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An advisor appointed by Pope Benedict XVI has said married priests and women deacons would bring a new dynamism to the Church.
Dietmar Winkler said married priests and women deacons should be reintroduced as soon as possible.
He was appointed an adviser to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity by Pope Benedict XVI and confirmed in this office by Pope Francis.
He is also an adviser to Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
The future dean of Salzburg University’s Catholic theology faculty told an Austrian newspaper that he could not see why men who feel called to the priesthood should have to remain celibate.
Asceticism, which religious feel called to, is a charism that could not be forced on people, Dr Winkler said.
He said compulsory celibacy was not introduced for several hundred years of church history and when it was, there were diverse reasons.
One reason was to prevent imperial dynasties from inheriting Church possessions, he said.
If there were more married priests, then more divorces would be a possibility, he admitted.
Dr Winkler said that there were many priests who failed to remain celibate. Failure was always possible.
“Jesus came to the broken and not to the perfect,” he said.
Did that mean that one could marry twice, he was asked.
The Orthodox Church has found a good solution, he said: It has married priests, and under certain conditions, allows remarriage in church after divorce.
Asked about the Catholic teaching that partners of a second marriage live in permanent sin, he replied: “I think that [is] really wrong and this question will be a gripping crunch-point at the synod in October.”
“Discussion of marriage theology is a must.”
The issue of women priests is “theologically complicated”, he said, but women deacons, “which [are] well documented up to the Middle Ages”, should be reintroduced as soon as possible.
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