AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Jul. 23, 2015 NCR Today
“Married priests and women deacons should be reintroduced as soon as possible. That would bring new dynamism to the church,” Dietmar Winkler, the future dean of Salzburg University’s Catholic theological faculty, told the Austrian daily Salzburger Nachrichten in an interview during the Salzburg Festival.
He said he could not see why men who feel called to the priesthood should be forced to remain celibate. Asceticism, which religious feel called to, is a charism that could not be forced on people, Winkler said.
He said compulsory celibacy was not introduced for several hundred years and for diverse reasons, one of which was to prevent imperial dynasties from inheriting church possessions.
Asked what would happen if priests who got married were to get divorced, Winkler said that there were many priests who failed to remain celibate. Failure was always possible. “Jesus came to the broken and not to the perfect,” he said.
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