There are many angles from which to analyse clerical celibacy today and the suggestions by some that it's high time to end the practice. I would like to focus on two: its history and a personal reflection.
The Catholic Church sometimes remembers aspects of its tradition which have fallen into disuse – such as her teachings on the universal call to holiness and religious liberty, recovered and refined at the Second Vatican Council – and so we can ask, did the Church have married priests in the past, and if so, can we therefore restore them today?
