c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope Benedict XVI met with his top advisers on Thursday (Nov. 16) to reaffirm the Vatican’s requirement of celibacy for priests in the wake of controversy surrounding the excommunication of a married African archbishop.

A brief statement from the Vatican at the close of the three-hour meeting signaled that the pontiff and top Vatican officials are strongly standing by the celibacy requirement despite increasing pressure to at least consider allowing priests to marry.

“The value of the choice of priestly celibacy, according to Catholic tradition, has been reaffirmed,” the statement said.

In September, the pope issued a notice of excommunication for Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo as a penalty for consecrating a group of married men as bishops. Since then, Milingo has continued to campaign for a end to priestly celibacy. He has announced plans to hold a meeting of more than 1,000 married Catholic priests in New York in early December.

The Vatican said the pope met with advisers to discuss Milingo and address the individual cases of priests requiring dispensation from the celibacy requirement. The dispensation would apply to priests such as widowers who are looking to return to active ministry and resume their celibacy. The possibility of changing the celibacy rule was not on the table.

Critics of the church’s celibacy requirement say it ignores the current shortage of Catholic priests throughout the world. When an international synod of bishops met in Rome last year, some prelates raised the question of allowing married men of “proven virtue” to become priests in order to stem the shortage. The synod ultimately renewed its support for celibacy.

Milingo resigned as head of the archdiocese of Lusaka, Zambia, in 1982 after the Vatican challenged his endorsement of faith-healing and exorcism. In 2001, Milingo bucked the church’s celibacy requirement and married a South Korean woman in a ceremony conducted by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.

Milingo’s marriage to Maria Sung, an acupuncturist, scandalized the Vatican, prompting a personal appeal from the late Pope John Paul II. Milingo avoided excommunication by renouncing the union and returning to the fold. Five years ago, he returned to Rome and was assigned to a convent on the outskirts of the city.

In May, however, the 76-year-old cleric went missing from the convent. A month later, he turned up at a press conference in Washington calling on the Vatican to drop the priesthood’s celibacy requirement.

KRE/PH END MEICHTRY