Malta's Archbishop Charles Scicluna, 64, who is adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wants to abolish celibacy, he told TimesOfMalta.com (7 January).
He believes "the time is ripe" for decisions on the issue. "This is probably the first time I've said it publicly and it will sound heretical to some people."
Monsignor Scicluna spread the historical lie that celibacy was "optional for the first millennium" of the Church's existence and that it should be "optional again" [= abolished].
In reality, celibacy goes back to the Apostles, as the Gospels testify. All accounts from the early centuries consider the children of priests illegitimate, as Cardinal Alfons Stickler (1910-2007), among others, has shown.
There is no evidence that abolishing celibacy would make the Church more holy, more Catholic and apostolic - on the contrary.
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