Pope Francis says Catholic Church is open to idea of married priests

Pope Francis says Catholic Church is open to idea of married priests

CAMIL PARKHE | Sunday, 2 April 2017 AT 02:50 PM IST

    

      https://goo.gl/q409BX 

Catholic Church, pastors, celibacy, Pope Francis

For the first time, hinting at doing away with the centuries-old mandatory tradition of celibacy for the clergy, Pope Francis has said that this condition could be waived off to overcome the prevailing shortage of priests. The issue of reconsidering the issue of celibacy for the priests has popped up several times in recent times whenever a new Pope was elected and each time, the popes have voted down even a discussion on the topic. The present pontiff’s assurance to reconsider the issue in special circumstances, therefore, assumes significance.

In a recent interview, the Pope has said that he is open to the idea of ordaining married men to serve as priests in remote areas, which are suffering from priest shortages.

In an interview with Germany’s publication Die Zeit, the Pope said that he was open to studying whether ‘viri probati’ — or married men of proven faith — could be ordained.

The shortage of priests - and also nuns – is a problem the Catholic Church is facing all over the world. During the past few centuries, Christian missionaries from western countries had been working in third world countries and carrying out evangelisation. But in the recent period of more than half a century, this flow of western missionaries had dwindled to a trickle and now there is almost a ban on foreign Christian missionaries coming down for the spread of the gospel or the Good News.

Conversely, now Catholic priests from India and other countries have been working in Europe, developing nations and also in strife-torn countries like Afghanistan. But the number of people joining the religious vocations is drastically reducing in these countries too with many seminaries in various dioceses closing down. In India too, many Catholic dioceses have closed down their seminaries for want of entrants.

In the 2000-year-old Christianity, celibacy has not been a mandatory feature for the priests. It is an accepted fact that some of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ were married men when Jesus called out to them to follow him. In the later period, it became a convention to appoint only unmarried men to the posts of priests and bishops. The condition of celibacy for priests later became rigid and when Martin Luther launched the movement for reformation of Christianity, celibacy ceased to be a mandatory condition for the priests who followed the Lutheran reformation.

In 1517, Catholic priest Martin Luther had nailed his 95 Thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. This is called commencement of the reformation process in Christianity. Later, Martin Luther broke off from the Catholic Church and launched the Protestant movement. He also revoked his vow of celibacy and got married. Since then, priests belonging to various Protestant denominations all over the world need no longer take the vow of celibacy.

Catholic Church is one of the foremost global hierarchical organisation and celibacy has been one of the factors which helped its missionaries to spread out selflessly and with dedication for the cause evangelisation. For this very reason, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India too advocates the principle of celibacy for its Pracharaks.

The Catholic Church has now realised that it will have to rethink over the celibacy issue in order to tide over the shortage of priests. The Church is not likely to totally waive off the mandatory condition of celibacy for all its clergy and nuns. The Pope’s willingness to consider the option of married men as priests in special circumstances is certainly a move in the right direction.