
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993                   TAG: 9307180065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VATICAN CITY                                LENGTH: Short

POPE SAYS CELIBACY IS NOT ESSENTIAL FOR PRIESTS, BUT...

Pope John Paul II on Saturday said celibacy is not essential to the priesthood, but made clear that the Vatican would continue to demand that priests be celibate.

The statement, made to a weekly audience of tourists and pilgrims, gave no indication of a softening of one of the central and most controversial tenets of the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Instead, the pope appeared to be acknowledging two arguments by opponents of the marriage ban: that Rome accepts that the Eastern Rite churches, which recognize the authority of the pope, allow the ordination of married men; and that in its early centuries, the Christian church allowed married priests.

As if answering the critics, the pope in clear terms gave the church's reason for this seeming inconsistency.

Celibacy "doesn't belong to the essence of priesthood," he said. But he added that the Church has come to conclude that being single is more suited to carrying out a priest's duties, and he made clear the Vatican is content with the ban on marriage.

"Jesus didn't make a law, but proposed an ideal of celibacy for the new priesthood that he was establishing," the pope said. "This ideal is affirmed ever more in the church."

Insistence on celibacy is often blamed for the difficulty in recruiting Roman Catholic priests and for priests leaving the church.

by CNB