While sharing his thoughts in an off-the-comment that could transform the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has revealed that he can foresee abolishing compulsory celibacy for priests in the coming years.
While sharing his thoughts with the Argentinian news website Infobae, Pope Francis recalled that in the Eastern Catholic Church, married men are allowed to be priests.
‘There is no contradiction in the fact that a priest can marry,’ said the Pope, who for years has been repeatedly asked by various quarters to lift or relax celibacy requirements for priests.
Africa Today News, New York reports that only on Friday, the delegates of the German Synodal Assembly for the Reform of the Catholic Church adopted a text in which an opening of celibacy is sought. The Pope is to be asked to examine the future of compulsory celibacy.
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When asked by Infobae whether celibacy could be revised, Francis answered that it could. Celibacy in the Western Church is a ‘a temporary prescription… It is not eternal like priestly ordination,’ he added.
And since celibacy is a discipline, it could therefore be revised, Francis said. However, he doubted that more men would opt for the priesthood if they were allowed to be married at the same time.
According to media reports, the Pope declared only in mid-February that he wanted to retain celibacy. With the help of ‘true friendships among priests’ it is possible to live celibacy, he said.
Africa Today News, New York reports that clerical celibacy is the discipline within the Catholic Church by which only unmarried men are ordained to the episcopate, to the priesthood (with individual exceptions) in some autonomous particular Churches, and similarly to the diaconate (with exceptions for certain categories of people)