Italian priest can still celebrate Mass; case renews priestly celibacy debate

The Associated Press
Updated: 10:45 a.m. CT Oct 9, 2007

PADUA, Italy - An Italian priest who publicly declared his love for a woman has lost his job, the diocese said Tuesday.

The Rev. Sante Sguotti can no longer work as pastor in his Monterosso parish and cannot hear confessions from the faithful, the diocese of Padua said in a statement. Sguotti remains a priest and can celebrate Mass, however.

Sguotti made headlines in August when he went on national television to say he was in love with a woman and wanted to be her boyfriend publicly while remaining chaste.

Celibacy debate
The case reignited the debate over priestly celibacy, particularly because the woman in question has a young son, whom Sguotti said he had helped name. He dodged direct questions about whether he was the boy's father, saying only that he cannot have a child according to church law.

Bishop Antonio Mattiazzo issued a decree on Monday removing Sguotti from his pastoral duties, saying he was doing so because Sguotti "had been linked for some time to a woman and had asked for a dispensation to go out with her."

Men in the Eastern rite of the Catholic church who are married can become priests, and the Vatican has accepted into the priesthood some married Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism.

But the Vatican has constantly refused to relax the celibacy requirement for Latin rite priests. The Vatican reaffirmed that last November, when Pope Benedict XVI convened a summit of clergy who rebuffed a crusade by Emmanuel Milingo, the renegade Zambian archbishop who was excommunicated last year after marrying a woman and launching a campaign for the Vatican to allow priests to marry.

I think that was a very romantic sacrifice

I think priest should be allowed to marry
the world has changed, why no the Church?

why not the church?
sorry for the typo

I'm a catholic to death
and i agree priest should be allowed to get married

G-d created us to love and be given to each other emotionally and physically, it is ridiculously that those who are given to serve G-d would be witheld from this sacred thing that he has given us.

in judaism the priests marry and that is G-d's original law. catholics should take that into consideration. for they are although far removed, a derivative of that religion.

is the o in your keyboard missing?
or is it sin to say the word God as it is?

it is a jewish tradition to not spell out the reference.

oh
i didn't know that
thanxs for enlighten me

no prob.

Oh for goodness sakes, that man needs to get another job. Or maybe he thinks he deserves to be cared for while he 'serves' his God! He needs to get a grip, if he can't serve his God with the support of a church to fund him, just how priestly is that???