I Australien har man i juni skickat ut ett brev till samtliga biskopar om att viga gifta män - och kvinnor. Det är banbrytande i katolska kyrkan där.
Brevet undertecknades av "vanligt" lekfolk, systrar, bröder och präster. 11 svar har kommit in från biskoparna hittills, varav 8 var positiva. Med detta stöd bakom sig beslutade man att offentliggöra brevet.
Man kan hoppas att hela kyrkan snart ska se vartåt det barkar ifall detta inte införs.
Här är ett utdrag ur Milingos svar till Påven - rörande frågan om gifta präster.
On November 16th, Pope Benedict XVI called a rare meeting of his cabinet, the Roman Curia, to specifically discuss the issues raised by our Prelature's call for a married priesthood in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. His official cabinet includes twenty Cardinals who head the Vatican governmental offices, known as dicasteries.
I, Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, and the Married Priests Now! Prelature agree with the Holy Father and the Vatican in their statement that reaffirmed celibacy. We believe celibacy is a charism for some priests but not for all. The priesthood must be freed from celibacy as an obligation. Celibacy should be viewed as an option rather than the norm, a charism that is freely chosen, and not enforced as a job requirement. To continue to require celibacy as a prerequisite for ordination only exacerbates an already deteriorating and hemorrhaging situation within the Roman priesthood. Not every priest has the particular calling to be celibate and this is the problem.
We do not believe that a meeting of the Cardinals who head the dicasteries was called to simply reaffirm celibacy. The report that was NOT released by the Vatican is the important one. What did the Cardinals actually say about a married priesthood? Is the Vatican in such a state of denial that it cannot see the need for a married priesthood?What, so far, has celibacy done for the church? On the American scene it has undermined the church by an ever-increasing sexual abuse scandal that has ruined the lives of countless young victims. It has cast a dark shadow of doubt on the holiness of the priesthood. The faithful can no longer trust their priests. The cost of celibacy has driven diocese after diocese into bankruptcy and church properties have been sold to pay off claims of sexual misconduct by priests. Celibacy, because of its loneliness and lack of intimacy has helped turn thousands of priests into alcoholics.
The Vatican's denial of the problem confirms and encourages our mission to recall married priests to full active ministry within the Roman Catholic Church. The Married Priests Now! Prelature is the only Catholic diocese calling for the ordination of married men and for the return of married priests to full ministry.Marriage is a sacrament of the church, celibacy is not. Marriage is a higher calling than celibacy. The marriage vow trumps the celibacy promise. Our Prelature believes that a married priest is a healthier priest, and that a married priesthood will give priests a wholesome and proper outlet for their sexuality. We are created by God as sexual beings and our sexuality needs to be celebrated as a blessing for ourselves and our wives. Marriage needs to be the normal option for priests. Remember that Jesus called married priests first. St. Peter was a married priest. The New Testament priesthood was a married priesthood. It is time for the Roman Catholic Church to return the gift of the married priesthood to the Latin Rite.
The sanctity of the church is in the family. The holiness of marriage and family reflects the community of love that we find in the Trinity. The love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the true model of the holiness of the family. Marriage brings us closer to God. A married priesthood can create wonderful families that because of marriage will identify more closely with the families they serve in the church and community. It will foster equality for women in the church and bring a new form of democracy in church management.
There is sadness in the Church over the dire situation caused by the shortage of priests. The faithful realize that they are not being well served because the priests who remain are elderly, clearly over-extended and cannot meet the needs of the faithful. Hundreds of churches have been closed and laymen and laywomen are being appointed as pastors of churches. The faithful see and feel the problem and often do reach out to the married priests who are available and willing to meet their spiritual demands. This is a groundswell movement - a church within a church - that is forming and the Vatican is in a state of denial. Our Prelature is part of this movement. This is a New Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is creating a new church for a new day.
På torsdag kommer frågan om prästcelibat att tas upp i Vatikanen - 150 000 präster lär ha lämnat sin tjänst (sedan Andra Vatikankonciliet) - de flesta för att de gift sig.
Det verkar som att en ändring faktiskt kan vara på gång nu, så att de präster som vill gifta sig kan få dispens för det - och de präster som gift sig och inte är i tjänst kan börja verka som präster igen officiellt - för inofficiellt sker det redan sedan lång tid tillbaka.
På torsdag behandlas bara de ansökningar om detta som redan kommit in - men även det är ett litet steg vidare - som varit otänkbart tidigare.
Se artikel nedan.
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Pope Benedict XVI to hold Vatican summit on married priests
The Associated PressPope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials will hold a meeting to discuss requests for lifting the celibacy requirement made by priests seeking to marry or who have already married, the Vatican said Monday.
The summit will take place on Thursday and was called because of the recent excommunication of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the Vatican said in a statement.Benedict called the meeting to examine the implications of the "disobedience" of the Zambian prelate, who was excommunicated in September for installing four married men as bishops.
Milingo had previously angered the Holy See in 2001, when he was married to a South Korean acupuncturist chosen for him by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, in a group wedding ceremony in New York. Upon appeal from Pope John Paul II a few months later, he renounced that union.Milingo disappeared from his residence outside Rome in June, resurfacing a month later in Washington, D.C., to announce he was back with his wife and was championing the cause of married priests through his new advocacy group "Married Priests Now."The Vatican said in September that Milingo and the four men he ordained as bishops were "automatically excommunicated" under church law. The Vatican added that it did not recognize the ordination of the four and would not recognize any ordinations done by those men in the future.
Milingo said the Catholic Church should embrace more than 150,000 married priests worldwide in part to ease the ongoing clergy shortage and to elevate the sanctity of marriage.
The Synod of Bishops in October 2005 rejected suggestions that the mandatory celibacy requirement for priests be dropped. But Milingo's excommunication has brought the issue back into the spotlight.
The Vatican stressed that Thursday's meeting would not open a general discussion of the celibacy requirement but would only examine the requests for dispensation made by priests wishing to marry and the requests for readmission made by clergy who had married in recent years.
