Comment & Debate
Joseph Snyder. “Should Roman Catholic Priests Be Allowed to Marry?”. Washington Post, Letter to the Editor. November 7, 2004: “Eastern Orthodox Catholic priests are allowed to marry. Also, certain married Protestant priests may convert as priests to the Roman Catholic faith. Obviously, the precedent for married Catholic priests is already established. So the question is not ‘if’ Roman Catholic priests should be married but ‘when.'”
“Vatican ‘must let priests wed'”. Times Online. October 11, 2005: “Celibacy has no theological foundation,” Patriarch Gregorios III Laham, of the Melkite Catholics, said. If married priests were allowed in the Eastern rite, there was no reason for them to be banned in the Latin, or Western, rite, he said.
Prelates ranging from Bishop Lucio Muandula, of Xai-Xai, Mozambique, to Bishop Arnold Orowae, of Wabag, Papua New Guinea, agreed that celibacy must be addressed. Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir, the Maronite patriarch of Antioch, in Lebanon, said that marriage had drawbacks for priests, but he noted that the Catholic Church already accepted married Anglican priests who had converted.”