Pope Francis said this Friday that he is available to review celibacy within the Catholic Church as it is a “temporary prescription” of the Western Church.
“There is no contradiction that a priest can get married. Celibacy in the Western Church is a temporary prescription: I don’t know if it will be solved one way or another, but in that sense it is provisional,” Pope Francis said. in an interview from his home in Vatican City, Italy, to the Argentine portal Infobae on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his pontificate.
When asked if the issue of celibacy “can be reviewed”, the head of the Catholic Church replied “yes, yes”, adding that many of the members of the Eastern Church, those who wish, are “married”.
“In the Catholic Church there are married priests: the whole Eastern Rite is married. All of them. Here in the Curia we have one – today I met him – who has his wife, his son,” Francis revealed.
In the interview, the pope acknowledged that “sometimes celibacy can lead to machismo” and stressed the need to appoint more women to positions of responsibility in the Vatican.
The Council of Economy consists of six cardinals and six lay people. [eram] all men of course. It had to be renewed and I placed a man and five women (…). Instead of a vice governor, I put in a vice governor, and he [o governador, Fernando Berges] he feels much more helped because women solve problems and solve them well,” the pope admitted.
“They have a different methodology. They have a sense of time, of waiting, of patience, different from men. This does not detract from men, they are just different and should complement each other.” added.
These questions come amid revelations of church sexual abuse scandals around the world — recently an independent commission in Portugal identified hundreds of cases following an investigation — and a growing debate over whether this problem whether or not related to celibacy in the Catholic Church.
It also comes after the outbreak, about three years ago, of a synod process in Germany, a forum for dialogue that seeks formulas to overcome the crisis that the Catholic Church is going through, shaken by scandals of sexual abuse of minors.
In recent months there have been proposals such as abolishing compulsory celibacy or allowing women access to the priesthood, as well as questions about homosexuality, causing unrest in the Vatican and fears of a split in the German church.
The Vatican has considered in the past that “it would not be licit to initiate the end of celibacy in the dioceses until new structures or official doctrines have been agreed at the level of the universal Church, lest they leave a wound to ecclesial communion and a threat to the unity of the Church”.
Pope Francis, 86, will complete a decade at the helm of the Catholic Church this Monday, a period in which he has focused his efforts on reforming the Holy See, trying to make it more transparent and effective, despite opposition from the Vatican’s most conservative members, Infobae writes.
Source: DN
