A dozen Italian women have posted an open letter to the pope on the Internet with one very simple message: END CELIBACY AMONG PRIESTS!
The women, most of whom did not want to be identified, claim to have had intimate relationships with priests and are therefore urging the church to abolish celibacy for Catholic clergy. “The priest, like every human being, needs to live with his kindred, to experience feelings, to love and be loved, and also to conform deeply with another, something which he is hardly willing to do for fear of exposing himself to danger,” the letter says.
The group says celibacy is not God’s law, but rather a man-made law that needs revisiting and adapting to modern times. “We wonder if, like all man-made laws, at a certain time, in a certain historic time, it is not the case to discuss it again and change it or even, as we hope, completely abolish it.” Priests have secretly had intimate relationships with women for many years, some even fathering children, with some of these stories becoming public. One of the more notable cases is that of the Rev. Alberto Cutie of Miami, who was caught and photographed by a tabloid newspaper intimately cuddled with his female lover on a beach. Soon after, Cutie publicly declared to the church he was not ashamed of being with the woman he loves and left the priesthood last year to marry her. To date he remains highly popular among Miami-Dade Catholics, who overwhelmingly oppose the church’s long-standing policy of requiring a celibate clergy.
But the Italian women are not alone in their calls to end Catholicism’s ancient celibacy laws. Various groups over the years have promoted the theory that if priests were allowed to marry or have open relationships with women as in most other religions, perhaps the priesthood would not be so overrun with gay pedophiles who have preyed on young male children and caused the church such grief. Some even believe the priesthood has become a gathering ground of predominately gay men, which they feel could instantly change and interest more males in becoming priests if the men were simply allowed the right to marry or openly have monogamous relationships.
