UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 February 2013
Britain’s most senior Catholic has suggested Catholic priests should be able to marry and have children, saying the demand for celibacy was not of “divine origin”.
In one of the most significant breaks with Catholic orthodoxy, Cardinal Keith O’Brien said many priests found it “very difficult to cope” with the celibate life and suggested lifting that ban could soon happen in the wider church.
The cardinal suggested that the next pope could review the marriage ban for priests. Marriage is allowed in some cases within the church already. The English Catholic church has accepted married former Anglican priests, under a policy introduced in 2011 by the present pope, Benedict XVI.
O’Brien, who has been the focus of bitter controversy over his staunch opposition to gay marriage and gay adoption, will be the only Catholic from the UK involved in the conclave in the Vatican next month to choose Benedict’s successor.
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