Spanish Priests Call for an end to compulsory celibacy
Dear Friends,
I would like to draw your attention on a group of priests in Spain, in Girona, who have come out publicly for the abolition of mandatory celibacy and the ordination of women.
They are around 80 priests, 1/3 of the diocese's effectives, and they have written an open letter to their bishop asking to put an end to mandatory celibacy and to admit women to ordination.
As you can imagine, this has caused a great media event in Spain, and has galvanized the Church reform movement in Catalonia and in Spain. The answer of the bishops was to put on their web-site the documents of the Vatican on
WO, declaring that the exclusion of women from priesthood was " part of God's plan for his Church". This could be interpreted, to certain extent, as an easy way of pointing with their finger to the uggly ones in Rome who cause
all that mess.
The issue of celibacy seems to have been treated with sereinity by the bishop. He is probably one of those who see that the future of a sacramental Church is not possible with the maintainance of the actual structures of access to ordination.
I suggest that you send messages of solidarity to those priests.
Here the name of a contact person, a signatory of this call. He is pastor in one of the parishes in Girona:
Ignasi Forcano:
Best,
Elfriede