Priests in Puebla Dismissed Over Children

UPDATE 1/6/2010: Eugenio Lira Rugarcía, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Puebla, has issued a communique clarifying that four priests have been dismissed and that they are also suspended a divinis. On a more interesting note, Cambio reports that Rugarcia suggested that once the priests have fulfilled their obligations as fathers of minor children, they could ask to be returned to the priesthood though, he said, this seldom happens. And, in a further development, La Jornada de Oriente reports that the Jesuit rector of the Universidad Iberoamericana, David Fernández Dávalos, has offered his opinion that it is time for the Church to end mandatory celibacy for priests which he describes as a source of disenchantment for the faithful. “It is necessary to review whether it is appropriate for celibacy to continue to be practised in the Catholic Church, because it is not linked to any revelation, it is not in the gospel. The obligation of celibacy has been imposed since the 12th century. It is a human law that can be ended at any given moment. The religious [monastic] life in which one voluntarily accepts a way of life freely, without having the commitments of a family or partner, is something else."


Several priests in the Archdiocese of Puebla, Mexico, have been dismissed from their parishes over the last year after the archbishop, Mons. Víctor Sánchez Espinosa, learned that they had fathered children. The exact number of priests who have been dismissed varies in the news accounts on the subject. Milenio claims three priests are involved; El Sol de Puebla says four. The reports are also contradictory as to whether the priests have also been suspended a divinis or not...