possibly harmful.

Most people then dismissed me as a revolutionary who was unhappy being a priest. I was looking for a way out, they said. A few lay people saw the sense in what I said but knew it would never come about.

As the years passed, my conviction grew stronger. I believe the vocation to the priesthood is different from the call to live a celibate life. The priesthood should not be bound by the chains of mandatory celibacy.

That conviction got me into trouble with the Vatican. Yet, the vast majority of lay people now consider mandatory celibacy to be one of the main causes of the fall-off in vocations. They know it is unreasonable to force a normal person to live a celibate life. In short, it’s a no-brainer.

JUSTIFICATION

Lay people would be willing to serve as ordained ministers if mandatory celibacy was removed.

Today, which is a day to discern vocations worldwide, I am convinced there is no shortage of vocations in our communities, but there is a shortage of male celibates.

Let me put it this way: I can see many valid reasons for a person to choose celibacy — in or out of the priesthood. But there is no justification for insisting that a call to serve as a priest must also entail a vow to be celibate. As an aside, what does it say about the Church’s beliefs about sexuality? What’s so evil about married love that it is incompatible with priesthood?

I’m close to 55 years working as a priest. I love being a priest. However, I know for certain that I would have been a better priest if I had married and raised a family. I’m not complaining — I’m stating a fact about my life as I near the end of my days.

Now, wait for this!

One of the world’s most influential and highly respected Vatican Archbishops agrees that mandatory celibacy has outlived its usefulness.

In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Archbishop Charles Scicluna re-stated his conviction that priestly celibacy should be ended: “One of my worries is that people are put in a situation where they are comfortable living a double life.

“This is not to diminish the beauty of celibacy or the heroic commitment of people who have accepted celibacy as a gift and live it. But I think it is good to discuss it.”

Scicluna is the Archbishop of

Malta and is also highly placed in the Vatican. He works closely with Pope Francis.

He is best known for the brave stand he took in highlighting the proper procedures for ending hypocrisy around child sexual abuse in the Catholic church worldwide.

The topic of mandatory celibacy will have to be discussed in the second part of the Synod, which takes place in Rome this coming October.

Scicluna said: “What you learn through experience is that you have to factor in human frailty and the fact that people mature into different situations; they find themselves in a different place psychologically and spiritually…”

As most people now realise, we in the Catholic Church have had over a thousand years of compulsory celibacy and, before that, a thousand years where married priests was the norm.

Proposals to allow the ordination of married priests have been discussed in two synods.

Now is the time to do something about it.

OUTRAGEOUS

I do NOT believe that the answer to the shortage of priests will be solved by ordaining more married priests — there are already married priests working in the Catholic church. Nor do I hold that ordaining women will be the answer to everything.

That is not why I believe we should have married priests and women priests.

I believe both should happen because it is the correct thing to do before God.

It would be outrageous to ordain people merely to fill a clerical void.

Rather, we must change manmade laws so that God’s call to serve His community becomes open to all.

Marriage has many pains; celibacy has few pleasures.