Poll: Should the Catholic Church Lift Celibacy Requirements for Priests?

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

The case of the Rev. Alberto Cutie, a Miami priest who was photographed cavorting beachside with a woman, has launched nationwide water-cooler conversations about the Roman Catholic Church's celibacy requirement for priests, adopted nearly a thousand years ago.

According to a 2005 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, 63 percent of American Catholics think that priests should be allowed to marry.

Where do you stand? Explain your vote in comments.

The New York Times supplied a thumbnail backgrounder on the church's celibacy rules in a recent story about the Big Apple's new archbishop, who suggested those rules might bear re-examining:

Official church policy on celibacy has remained substantially unchanged since the 11th century, when the obligation became the rule for priests. Until then, it was optional, and many priests, bishops and popes were married.

Lawrence Cunningham, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, said the mandatory celibacy rules were adopted for many reasons, both theological and practical. Among the latter, he said, was the need to avoid claims on church property by priests' offspring.

The tradition of celibacy had its origins in the biblical portrayal of Jesus Christ as celibate and in the conviction among church leaders that a priest's role as spiritual teacher required a single-minded dedication to the community.

In the Eastern Rite churches—the Ukrainian and Melkite denominations, for instance, which are autonomous yet recognized by the Vatican as fully Catholic—the requirement of celibacy was never applied as strictly. Married men can be ordained, although priests, once ordained, cannot marry.

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