The movement exists because the present law is so out of date that it is an obstacle to mission. Now read on.

Although the parochial clergy of the Catholic Church were mostly married men from apostolic times until the early middle ages, the law was changed in the twelfth century restricting major orders to those who accepted the obligation of life-long  celibacy. The decisions on this matter were enacted at the First and Second Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139, and applied to the Latin rite only. The Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church continued the ancient system and to this day they admit married men to the priesthood.

The reasons for the decision to restrict ordination to single men are discussed at length in other articles on this web - site. Briefly they amount to a distaste for sex, and the re-emergence of an ancient concept of cultic purity. For reasons which will be spelled out later in this web - site the authorities considered that sexual activity and the celebration of mass were spiritually incompatible. The falsity of this position is now clear to every intelligent person, but the momentum of history in our ancient Church has meant that the law still reflects the outlook of the twelfth century.

In all fairness to the Church leaders of the twelfth century, we must put the debate into its historical context. It was a time when the sacramental status of marriage had only recently been acknowledged, and many theological problems about marriage and sex  were debated in and atmosphere of great confusion and uncertainty. For example there was no agreement about the purposes of marriage, was sexual pleasure always sinful (even if they genuinely intended to conceive a child),  did sterility invalidate the marriage (which of course could only be ascertained some years after the ceremony) and others of a similar kind. Some of these problems were only settled in the Second Vatican Council, more than eight hundred years after the fateful decisions of those Lateran Councils.

This is not simply an academic debate. In all parts of the Church (except perhaps Asia) there is a shortage of priests which is now so acute that in Europe parishes are being deprived of a resident priest, and in parts of Africa and South America many rural communities see a priest and have mass as rarely as once a year. The rule of celibacy is not the only deterrent keeping young men from the seminaries, other anachronistic institutions within our Church are off putting as well. However, the admission of married men to the priesthood is the simplest problem to tackle, since it is the most obvious disincentive, and can most easily be remedied, i.e. by a simple administrative decision by the Pope.    

To put the whole problem into context, we must bear in mind that the general admission of married men into the priesthood will not solve all the Church’s problems. The atheistic culture of western society creates so many problems for a life of faith that profound theological renewal will be required, of which The Second Vatican Council was just the start. Nevertheless the aim to have married men in the priesthood is a perfectly valid objective, since no radical renewal of the ordained ministry will be possible without it. We do not aim to imitate other Christian Churches whose clergy, though married, still live as a class apart, paid by their Churches. For the future, the kind of priests who can act as spiritual animators of missionary communities, must live the same kind of lives as the people they serve. This will mean basically that they work like other men and support their families by their own wages.