Vatican: Plea for Priestly Marriage

Things are in constant flux in this world. Even the most conservative areas are touched by the wave of reform. The Roman Catholic Church should "seriously consider" the possibility of allowing priests to marry, said a high-ranking Vatican official and adviser to Pope Francis in an interview. "It's probably the first time I'm saying this in public, and it will sound like heresy to some people," Archbishop Charles Scicluna from Malta, who is also the deputy secretary of the Vatican's doctrinal office, told the Times of Malta. Pope Francis has ruled out any chance of him changing the Roman Catholic rule that priests must be celibate. However, this is not an official doctrine of the Church and could therefore be changed by a future pope. Scicluna, perhaps best known for his investigations into sexual abuse crimes, noted that priests were allowed to 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 must be celibate," he said. "Experience has shown me that this is something we need to seriously consider." The 64-year-old Scicluna said that the Church has "lost many great priests because they chose marriage." He said that there is a place for celibacy in the Church, but it also needs to consider that a priest sometimes falls in love. Then he must choose "between her and the priesthood, and some priests cope with these situations by engaging in secret romantic relationships." The debate about whether Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to marry has been ongoing for centuries. Priests are allowed to marry in the Eastern Catholic Church, as well as in the Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican churches. Opponents of priestly marriage argue that celibacy allows a priest to fully dedicate himself to the Church. In 2021, the pope rejected a proposal to allow married men of a certain age to be ordained in isolated areas of the Amazon, where, in some places, believers saw a priest only once a year.