John Grogan, the Labour MP for Keighley and Ilkley, has said he would like to see the Church change its rules to permit married and women priests.
Speaking to The Tablet after he addressed the National Justice and Peace Network’s annual conference in Debyshire last weekend, 57-year-old John Grogan, whose bother Fr Paul Grogan is a priest of the diocese of Leeds, said he did not know if he would see these changes in his lifetime.
A member of the Catholic Legislators Network in the Commons, he recounted how members of the group had visited Rome last Easter and met a senior cardinal close to Pope Francis.
When asked by a politician in the group if there would ever be married priests and women priests in the Church, the Cardinal said it wouldn’t happen under this papacy because it would require a Vatican council. But according to John Grogan, the Cardinal also indicated, who knows what could happen in the future.
“That gave me great heart. Some people rule it out on doctrinal grounds and say it is just not possible, but he didn’t mention that at all. He said it was really a question of changing the culture and then he just smiled gently.”
Mr Grogan described it as “an exciting time in the Church” and said he hoped that the changes that are happening within the Church would continue. “I pray for a long life for the Pope [Francis].”
The Yorkshire MP spoke to 200 delegates at the NJPN conference on the theme of an inclusive Britain. Outlining ten observations, some from a Catholic standpoint and some from his political standpoint, he stressed that it is incumbent on catholics to have an inclusive Church.
On faith schools, he told the conference, “I think we should be so proud of our Catholic schools.” But he said in the debate about free schools and the faith cap “somehow we managed to get ourselves on the wrong side of the debate” by arguing that this is anti-catholic.
This had given the impression to the wider public that Catholics don’t want non-cCtholics in their schools when “the reality is that a third of students in Catholic schools are non-Catholics.”
The MP said he was “very fully supportive of the idea of a Catholic ethos at a Catholic school. Obviously, you need Catholic students to make a school Catholic.” But he added that the modern mission of Catholic education is inclusivity – “to bind together elements of our society and bring them together to encounter each other”.
He said that while government had indicated it would not change the faith cap, its proposal on voluntary aided schools was not a bad response.
“We have been a bit mealy-mouthed in just saying we have lost; I don’t think we have lost at all – I think we have won.”
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