The Derry-born Catholic Primate of Ireland has said he as has “no objection” to the idea of priests being allowed to marry but doesn’t see it as a quick fix solution to the vocations crisis.
In a frank and wide-ranging discussion with Hot Press magazine Archbishop Eamon Martin (pictured) said the decline in vocations was a “major issue” for bishops.
One of the ways they are dealing with the crisis is by “borrowing back from the Churches that the priests and sisters of Ireland served” by bringing priests in from elsewhere around the world where vocations are plentiful.
Archbishop Martin, former president of St Columb’s College, the Church in Ireland needed a period of renewal and that renewal would take about 30 years to get over “a lot of the struggles and the immaturity that we have in our Church”.
Asked about the importing of priests from overseas, he said: “We need to be courageous and creative in welcoming priests from abroad to help us over this period.
“It’s not forever. You think of America; for a long time in the 50s and 60s the American Church was served by Irish priests.
“Now it’s served by native priests from the US. The Irish Church helped out another part of the universal church that was in need. Now we are in need and we look to the universal church for assistance.”
On the issue of celibacy, Archbishop Martin said there were “great graces within celibacy” and that “it’s a huge gift to the Church for a young man to give his life totally to the Church or a young woman in the religious life”.
He admitted he had dated a number of girlfriends before joining the seminary and thought he was in love a few times.
Even since becoming a priest, he had “met many women to whom I’m fairly sure I would be attracted and in another life might have considered, ‘Would I like to be married to this person? Have children with this person?’”
But he said he had made a commitment that he had to try to be faithful to and added that he was no different to his friends who got married and had struggled with fidelity.
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