ROME – Pope Francis has said that a change in the Catholic Church’s rule on celibacy will not solve difficulties in the Church because the deeper problem is of priests behaving like spinsters instead of fathers.
The Pontiff made his comment in a new wide-ranging interview, in which he confirmed plans to visit to Dubai for a UN climate summit in early December.
The Holy Father also addressed current global conflicts, and weighed in on several hot-button issues touched on during last month’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality, including women’s ordination and priestly celibacy.
He reminded Italian journalist Gian Marco Chiocci, director of Italy’s TG1 television channel, that celibacy is a discipline rather than a doctrine and can therefore be changed.
It is “a positive law, not a natural law,” he said.
“Priests in the Eastern Catholic Churches can marry and instead in the west there is a discipline since I believe the 12th century, which began with celibacy”.
“It is a law that can be removed, no problem,” he continued. “I don’t think it helps, because the problem is another,” namely, that some priests have become “spinsters”.
“The priest must be a father, he must be included in a community,” he said, adding that he gets worried “when the priest looks at himself inside and makes himself look sacred. I don’t like this because he loses contact.”
When asked, in the wide-ranging interview, whether he would travel to Dubai for the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate summit, Francis said, “Yes, I will go.”
The tentative dates, which have yet to be confirmed by the Vatican, are December 1-3, the Pope said.
Pope Francis had previously planned to attend the November 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, and had announced his intention to visit in an interview prior to the gathering, but pulled out of the trip, citing logistical complications given the short timeframe.
At the time, however, some reports suggested the real reason for the Pope’s withdrawal was fear that the Glasgow summit would end without much progress, potentially leaving the impression that Francis had lent his moral authority to a failure.
The Pope recalled how he published his eco-encyclical Laudato Si just before the COP21 climate summit in Paris in 2015, saying that in his view: “The meeting in Paris was the best of all. After Paris everyone went backwards, and it takes courage to go forward in this.”
Noting that there are some Pacific Islands that in 20 years may be gone due to rising sea levels, he said: “Our future is at stake. The future of our children and grandchildren. It takes some responsibility.”
Francis also spoke about the October Synod of Bishops on Synodality, the first of two Rome-based gatherings that will culminate a global consultative process that began in October 2021 with a final Rome discussion in October of next year.
Despite polemics over certain topics of discussion such as women’s priestly ordination, the female diaconate, and LGBTQ+ issues, with papal opponents calling the synod “schismatic,” Pope Francis said the synod was “positive”.
“We talked about everything with complete freedom. This is a beautiful thing and it was possible to create a final document, which will be studied in this second part for the next session in October,” he said, voicing his belief that “we arrived precisely to that exercise of synodality that St Paul VI had wanted” at the end of the Second Vatican Council.
In terms of outreach to the LGBTQ+ community, which despite being a significant topic of discussion during the synod was largely omitted from the synod’s closing synthesis document, Pope Francis reiterated his insistence that “everyone, everyone, everyone” is welcome in the church because “they are people”.
“The Church receives people, everyone, and does not ask what you are like. Then inside each one grows and matures in their Christian belonging,” he said, noting that “it’s a bit fashionable” to talk about LGBTQ+ issues, but the Church always “receives everyone”.
Organisations are different. “The principle is this: the Church receives all those who can be baptised,” he said. “Organisations cannot be baptised. People yes.”
On the topic of women, Francis noted that there are now more women working inside of the Vatican, and referred to several high-profile appointments he has made, naming women as secretaries of dicasteries and allowing women to form part of a commission weighs in on episcopal appointments.
“Women understand things that we don’t understand, women have a special instinct for the situation and it is needed. I believe they should be inserted into the normal work of the Church,” he said.
Women’s priestly ordination is another topic, he said, saying it is “a theological problem, not an administrative problem”.
In the Vatican, women can do anything, “you can even have a woman governor, there is no problem”.
“But from a theological, ministerial point of view, they are different things,” he said, referring to the Church’s Petrine principle, which he said covers jurisdiction, and the Marian principle, which he said “is the most important one because the Church is woman, the Church is bride, the Church is not male, she is a woman”.
“It takes theology to understand this and the power of the female Church and women in the Church is stronger and more important than that of male ministers. Mary is more important than Peter, because the church is female,” he said, cautioning that “if we want to reduce this to functionalism, we lose.”
Pope Francis also spoke about the abuse crisis. Pointing to efforts made by his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, Francis said “a lot of cleaning was done” on Benedict’s watch, and that “they were all cases of abuse and also some from the curia were sent away”.
He said: “Pope Ratzinger was courageous in this. He took that problem into his own hands and took many steps and then handed it over to finish.”
The work continues, he said, saying any abuse, whether sexual abuse or abuses of power and conscience, “should not be tolerated”.
“It is contrary to the Gospel, the Gospel is service not abuse and we see many episcopates who have done a good job at studying sexual abuse but also others,” he said, noting that most abuse happens in the family, and that even there, there is a tendency to cover-up.
Francis did not engage public backlash over his handling of the Church’s most high-profile current case, that of Slovene Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik, who has been accused of abusing at least 25 adult women and who is now able to face a canonical trial after the Pope lifted a statute of limitations for his crimes, a year after allegations went public.”
(Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.