Catholic bishops debating whether to loosen the Church’s 1,000-year-old requirement of celibacy for priests should give some thought to the situation in Ireland.
For the time being, the Vatican synod, which will run for three weeks, is concentrating the debate on whether to allow married men to be ordained priests in South America’s Amazon area. It’s a sparsely-populated region where Catholic parishes sometimes go months without a visit from a priest.
Pope Francis has said the door is always open to the prospect of married priests in remote places such as the Amazon or the Pacific Islands. He has also said he needs to pray and reflect further on the question.
I’m sure many Catholics applaud him for this, and also welcome the synod’s debate on the issue.
However, I’m also certain most Catholics would welcome a much wider debate; one which would consider married priests, women as well as men, all over the world.
I know I’m probably knocking my head against a brick wall in my suggestion to the all-male synod that they broaden their minds and consider what a wonderful contribution women would make to the priesthood.
Maybe I am also wasting words with the hope that the bishops will face the realisation that it’s not just the Amazon and the Pacific that requires urgent remedial treatment from the Church.
Take our own country, for example. It’s a tiny space when compared with the vast distances priests have to travel in South America and from island to island across the pacific.
But our priesthood numbers are diminishing at a rapid rate. Many, who would be retired if working in the world outside the Church, are in their 70s and desperately trying to manage several parishes at the same time.
If the Church is seriously considering permitting married priests in one part of the world it might as well make the facility available everywhere.
What would be the point in allowing married priests in one area and insisting on sexual abstinence elsewhere?
An absence of celibacy in the priesthood isn’t really a big deal.
The first Pope, St Peter, and many of the Apostles were married. So were priests for the first 1,100 years of the Catholic Church!
In 1139, the Latin, or Western, Rite of the Catholic Church decided to accept people for ordination only after they had taken a promise of celibacy.
So, for the best part of 1,000 years – the second-half of the Catholic Church’s existence - priests were supposedly celibate. I say “supposedly” because as we are aware from scandals in our lifetime, there were despicable breaches of the rule.
And it wasn’t just in the recent past!
Pope Paul III fathered four children by his mistress Silvia Ruffini when he was a cardinal but he ended his relationship with her around 1513 before he became a Pontiff in 1534.
Gregory XIII had a son through an affair with Maddalina Fulchini when he was received into a clerical state but before he became Pope in 1572.
Leo XII allegedly fathered three children when he had a relationship with the wife of a soldier of the Swiss Guard and when he was a nuncio in Germany, but before he became Pope in 1823.
So, as Pope Francis “prays and reflects” on what to do in the modern era, he may be prompted by thoughts of past centuries.
He may well realise, in the light of past events, ordinary lay folk, married or unmarried, women as well as men, have an immense contribution they can make to the priesthood.
