The date chosen for this interview is not insignificant: it was held the day before the opening of the third General Assembly of the Synodal Path, which was held from February 3-5 in Frankfurt, and which took up the question of priestly celibacy.
“The possibility of living celibate should not simply be unloaded on the individual,” said Bishop Marx. As a form of life, celibacy is “precarious, I always say that to young priests,” added the Archbishop of Munich. “Living alone is not so simple,” he concluded.
But he points out that, in his idea, there would be no general abolition of celibacy, because it is the way of life of Jesus. “But to make it a basic condition for every priest, I have to question that.”
The high prelate continues: “It would be better for everyone to create the possibility for celibate and married priests,” Cardinal Marx said. “For some priests, it would be better if they were married. Not just for sexual reasons, but because it would be better for their lives and they wouldn’t be alone,” he explains. That’s why we need to have this discussion.
He then objects: “Some will say: if we no longer have compulsory celibacy, everyone will get married now! My answer is: ‘So what? If everyone got married, it would show even more that it doesn’t work well that way.’”
Asked if he saw a link between this solitude and sexual abuse, the Archbishop of Munich replied: “We cannot say that overall. But this way of life and this alliance between men also attracts people who are not adapted, who are sexually immature.”
Errors, Inconsistencies, and Ignorance
These three terms can characterize Cardinal Marx’s intervention.
For the inconsistencies, it suffices to recall an interview with the porporato, reported by FSSPX.News: the Archbishop of Munich recently proposed authorizing the ordination of homosexual men. And he admits today that “this way of life and this alliance between men also attract people who are not adapted.”
For those who do not know, it should be noted that in the Eastern Catholic Churches which allow the married priests, the bishops must be celibate. So, if all priests married, as Cardinal Marx accepts, where would we find bishops? Only the religious would remain, which is often the case in the East. Do we want the great majority of the episcopate to be drawn from religious orders and societies?
All this obviously does not interest the innovators: “let’s make a clean sweep of the past.” It is man, and modern man estranged from God, who is the standard of their theology. They sow the wind, and will soon reap the whirlwind. We are undoubtedly on the eve of a disillusionment at least as serious as that which followed the Dutch “pastoral council,” which brought down the Church of the Netherlands.
In an interview with the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, Cardinal Reinhard Marx pleads for the end of compulsory celibacy within the Catholic Church. He also discussed the ordination of women and the involvement of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in the recently publicized affairs concerning the Munich diocese.