Church needs women – not priests who are married

TO THE relief of conservatives, Pope Francis has ruled against allowing married men to become priests, which would have ended the centuries-long tradition of clergy remaining celibate.

There had been intense speculation that Pope Francis, pictured, was ready to relax the celibacy rule for regions in the world in which there is an acute shortage of priests, such as the Amazon.

Last October, two-thirds of the 185 bishops attending a synod in the Vatican voted in favour of allowing married men in the nine countries of the Amazon basin to join the priesthood.

The experience in the Amazon, where local women now keep the Church alive, essentially becoming priests in everything but name, helped galvanise the majority vote.

In this country, we rely on a stream of priests from Africa and Asia in order to prevent a ‘Eucharistic famine’.

But the older our priests get and the longer vocations flatline, the more our dependence on outside support grows. We are lucky to have foreign priests willing to come here; they often bring an infectious joy to the Mass, but on the downside there can be a deepseated conservatism.

Allowing priests, who left the Church to marry, back into the fold would boost clergy numbers with men with broader life experience. A better idea would be to remove the injustice that prevents the women who volunteer on parish councils, assist at funerals and see to the readings and collections from entering the men-only club that is the priesthood.