A Vatican official, Archbishop Charles Scicluna has said that he thinks the Catholic Church’s priestly celibacy requirement in the Latin rite should be revised.
Archbishop Scicluna, who serves as the archbishop of Malta and is an assistant secretary at the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in an interview published Jan. 7 that the Church should “think seriously about” changing the Western discipline.
“If it were up to me, I would revise the requirement that priests have to be celibate,” he said, according to a captioned Maltese-language video interview by the Times of Malta.
“This is probably the first time I’m saying it publicly and it will sound heretical to some people,” he added.
The 64-year-old archbishop said that the Church should learn from the Eastern Churches, which allow married men the option to get ordained to the priesthood.
“Why should we lose a young man who would have made a fine priest, just because he wanted to get married? And we did lose good priests just because they chose marriage,” he said.
Scicluna, who has personally handled multiple investigations into clerical sex abuse on behalf of the Vatican’s doctrine office, made the comments when asked about Catholic priests in Malta who have secret relationships and have fathered illegitimate children.
“This is a global reality; it doesn’t just happen in Malta. We know there are priests around the world who also have children and I think there are ones in Malta who may have too,” Scicluna said.
“A man may mature, engage in relationships, love a woman. As it stands, he must choose between her and priesthood, and some priests cope with that by secretly engaging in sentimental relationships,” he said.
Scicluna, who was a delegate at the Synod on Synodality assembly last fall, added that he has previously spoken openly in Rome about his views on priestly celibacy.
