Osservatore Romano Hammers Against Priestly Celibacy

L’Osservatore Romano (February 6) has propagated the proposal of Bishop Fritz Lobinger, 90, that aims at undermining priestly celibacy.

Lobinger wants to “re-introduce” a “second type” of priest who, he claims, existed in the first centuries, were married, had a job, and work as part-time priests.

It is common that modernists present their ideas as going back to the early centuries because very few historical documents exist for that time. Further, Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler (+2007), a scholars of celibacy, showed that in the first centuries so called married priests lived separately from their wives.

L’Osservatore Romano explains Lobinger's part-time-priests would not exercise their function individually but “always in a team” [following a modernist tendency to de-personalize pastoral care].

During his flight from Panama to Rome, Pope Francis commended Lobinger’s proposal as a way to introduce married priests although up to now he had always rejected attempts to clericalise lay-people.

Lobinger, a Regensburg priest, Germany, was until 2004 Bishop of Aliwal, South Africa. He has propagated his ideas in different books.

Quoting Lobinger, L’Osservatore Romano insists that the [decadent] Church in the rich northern countries should be first in introducing married priests.