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The issue of clerical celibacy has been the subject of considerable discussion among the hierarchy in the face of the priest shortage in the United States and Western Europe. Priestly celibacy is mandatory in the Western Church except for a relatively small number of priests who joined from other denominations, while among the Eastern rite churches in communion with Rome, priests are permitted to marry.
Clerical celibacy was the subject of vigorous debate at the October 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, in which it was decided that it should be maintained unchanged for reasons of historical tradition and papal teaching. Nevertheless, clerical celibacy is not a dogma, and the severity of the priest shortage has focused attention on the celibacy rule as never before. In his recent book To the Burgunds Who Believe in Heaven and to Those Who Don’t Believe, Bishop Rolan Minnerath of Dijon, France, who served as secretary-general for the October 2005 synod, writes, “If this tradition deprives communities of priests, to the point of bringing them to the brink of extinction, then why not let it evolve?"
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