Married and female priests: A question of if or when?

On the tenth anniversary of his election to the papacy, Pope Francis declared that “there is no contradiction for a priest to marry.” 

In an interview with an Argentinian news agency, he called priestly celibacy “a temporary prescription” and said that it’s a prescription that could be reviewed.  

But while the Pope has shown a degree of openness to the possibility of future change to the rules on celibacy, he was less open to the ordination of women. 

In another interview published in America Magazine in November 2022, Pope Francis was directly faced with the question many Catholic women keep asking. 

Kerry Webber, executive editor of the monthly magazine published by the US Jesuits asked the Pope: “Many women feel pain because they cannot be ordained priests. What would you say to a woman who is already serving in the life of the Church but who still feels called to be a priest?” 

His answer was unequivocal in excluding formal change on the matter. “And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle (the doctrine on papal primacy based on Christ bestowing the keys of the kingdom to Peter) has no place for that,” the Francis said. 

But the pope explained that there is another “theological” way in which women play a vital role in Church life. 

“The Church is more than a ministry. It is the whole people of God. The Church is woman. The Church is a spouse. Therefore, the dignity of women is mirrored in this way,” the pope said. 

What has changed under Pope Francis according to Kate McElwee, the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, is that women are now being appointed to Vatican positions without even making headlines, cardinals and bishops are openly discussing the question of women’s ordination and voices of women are at least being heard. 

“At least we have a pope who has shown he knows how to listen every now and again.”

Fr Rene Camilleri: Let's be bold to let go of the baggage 

Fr Rene Camilleri believes that “if and when” the Catholic Church were to open up to women’s ordination and opt to have celibate and married priests, Christianity would “be losing nothing of its essence”. 

He also thinks that it is high time for clerics to stop reading and interpreting the Gospel and the Bible, from the standpoint of “a baggage that has been accumulating for centuries”. 

Jesus himself, Camilleri notes, in his time “was bold enough to let go of similar baggage that was barring religion from re-generating itself”.  

According to Camilleri the Church today needs the same “boldness and wisdom” to move on with that historical discernment that has characterized it from time to time in crucial passages.  

“Otherwise, it will keep institutionally isolating itself from mainstream culture,” he argues. 

He also warns that whenever any religion, including Christianity, becomes fossilized and fails to discern between what is essential and what is accessorial, “it becomes suicidal and stops listening to its God and reading the times”.  

“Are we in all truth to believe that it really and essentially matters whether the one who presides over the community is male or female or married or celibate?” he asks pertinently. 

He also calls on the Church to debunk the myths which cloud the debate on these two issues  

“As long as the Catholic Church continues to believe that it is in the essence of faith that women be barred from being ordained and that priests take on celibacy as part of a package deal with ordination, it will keep lacking the vision to safeguard authentic belief from cultural baggage.” 

Moreover, he warns that it is futile to search for definitive answers on such issues in the gospels.  

“Where the essence of Christianity is concerned, the Gospels only set the ball rolling and then it stands with the Church to respond to the times. This is what has happened in the early centuries when Christianity was evolving. On various issues the Church keeps failing miserably to be faithful to this living tradition opting instead to perpetuate a dead tradition,” he says. 

Fr Jimmy Bonnici: Context is crucial 

According to Fr Jimmy Bonnici the main question facing the church is not whether the debate on these two issues will continue but what shape it will take.  

“A key shift is already taking place through the listening process of the current synodal process,” he says. 

Bonnici welcomes the fact that these issues are no longer discussed in separate echo chambers (be it media, groups of theologians and bishops) but in a conversation involving men, women the laity and the clergy. He cites theologian Dr Gemma Simmonds who affirms that “change starts when we open ourselves to being changed by what we hear when we listen to one another. And when we have the courage to tell one another the truth.”  

A case in point is precisely “a better recognition of the hopes and aspirations of women”.  

“Embracing these positive developments in society and the Church entails a greater responsibility by all in the Church, including bishops who have a mandate by the Church to teach and lead, to challenge those structures and attitudes that perpetuate a patriarchal mindset and exclude women from meaningful roles in the life of the Church. The discussion will need to give specific attention to what fosters a more mutual and collaborative relationship.” 

He also puts the debate on priestly celibacy in a context of changing demographic and social realities. 

