In an interview that was released on Sunday, a senior Vatican official and adviser to Pope Francis stated that the Roman Catholic Church ought to "seriously consider" permitting priests to get married.

"This is probably the first time I'm saying it publicly and it will sound heretical to some people," Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, adjunct secretary in the Vatican's doctrinal office, told the Times of Malta.

Pope Francis has ruled out the possibility of changing the Roman Catholic law mandating celibacy for priests. However, a subsequent pope may alter it since it is not a canonical teaching of the Church.


A Vatican spokesman did not immediately answer a request for comment.

Did you read this?

  1. Gachagua Tours Vatican City Looking Sleek As He Concludes UN Summit
  2. Pope Francis In Good Spirit As He Leaves The Hospital After Operation
  3. Difference Between Jesuit Catholicism And Roman Catholicism

Scicluna, who is arguably best known for his studies into crimes involving sexual abuse, pointed out that priests were permitted to get married in the first millennium of the Church's existence and that the Catholic Church still permits marriages under its Eastern rite.

"If it were up to me, I would revise the requirement that priests have to be celibate," he said. "Experience has shown me that this is something we need to seriously think about."

Scicluna, 64, said the Church had "lost many great priests because they chose marriage."

He said "there is a place" for celibacy in the Church but that it also had to consider that a priest sometimes falls in love. He then has to choose "between her and the priesthood and some priests cope with that by secretly engaging in sentimental relationships".


For centuries, there has been discussion about whether or not Roman Catholic priests should be able to get married.

Priests are permitted to get married in the Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican churches, as well as in the Catholic Church using the Eastern Rite.

Married priests are opposed because celibacy enables a priest to devote himself entirely to the Church.

A plan to permit some elderly married men to be ordained in isolated Amazonian communities, where the faithful may only see a priest once a year, was rejected by the pope in 2021.