Question of married priests to be reviewed

POPE FRANCIS has reportedly suggested that he may be open to the idea of married priests in the Catholic Church, writes Hannah Roberts.

Francis was quoted after a Mass earlier this month attended by five priests who had left the ministry to marry. During questions, a campaigner for married priests, Fr Giovanni Cereti, recalled the case of the Eastern Churches, where married men can be ordained priests, unlike in the Latin Rite. In his reply, Francis said “the issue is in my diary”. Last year he said “the door is always open but we are not talking about it now as the order of the day”.

Fr Cereti said after the Mass: “It’s a question of survival” for the Church. He said that celibacy has lost some of its value today, and that the Church should consider replacing it with marriage “as a witness of faith”.

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, the former head of the Vatican Apostolic Penitentiary, said this week that he believes the Pope will take action because of the crisis in vocations. “The issue of married priests has been boiling for some time now, after all the crisis in vocations must be addressed. The issue is being discussed energetically and I think that it will be addressed by the Pope,” he said.

“It would be a major change in the Latin Church and would require a motu proprio. The Pope has the power to do it,” he added. The bishop appears to have changed his view from last year when he said that he was “certain the Pope will maintain the situation on celibacy without change”.