At Least 6,000 Spanish Catholic Priests Are Married, Reports Claim

The Gnomes
May 29, 2014

http://news.gnom.es/news/at-least-6000-spanish-catholic-priests-are-married-reports-claim

‘DOZENS’ of Catholic priests in Spain are married, but bishops turn a ‘blind eye’, according to the Church amid calls by women who have vicars as husbands to scrap the ‘celibacy rule’.

Although the Church will not revel the full figures, around 6,000 priests in Spain are married and, worldwide, some 100,000.

Bishops allegedly turn a blind eye to this in Spain provided the vicar in question does not appear in the media, does not attempt to ‘convert’ others to giving up celibacy and it does not compromise his faith.

The ‘celibacy law’ was passed in the year 1139, although it was rarely adhered to before the mid-16thcentury and even then amid great resistance, and was purely for financial reasons – unmarried priests with no children would leave all their worldly goods to the Church when they died.

It was continued because it is easier to feed and maintain 400,000 priests who are single than their wives and children as well, and it means priests are more at liberty to travel around and work in different dioceses or abroad as missionaries.

But in fact, all bar two of the Apostles were married and Jesus did not mention anything about how preachers should be single and celibate – and Pope Francisco says the rule is ‘an open issue’ and ‘not a faith dogma’.

Early Christian communities even had married bishops and these were mentioned in the New Testament.

In Anglican, Orthodox, Lutheran or other Protestant Churches, celibacy and singlehood is optional, but the Catholic Church makes it a conditio sine qua non of being a priest, meaning if a congregation leader wants to marry, he must resign.

In Africa and Latin America, in Catholic communities, many priests live with their wives in their rectories but have certain rules they must abide by, including always wearing their dog-collars, and their wedding rings on their ring finger at all times.

One of the most recent cases to be made public was Rev. Evans D. Gliwitzki, parish priest of the Espiritu Santo church of Los Gigantes in Tenerife, who is married to a woman named Patricia, has two daughters and three grandchildren.

Another is Oleksandr Dorykevych, a Ukraine-born priest in Torrevieja (Alicante) with a wife and three children, and Ramon Alario, who is Spanish but had to hang up his cassock and find another job to be able to marry his wife – he now only leads congregations in secrecy in very small parish communities on request.

Alario heads up the Pro-Optional Celibacy Movement (MOCEOP) in Spain.

But Oleksandr was able to marry and have children because, like 50 per cent of Ukraine’s 52 million inhabitants, he is part of the Greco-Catholic church, a branch of Catholicism with eastern traditions and closer to Greek Orthodox than to Rome even though it officially forms part of the Holy See – and most Ukrainian priests are married.

In fact, a Ukrainian priest with a wife earns more public credibility than one who is single because he sets examples in his personal and family life for the congregation which means they have more confidence in his preachings, says Oleksandr.

Another Spaniard who fiercely defends celibacy being optional is Julio Pinillos, married to Emilia Robles and formerly head of the International Federation of Married Catholic Priests, but now an occasional vicar in small parishes and teacher at a school in Vallecas (Madrid).

He says celibacy is ‘not supported by the Bible, tradition or theology’ and that its state ‘does not mean a greater spiritual or social maturity’, nor ‘better service to the Christian community’.

Spain’s Cardinal Rouco, known for his very strict traditionally-Catholic ideas, knows about Pinillos’ situation and has reportedly sanctioned it as long as he remains discreet about it.

Saint Peter, leader of Jesus’ disciples, according to the Holy Bible, was married and Saint Paul, who was not, only asked that bishops be ‘men of just one woman’.

The only reference to celibacy in early Christianity is that, in the 4thcentury, priests were requested to abstain on the night of the Eucharist for reasons of ‘spiritual purity’.

Attempts to force a blanket ban on relationships and marriage for priests, partly for economic reasons and partly because most were failing to follow the Eucharist rules, failed utterly over the 400 years since the Concilium of Letran was passed in 1139.

In the year 1500, the majority of priests of all faiths were said to be in ‘relationships similar to marriage’ – or, in effect, ‘living in sin’.

Pope Pio IV considered dispensing with the celibacy rule for German priests, at the request of the Emperor, but nowadays, it is only a requirement for Catholic priests following Latin rites – Catholic priests following eastern rites, which includes those in Australia, are able to choose whether or not to stay celibate and single.