“Especially in the West, less people are opting for a lifelong commitment in marriage while many are longing for connection and belonging. Will this mean that society and the Church will discuss commitment and relationships besides married priesthood?”  

He also asks whether there should be a fresh look on the specific contribution of celibate love “when priests embrace their fragile humanity and offer spaces of disinterested love”. 

But he also refers to other realities like that of “vast regions with few priests like the Amazon”, where it is estimated that at least 85% of villages are unable to celebrate Mass every week as a result of a shortage of priests.  

In this context Bonnici expects the discussion on whether to ordain married men to remain high on the agenda “because the Eucharist is essential for the Church to be”.  

But given the developments taking place on a wider social and ecclesial level – people’s changed relation to territorial parishes, the decrease in the number of priests, active participation of the laity – the debate has to go beyond a “functionalist approach to a more imaginative one”.  

“What style of leadership and what kind of structures will enable the Church to avoid the pitfalls of clericalism, promote a more diversified and ministerial Church, and liberate energies for reaching out to others?” he asks.  

In view of the celebration of Easter he exhorts Christians not to look at the Risen Lord "as a resuscitation of the past” but as an invitation "to collaborate with the Risen Lord who makes all things new.” In this way the Church can remain “faithful to its essential nature while open to express herself in new ways”. 

A history of celibacy and female ordination 

Celibacy was not always a requirement for Catholic clergy. In the early Church, many priests were married and had families. However, over time, the Church began to place more emphasis on the spiritual purity of its clergy, reinforcing the idea of a separate priestly caste completely dedicated to the church.   

In the 11th century, the Church officially declared that priests should be celibate, although there were still some exceptions. The Second Lateran Council in 1139 reinforced this rule, stating that priests who were already married should be separated from their wives.  

But it was not until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century-that the rule was strictly enforced in the face of the protestant reformation which rejected clerical celibacy.  

Even in Malta it was common for priests to have mistresses as amply documented by the late Prof. Godfrey Wettinger in his ‘Concubinage among the Clergy of Malta, 1420-1550’.   

Evidence from notarial archives cited by Wettinger showed “that concubinate clergymen abounded in Malta and Gozo during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries at all levels of the (church) hierarchy”  

In 1575 Mgr. Pietro Dusina, the Apostolic visitor and inquisitor reported that the parish priest of Birkirkara Dun Giuseppe Bellia had two concubines, one of whom lived at Birgu. Dusina described her as a fat woman ‘una grassa’ with whom Bellia spent four days of the week to the detriment of his parish.   

But in subsequent centuries, celibacy became a defining characteristic of Catholic clergy, although there have been some notable exceptions. For example, in the Eastern Catholic Church, priests (but not bishops) are allowed to marry. 

Today, the Catholic Church maintains the requirement of celibacy for most of its clergy, although there have been calls for the Church to reconsider this rule, particularly in light of the shortage of priests in some parts of the world. 

In October 2019, a synod of 184 bishops from the Amazon region met at the Vatican to discuss the future of the Church in the region. The bishops suggested that older, married men should be allowed to become priests to address the shortage of priests but their call was later rejected by Pope Francis. 

Just a few weeks ago the German Synod approved a resolution to ask Pope Francis “to reconsider the link between the conferral of ordinations and the obligation to be celibate.”   The resolution received support from 44 bishops out of 60. Eleven abstained, while only five voted no. 

While there is evidence of married priests in the early church no such evidence exists for ordained women although there are references to women serving in leadership roles. 

The issue of female ordination came to the forefront after several Protestant denominations started to ordain women in the 1950s and 1960s.  

In response, some Catholic theologians and laypeople began to advocate for the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. 

In 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a report on the question of women in the Church, which stated that there was no biblical or theological reason why women could not be ordained as priests. However, the report was not endorsed by the Vatican and did not lead to any changes in Church teaching. 

In 1994, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter entitled Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which declared that the Church's teaching that only men can be ordained as priests was a matter of "divine law" and could not be changed. 

This statement officially closed the door on any possibility of female ordination in the Catholic Church. But debate on this issue has picked up in the past decade with the Vatican trying to sidestep the issue by opening new positions for women serving in the church. 

In 2022 Pope Francis appointed three women as members of the Dicastery for Bishops –the body which oversees the selection of new bishops. It was the first time ever that women have been given this role.