c. 1996 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS)-Pope John Paul II told the Roman Catholic Church’s 400,000 priests Thursday (March 21) that they are obliged to remain faithful to their vows of celibacy.

In his annual letter to priests marking Holy Thursday, which celebrates the sacrament of priestly ordination and falls the week before Easter (April 7), John Paul wrote,”Priests in the Latin Church take on the commitment to live in celibacy. If vocation is watchfulness, certainly a significant aspect of the latter is fidelity to this commitment throughout one’s whole life.” The pope has consistently opposed allowing Roman Catholic priests to marry, though he has approved decrees permitting married priests from other Christian denominations, such as the Anglican Church, to receive ordination and carry out priestly duties.

In the 19-page letter, the pope, who turns 76 in May, also recalled the challenges of becoming a priest when he was ordained 50 years ago. “I am thinking of my seminary classmates who, like myself, followed a path to the priesthood marked by the tragic period of the Second World War,”he wrote.”At that time the seminaries were closed and seminarians were scattered here and there. Some of them lost their lives in the hostilities. For us, the priesthood, attained in those circumstances, took on a special value.” In his letter last year to mark Holy Thursday, the pontiff had strongly defended the ban on the ordination of women as priests in the Catholic Church and suggested that attempts to reverse it were misguided efforts to attain power. The pope had also stressed the importance of celibacy among Catholic priests.

MJP END HEILBRONNER