At each of the four Masses in Eind
hoven's Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Dutch Bishop Willem Bekkers
mounted the pulpit to tell the parish some startling news: two of their
priests were resigning from the ministry, and one of them was planning
to marry a widow with five children.Since the priests had found them selves unable to keep their vows of
chastity, explained the bishop, they had applied to Rome for
dispensation from all clerical obligations. Bekkers, obviously
sympathetic to the priests, asked the congregation not to reproach or
condemn them but to pray for them, pointing out that they intended to
remain loyal members of the church.The bishop's bold public announcement pointed up what is, next to birth
control, the major unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council.
At the fourth session, Pope Paul bluntly told the bishops not to
discuss the possibility of changing the church's rule on clerical
celibacy, and council decrees strongly reinforced the traditional
stand. But Rome has since discovered that the issue will not go away.
Last month a group of Italian priests petitioned the Pope to relieve
them from the celibacy obligation, arguing that it was an “intolerable
burden” and that the rule had no basis in either Scripture or natural
law. A similar petition was recently sent to Rome by 33 Brazilian
priests, who claimed that they had the support of “hundreds and
hundreds” of their fellow clerics. Theologians have continued to
speculate on the problem, and within recent months Roman Catholic
publishers in the U.S. have put out three books dealing critically with
priestly celibacy.-A Married Pope. At least one of Christ's Apostles-St. Peter-had a wife,
and as late as 867, a married man became Pope: Adrian II. It was not
until the First Lateran Council in 1123 that clerical marriage was
clearly outlawed, and even after that priests, bishops and cardinals
continued to skirt the rule by taking mistresses. Alexander VI fathered
at least four children before he became Pope in 1492. French Historian
Henri Daniel-Rops estimated that in 15th century Burgundy, half the
children born out of wedlock were fathered by clerics.Even now, following the tradition of Orthodoxy, Eastern-rite Catholic
priests are allowed to marry before ordination . Pope Paul and his two predecessors
gave dispensations to a handful of convert Protestant ministers who
were ordained in Europe as priests, even though they already had wives
and children. Last month the Archbishop of Mariana in Brazil presided
at the marriage of Pedro Maciel Vidigal, a former priest who was
released from his vows by the Vatican, and is now a member of Congress.A number of Catholic theologians have argued in recent years that a
vocation to the priesthood and a vocation to celibacy do not
necessarily exist in the same person. French Dominican Yves Congar, an
influential theological adviser at the council, has suggested that a
married diocesan clergy might be better able than single priests to
enter into the life of the people. Dutch Theologian Rudolf Bunnik says
that since there is no convincing reason for a celibate priesthood, it
is “an anomaly” to have a church law requiring it.
