Two more retired bishops, including one who attended two sessions of the Second Vatican Council, have urged the Church to consider ordaining married men, while a third has said the matter should be discussed.
By contrast, at least two serving bishops say they want to keep the status quo. Speaking to The Tablet, the former Bishop of Shrewsbury, Brian Noble, said the time had come for the bishops of England and Wales to look seriously at the issue.
“It would seem that the Pope has indicated he is open to bishops’ conferences approaching him. If this is the case, then a way forward is to take the situation to Rome,” he said, adding: “We’ve got to be thinking about new ways of tackling the shortage of clergy. If you go to a gathering of priests today, it is like a gathering of grandfathers. In the past, the bishops’ conference has not addressed these issues because it was felt there was no point in doing so.”
Meanwhile, Colin Cameron Davies, a Mill Hill missionary and Bishop Emeritus of Ngong, in Kenya, who was at Vatican II in 1964-5, has written to the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales calling for them to take action on “Eucharistic Hunger” and press for the ordination of married men.
“If things are ‘a bit messy’ that is preferable to having no Mass at all,” he writes.
For his part, the Archbishop Emeritus of Southwark, Kevin McDonald, said it would “make sense” for the universal Church to discuss the possibility of married priests and that space had been opened up to do this by the Synod on the Family.
Research by academic Dr Bridie Stringer on the permanent diaconate found that out of 53 surveyed in the Southwark Province, almost a third felt called to priesthood. However, the Bishop of Plymouth, Mark O’Toole, said he would like to see vibrant faith communities so that men will see the “beauty of celibacy” while Bishop Robert Byrne, auxiliary in Birmingham, said ordaining married men would “cut across” the ancient tradition of celibacy – the “jewel in the crown” of the Western Church.
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