Former pope Benedict breaks silence and stuns Vatican watchers
- Retired pope Benedict has broken his silence to reaffirm the value of priestly celibacy, co-authoring a bombshell book
- Comes as Pope Francis weighs allowing married men to be ordained to address the Catholic priest shortage
Former pope Benedict has publicly urged his successor Pope Francis not to open the Catholic priesthood up to married men, in a plea that stunned Vatican experts.
The ex-pontiff, who retired in 2013, issued the defence of clerical celibacy in a book written with arch-conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah, extracts of which were published in exclusive by France’s Le Figaro.
Benedict’s intervention is extraordinary, given he had promised to remain “hidden from the world” when he retired and pledged his obedience to the new pope.
“I cannot keep silent!” Benedict wrote in the book, which follows an extraordinary meeting of bishops from the Amazonian at the Vatican last year that recommended the ordination of married men in certain circumstances.
The pope emeritus, 92, and Sarah from Guinea weighed in on the controversial question of whether or not to allow viri probati – married “men of proven virtue” – to join the priesthood.
