The Catholic
Church should consider allowing married men to become priests, Pope said.
The lifting of the ban
on married men being ordained would apply only in specific circumstances, for
instance in remote areas of the world where priests are in short supply, the
Pope said. But it would effectively reverse the centuries-old principle that
Roman Catholic priests must be celibate.
In an interview with Germany's 'Die Zeit' newspaper, the pontiff
said he was open to the idea of so-called "viri probati" - married
men of deep faith who are already involved in the Church - being allowed to
become priests.
"We must consider
if viri probati is a possibility. Then we must determine what tasks they can
perform, for example, in remote communities," he said.
Francis's greater flexibility towards some of the Church's
contemporary problems has been a pillar of his papacy.
The compassion he has
brought to bear on issues such as whether Catholics who divorce and then
remarry should be allowed to take Communion has earned him rock star status
among liberals but earned the opprobrium of many conservatives, especially in
the US.
As the Church's first Latin American Pope, Francis is acutely
aware that large countries like Brazil suffer from a lack of priests. In the
Amazon region, for instance, there is just one priest for every 10,000
Catholics. Loosening the rules on who can be ordained could help solve that
problem.
There
are already a limited number of married priests, including Anglican ministers
who defected to Rome, some Coptic Catholics and members of some Eastern rite
Catholic churches
