Pope says he’ll consider married men as priests
Clergy most needed in isolated regions
Pope Francis has suggested he would be open to studying whether the Catholic Church should ordain older men who are married as priests to help deal with the shortage of clergy in remote areas of the world.
In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit published on Thursday, Francis said the church will maintain its standard of celibacy for most priests throughout the world, but it could study the idea of allowing “viri probati” - married men of proven faith - to be ordained.
If the idea were studied and approved by the Catholic Church, it would be an extension of a provision the church already has to accommodate married priests in exceptional cases. Priests in the eastern rite Catholic Church are allowed to be married, and during his short tenure Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI began allowing married Anglican priests who have converted to Catholicism to serve.
“There’s nothing innate in the priestly vocation that says that only celibate men can be priests,” said Abbot Joel Garner of the Norbertine Community Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey in Albuquerque.
“That’s just been the tradition for hundreds of years, probably back to the Middle Ages,” Garner said. “It’s a discipline in the church that could change.”
Deacons, many of whom are married, would be likely recruits if the church allowed married priests, Garner said. Deacons “would be one source of looking for men — good, solid citizens who want to take another step,” he said.
Francis has said in the past that priests should be celibate but that the rule was not dogma and “the door is always open” to change. His latest interview suggested a particular case in which the church could consider ordaining married priests, such as to provide clergy in remote locations.
The number of priests in the U.S. church has been steadily on the decline since the 1960s. In 2016, there were about 37,000 priests, compared with 58,000 in 1965, according to Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Garner said a shortage of priests has become severe over the past 60 years, but the crisis is worst in developing countries with growing populations.
New Mexico and the U.S. would be unlikely to need to turn to married priests “at the moment,” he said. Many mission churches here have closed, but “people have cars — they can drive.”
In the United States, the celibacy requirement is partly what sets priests apart from clergy in Protestant denominations.
“Some people feel the need to make the Catholic Church have more visible boundaries,” said Massimo Faggioli, a church historian at Villanova University.
“If you dismantle (the celibate priesthood), people will say, what’s the difference between us and Episcopalian, us and Lutherans?”
Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a longtime friend of Francis, has been urging the church to allow married priests in the Amazon, where the church has about one priest for every 10,000 Catholics, according to The Associated Press.
The pope’s comment gives the impression that he’s not talking about western Europe, where there is less of a clergy shortage, said Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a Catholic University of America professor who has written books on psychological care for priests.
“He’s not saying we’re doing it, but he’s saying let’s run it up the flagpole and see what people think,” Rossetti said. “He’s saying he’s willing to make exceptions as a merciful gesture.”