By The Universe's Vatican Correspondent Gerry O'Connell: Pope Benedict will today hold a summit meeting in the Vatican on Thursday to discuss the case of excommunicated Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and the status of married priests around the world.
The Vatican announced the summit on November 13 after a news agency broke the story. The summit meeting comes less than two weeks after Archbishop Milingo wrote an open letter to the Pope, calling for immediate steps to accept married priests in the Catholic Church in order to end what he said was the church’s “dire straits because of the shortage of priests”.
It appears that the quick convention of the summit appears to have been triggered by the risk of a schism in the Church following the ordination of four bishops without papal approval on September 24 by Archbishop Milingo.
Holy See spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said he did not expect the discussions would consider major changes in the priestly celibacy rule.
The meeting will focus on three specific issues.
The first is of Archbishop Milingo’s disobedience, the second will cover requests for dispensation from the obligation of celibacy and the third will look at requests for re-admission to the priestly ministry presented by priests who had married over recent years.
Shortly before the ordination act which led to his excommunication, Milingo founded a movement to lobby for the reintegration in the priestly ministry of Catholic priests who left the ministry to marry.
Milingo plans to hold a meeting with 1,000 married priests and their wives in the United States on December 8-10.
Vatican and other sources have estimated that approximately 100,000 Catholic priests have abandoned their ministry to marry over the past 40 years. Around 70,000 of them received papal dispensations from the vow of celibacy.
Apart from the situation created by Milingo, the Pope also wanted to hear the views of Vatican cardinals and archbishops on the never-ending flow of requests from priests for dispensation from celibacy.
Vatican sources say an average of 300 Catholic priests each year submit such requests to the Pope, though many more abandon the ministry without doing so. A significant number of priests who abandoned the priestly ministry and married are also now requesting readmission to the ministry.
Vatican sources have suggested that in recent years, an annual average of 1,200 married priests - many of them now old - have made such requests.
Priests who request and obtain Vatican dispensation from priestly celibacy in order to marry are returned to the lay state. They are not allowed to administer the sacraments, except for granting absolution when there is danger of death, and are forbidden to assume some other functions in church life.
More than 20 heads of Vatican congregations and pontifical councils were expected to attend today's summit.
The Holy See said there were no additional agenda items.