2024-01-08 11:33:00
The Archbishop of Malta and advisor to Pope Francis, Charles Sciclunasaid in an interview published on Sunday that the Roman Catholic Church should “seriously think” about allow priests to marry.
“This is probably the first time I’ve said it publicly and it will sound heretical to some people,” said the religious, who also He is assistant secretary in the Vatican doctrinal officeal Times of Malta.
Pope Francis has ruled out any possibility of changing the Roman Catholic rule requiring priests to be celibate. But it is not a formal doctrine of the Church, so it could be modified by a future pope.
Scicluna, best known for his investigations into sexual abuse crimes, noted that priests could marry in the first millennium of the Church’s history and that marriage is permitted today in the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church.
“If it were up to me, I would review the requirement that priests have to be celibate”, he claimed. “Experience has shown me that it is something we have to think seriously about.”
Scicluna, 64, said the Church had “lost many great priests because they chose marriage.” Although she assured that “there is a place” for celibacy in the Church, it also had to be taken into account that a priest sometimes falls in love. Then she has to choose “between herself and the priesthood, and some priests deal with it by having romantic relationships in secret.”
The debate over whether Catholic priests should be able to marry has existed for centuries. Religious people can marry in the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church, as well as in the Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican churches. Those who oppose marriage claim that celibacy allows a priest to dedicate himself entirely to the Church.
In 2021, the Pope rejected a proposal to allow the ordination of some elderly married people in remote areas of the Amazon, where in some places the faithful saw a priest only once a year.
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