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Pope Francis considered abandoning his priestly vocation after being “dazzled” by a young woman he met at an uncle’s wedding while he was a seminarian.
He revealed the experience last year in a book-length dialogue with a rabbi, which will be published in English in May.
“I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance…and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while. I kept thinking and thinking about her,” he said.
“When I returned to the seminary after the wedding, I could not pray for over a week because when I tried to do so, the girl appeared in my head. I had to rethink what I was doing.
“I was still free because I was a seminarian, so I could have gone back home and that was it. I had to think about my choice again. I chose again — or let myself be chosen by — the religious path.
“It would be abnormal for this kind of thing not to happen,” he added in the conversation with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary.
The future pope said that if a priest got a woman pregnant, he tried to help him realise that the natural law takes priority over his priesthood.
“So, he has to leave the ministry and should take care of that child, even if he chooses not to marry that woman. For just as that child has the right to have a mother, he has a right to the face of a father.”
If it was a one-time affair with no children, then he tried to help the priest do penance and “get on track again”.
“For the moment,” he said, “I am in favour of maintaining celibacy, with all its pros and cons, because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures. What happens is that the scandals have an immediate impact. Tradition has weight and validity.”
He added: “It is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change.”
The conversation between Archbishop Bergoglio and Rabbi Skorka will be published by Image Books and will be titled On Heaven and Earth.
Sources:
Image: Aleteia
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