The celibacy debate continues after a popular priest in Italy has announced he is leaving the priesthood to marry the woman he loves. The child they are expecting has been diagnosed with a serious heart condition. Father Tomas Hlavaty (pictured) will now be formally removed from the priesthood and returned to the lay state, says Read more
Sian didn’t set out to become celibate – at least not to begin with. At the tail end of 2021, freshly single and out of a 100-day lockdown, the 27-year-old was in a delicate headspace. Tapping into the sex-go-round For Sian, the dating apps had become an obsessive regime in curating profiles and swiping endlessly. Read more
The current synod, whose title may seem abstruse — a “Synod on Synodality” —, is perhaps best expressed by the three words that follow its title: “Communion, Participation and Mission”. I want to emphasize the call to mission. This is indeed what the Lord asks for in the final lines of the Gospels, including that Read more
We’ve just turned the page on the month of June, traditionally in some parts of the world, the time for priestly ordinations in many parts of the Catholic world. According to figures from the national bishops’ conference, the Church in France was ordained 122 new priests this summer – 77 diocesan and 45 from religious Read more
The next assembly of the Synod of Bishops must take up the issue of mandatory priestly celibacy. Now is the time. Following the death of a good man, Bishop Edward Daly — who went to the Lord on August 8, 2016 –, there was an appreciation of his life published on the website of the Read more
My wife and I, we have four children, all younger than 7. Ours is not a quiet house. A house of screaming and a house of endless snot, it’s also a house of love, grown and multiplied every few years. In a house of little sleep, my hobby these days is simply to sit down; Read more
Celibacy is not an obstacle to increasing priestly vocations. According to Bishop Wellington de Queiroz Vieira of Cristalandia and a member of the current Amazon synod the real issue is a lack of holiness. de Queiroz says combating priest shortages in the Amazon region by ordaining mature married men does not address a greater problem. Read more
Married priests could be a possibility if prelates ask Pope Francis to allow it, German Cardinal Walter Kasper says. Kasper, who is considered one of Francis’s close theological advisers, says such a change could be made during this year’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon set for this October, if the prelates were to ask Read more
Celibacy in the priesthood is once again up for discussion. The diminished number of candidates for ordination and the abuse crisis have prodded the discussion, which seems mainly focused on the elimination of celibacy as a mandatory discipline for priests in the Western church. But a more foundational concern, in my estimation, needs our reflection Read more
Church volunteers who are members of the German Catholic women’s movement Maria 2.0 have launched a week-long strike. They are holding rites without priests outside churches and suspending voluntary church work and ministries in 50 parishes in protest over the male-only priesthood, celibacy and the church’s slow response to sex scandals. Masses and committees will Read more