A Hungarian priest asked Pope Francis to abolish celibacy
He wrote in a letter sent to the pope that celibacy is an unwholesome form of life. Péter Cseh shared his message on his Facebook page; is long and full with strong statements. Details below.
According to 24.hu, the priest wrote that being alone is a defect that results in thousands of further defects. These are having a secret mistress, an addiction, snobbery and egocentrism.
Mr Cseh is a priest of the diocese of Pécs and has been serving as a parochial governer since August 5, 2020, in Szabadszentkirály. He cleared in his post that a lonely a priest, for example,
could physically meet or talk to almost nobody during the coronavirus epidemic.
Because of the loneliness, he cannot honestly recommend this mission to young people. He added that the collapse in the diocese in the last ten years was not because of the weakness of the Bible or the gospels but because the life of the priests is unwholesome.
He said that, in at least five years, every cleric in the dioceses should choose one from the following five options:
- he joins a cleric community consisting at least of three clerics
- he joins a monk community or other communities that welcome clerics
- he asks for a dispensation from the celibacy, gets married and continues to serve as a priest
- if he does not want to be a priest he can go into a non-active status. During that he cannot serve as a priest, does not receive any income or accommodation from the church but reserves his clerical position. Furthermore, with the authorisation of a pastor, he can occasionally serve as a priest. Finally, if he wants to change his status, he can do that any time by choosing from the three possibilities mentioned above.
- he can ask for laicisation, which means that he loses his clerical state but receives that automatically if he says that he would not like to be part of any communities.
Hvg.hu says that this is not the first time that Mr Cseh writes something provocative. For example, once he was asking about Árpád Habony, a controversial advisor of the PM of Hungary, and, in 2016, he wanted to support migration quotas, as well. Because of that the church started an investigation against him but found nothing, so they replaced him into his parish in March 2017.
Source: 24.hu, hvg.hu