End celibacy rule for priests, urges bishop

ONE of the most prominent members of the Irish Catholic Church has called for an end to compulsory celibacy for priests, saying it was pushing new recruits away.

Edward Daly, the retired bishop of Derry who rose to prominence during Northern Ireland’s decades of sectarian conflict, said the church should act urgently to address the lack of young clerics.

“I feel now that celibacy is damaging to the church and I do feel now that we have to look at that issue very profoundly and quite urgently,” Mr Daly said during an interview on Irish state broadcaster RTE yesterday.

The former bishop said he was saddened by the number of men who had rejected the priesthood because of mandatory celibacy, and had been disheartened by the rising average age of priests.

The number of people joining the priesthood in Ireland has fallen sharply in recent decades as a series of clerical sex abuse scandals undermined the church’s reputation and ended its dominance in the once- devout country.

“I just thought to myself, ‘What is going to happen, where are the younger priests going to come from?’,” he said. “I am sure many people in the church feel this way.”

Mr Daly said that even if compulsory celibacy was ended, many clerics would voluntarily abstain.

“There should always be celibates in the priesthood,” he said. “But there are other people who would find it more fulfilling to live the priesthood as a married person.”

Mr Daly became a symbol of peace in Ireland on “Bloody Sunday” in 1972 when television cameras captured him holding up a white handkerchief while ministering to the injured after British troops opened fire during a civil rights parade.

Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Scottish Catholic Church, said that evidence from the global Catholic Church showed that celibacy was actually a positive draw for new priests. “Celibacy is a church rule as opposed to an issue of doctrine, so it is open to debate and somebody expressing an opinion on it is entitled to do that,” Mr Kearney said.

“However, all the evidence suggests that celibacy dramatically increases vocations to the Catholic Church. In the last 25 years vocations to the Catholic Church have gone up by 74 per cent.

“It’s impossible to see how somebody could argue that celibacy is reducing the number of new vocations.”

Liz Leydon, editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, said of Mr Daly’s comments: “The issue of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood has arisen again no doubt in part because concern over the need for vocations and the number of married Anglicans being ordained into the Catholic priesthood, so no doubt fears of a two-tier system have arisen.

“I respect Bishop Emeritus Edward Daly’s stand, but his is not the only view on this complex issue. Last month, for example, a newly ordained married Catholic priest, Fr Paul Blackburn – a former Anglican minister – said he believes the Church is correct to prefer single celibate clergy in their parishes, adding that single priests are better placed to serve God by giving their entire life to his ministry.

“Change for its own sake, or for the sake of societal pressures or expectations, is not necessarily a good thing. However, if the call for an end to celibacy for Catholic clergy came from the majority of priests and candidates for the priesthood within the Church then the issue would best be addressed.”

However, a source within the Scottish Catholic Church said the former bishop’s comments were a “red herring”. “It sounds as if it’s an attempt to divert attention from the church in Ireland’s other problems. The biggest problem and the main reason why it has seen a fall in vocations has got to be clerical abuse scandal. That’s the defining issue for the Irish Church in the past decade and to say that it’s the fact that priests have to be celibate, it’s not relevant and it’s not the problem.”