The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, staggering under the weight of a national sex scandal, published a stunning editorial in its official newspaper Friday that questioned whether priests should remain celibate.
Late Friday, Boston's archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, issued a statement contending the editorial was not intended to question the church's position on celibacy. Law, the senior cardinal in the United States and the paper's publisher, said the editorial was merely a reflection of issues raised by others.
Experts, however, said the fact that a major archdiocese would delve into one of the church's most fundamental laws reflects how deeply the church's U.S. hierarchy has been touched by public outrage. In past weeks, dioceses in numerous states have been accused of or admitted knowingly employing priests with a history of molesting minors.
The editorial in the Boston Archdiocese's newspaper, the Pilot, also raised the question of whether the priesthood attracts too many gay men. And it promised to explore next week the question of ordaining women--a topic that Pope John Paul has forbidden to be discussed within the church.
"These scandals have raised serious questions in the minds of the laity that simply will not disappear," wrote Msgr. Peter V. Conley, the paper's executive editor, in the editorial.
"They're asking questions the pope doesn't want to discuss," said Arthur Jones, editor-at-large for the National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper with a liberal reputation, who applauded the editorial.
Prior to Cardinal Law's statement, Father Christopher Coyne, a diocesan spokesman, said, "The editorial simply restates the questions that have been raised by the laity in the listening sessions and says in light of all this we should respond with appropriate answers."
The editorial offered no solutions and only raised the provocative questions: "Should celibacy continue to be a normative condition for the diocesan priesthood? . . . Does priesthood, in fact, attract a disproportionate number of men with a homosexual orientation? . . . Lastly, why are a substantial number of Catholics not convinced that an all-male priesthood was intended by Christ and is unchangeable?"
The church allowed married priests prior to the 11th century.
