PELHAM, New York -- A shocking report out of Australia suggests ending mandatory celibacy for Catholic priests could help protect children from sexual abuse. The study claims tens of thousands of ...

At the June 13-15 meeting of America's Roman Catholic bishops to discuss priestly sex-abuse scandals, one matter will be off the agenda: reconsideration of priestly celibacy. The Vatican's April ...

In recent times there has been an increasing number of challenges to the rule of mandatory celibacy for priests. This is understandable in a society that has become sexually permissive almost beyond ...

The Catholic Church is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis's pontificate. The pontiff – who began his papacy on March 13 2013 – did not make much spectacle of the papal milestone, though ...

"My brothers and sisters, I confess to you I have sinned ... nothing I can say would justify my behaviors," the Rev. Salvador Czares-Haro, a priest at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Tucson ...

Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s new secretary of state, discussed the Catholic understanding of priestly celibacy in an interview with the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal earlier ...

I cannot think of one good reason for the Catholic church to continue its policy of compulsory celibacy for priests. I search my mind in vain for any cogent explanation for maintaining the present ...

I read with interest the recent letter to the editor, “There is purpose to a priest’s celibacy” (Dec. 9) by Rev. Matthew Buening. He writes that celibacy for priests is chosen and not forced, it is a ...

VATICAN CITY — The requirement that most priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church be celibate has theological and spiritual foundations and not only practical motivations, said speakers at an ...

Clerical celibacy is an issue that the ongoing final sessions of the Synod on Synodality should have discussed. However, the hierarchy continues to peripheralize it, despite its deleterious impacts on ...

VATICAN CITY – While acknowledging the acute shortage of priests in the Roman Catholic Church, bishops from around the world reaffirmed the church’s stance on celibacy for priests Saturday in a set of ...

BERLIN - A prominent German archbishop advocated loosening celibacy rules for Catholic priests in comments published Thursday before a meeting of a German reform assembly. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the ...