Fribourg (Switzerland): The President of the Bishops' Conference of Switzerland while admitting faults in dealing with Church abuse and sexual assault cases has urged the Vatican to abolish celibacy and consider admitting married priests.
Vatican City, simply referred as Vatican, is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, whereas Pope, the Bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State, is the head of the Catholic Church.
“Celibacy means that I am available to God. But I believe that this sign is no longer understood by society today,” President of the Bishops' Conference of Switzerland Felix Gmür told the Neue Zurcher Zeitung newspaper Saturday.
The Bishop’s said this after a study commissioned by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference revealed over 1,000 cases of alleged sexual abuse involving clergy took place in Switzerland from 1950 to date, making it the latest country in Europe to confront a major abuse scandal.
“The time is ripe to abolish celibacy,” Bishop Gmür asserted, adding, “I have no problem at all imagining married priests.”
The Catholic Church forbids clergy from marrying or engaging in any kind of sexual activity, although the Vatican admitted in 2019 that these rules are broken so often that it has a secret set of guidelines detailing how to deal with cases of priests fathering children.
The top Bishop also urged the Vatican to consider admitting female priests, saying the exclusion of women from priestly ordination should end.
"The subordination of women in the Catholic Church is incomprehensible to me. Changes are needed there," Gmür said, according to swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR.
He added that the Church is "not yet where we need it to be" when it comes to the ban on concubinage – the practice of keeping a concubine, for employees.
The current Pope and Head of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known simply as Pope Francis had vowed in 2019 to crack down on the “destructive evil” of sexual abuse within the Church, and issued a decree making it obligatory for priests and members of religious orders to report suspected cases.
However, he has been accused of tolerating abuse by high-ranking clergymen, including his “trusted counselor,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, according to Russia Today.
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