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	Austrian Top Clerics Call for Discussion on Celibacy Earth Times May 12, 2010 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/323298,austrian-top-clerics-call-for-discussion-on-celibacy.html Vienna - Austrian Bishop Paul Iby called for scrapping the marriage ban for Catholic clergy in an interview published Wednesday, adding to the growing number of top clerics in the country who want to put this tradition up for discussion. The push to tackle the so-called celibacy issue comes as the Catholic Church is searching for the causes of sexual crimes committed by clergymen. "Rome is too timid in such questions," Iby told the daily Die Presse. The bishop heads the Church in Burgenland province. Priests should be allowed to choose whether they would like to marry or not, he said, in order to attract more men to this profession. Austria's highest-ranking cleric, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, said in March that the marriage ban should be examined as one of the possible roots of the sex scandals, along with the way priests are trained, and with the impact of the sexual revolution of the late 1960s. Besides Iby, two other bishops have also called for reviewing celibacy, expressing views that pit Austria's relatively liberal Church against the more conservative Vatican. Iby also said discussions should be started in the medium term on allowing women to become priests, as well as on changing the Church's stance towards homosexuality and divorce. "But nothing is moving ahead in Rome," he said. Earlier this year, the 75-year-old cleric has asked the Vatican to let him retire.
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