When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina became Pope Francis on March 13, the fact that he chose a first-time papal moniker only added to the mystique around his unique rise to the papacy.
Now, even as Francis seeks to avoid war in Syria through the power of prayer and is actively engaging in dialogue with atheists urging them to heed the simple wisdom of following their consciences, the Roman Catholic Church may be on the verge of its biggest change since the move toward accessibility and inclusiveness characterized by the Second Vatican Council effectively brought the church into the modern world.
It appears the Vatican may be warming to the idea of allowing priests to marry.
"It is not a church dogma and it can be discussed because it is a church tradition," Venezuelan Archbishop Pietro Parolin told Caracas-based El Universal in an interview originally published Aug, 31 but only breaking into the US and European news cycles this week.
However, just because the possibility of priests marrying is up for discussion, one shouldn’t assume priests will be marrying in the near future.
"The efforts that the church made to keep ecclesiastical celibacy, to impose ecclesiastical celibacy, have to be taken into consideration," Parolin said. "One cannot say simply that this belongs in the past."
Parolin is currently serving out his appointment as papal nuncio to Venezuela before becoming Francis’ No. 2 man at the Vatican, where he will serve as secretary of state beginning next month.
Such a shift in Catholic doctrine would be at least as significant as Pope John XXIII’s 1963 Sacrosanctum Concilium, which allowed Masses to be celebrated in a given country’s vernacular while simultaneously preserving the Latin rites within the Mass.
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