Do you think Catholic priests should be allowed to get married?

On this week’s episode of The Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Fr. Rich Pagano, and Ryan DellaCrosse discuss if Catholic priests should be allowed to marry or if they should remain celibate.

Married priest from the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter Fr. Justin Fletcher joins the show this week, discussing whether or not he believes priests should be permitted to get married.

Listen to his answer below:



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“Christ clearly says that those who are celibate for the Kingdom produce greater fruit for the Kingdom,” Fr. Fletcher explains.

“The priest who consecrates himself in union with Christ, and gives up the great good of marriage, and even the greatest good in marriage, which is having children, for the sake of the kingdom, is producing more fruit for the whole body of Christ…which will produce more priests that way.

“Whereas the priest who is both married and ordained, does actually produce that fruit.”

“I think people think that if we start having married priests, that would fix all the problems. But in fact, from a spiritual point of view, in terms of the actual communion that we share as the body of Christ, there’s actually less sacrifice being made.

“So do we need more sacrifice being made for the sake of the Church, or do we need less sacrifices being made?” Fr. Fletcher asks.

“To change that–to where we start ordaining priests because we think we don’t have enough–we’re actually instituting less sacrificial offerings being made for the life of the Church.”

Do you agree with Fr. Fletcher?

[See also: 4 Times the Church Held Her Ground on Communion for the Divorced & Remarried]

[See also: The Inside Scoop On What It’s Like Being a Married Catholic Priest]