Pope Leo XIV confirms celibacy for priests, demands ‘firm’ action on sexual abuse

Rome – Pope Leo XIV confirmed on Wednesday that priests should be celibate and insisted that bishops take “strong and decisive” action to deal with sexual abusers, while giving Marsawers to the Catholic hierarches of the world on Wednesday.

Leo met in St. Peter’s Basilica with around 400 bishops and cardinals from 38 countries that attended this week’s Special Holy Year parties for clergy. A day after he had given a uplifting message of encouragement to young seminarists, Leo offered a more extensive sketch of what bishops should do to lead their herds.

It is a problem that the former Cardinal Robert Prevost would have thought about for a long time, given his role as a prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for bishops. In that job from 2023 until his election in May, the Chicago born Prevost Bishop nominations for Pope Francis has checked and identified the type of leader that Francis would promote a church where everyone is welcome and dialogue is the decisive form of governance.

The first American pope of history confirmed on Wednesday that the primary role of bishops is to forge unity in his diocese among clergy and to be close to his herd in word and deed. Bishops have to live in poverty and simplicity, open their houses generously and act as a father figure and brother for his priests, Leo said.

“In his personal life he must be detached from the pursuit of wealth and of forms of favoritism based on money or power,” he said.

Bishops must remain celibatory “and be present at all the authentic image of the church, holy and chaste in her members as in her head,” he said.

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Referring to cases of abuse, he said that bishops “should be determined and decisive in dealing with situations that can cause scandal and fully respect the legislation that is currently in force with any case, especially with minors, and the legislation currently.”

It was the second time in a week that Leo responded publicly to the abuse scandal. On Friday evening, in a written statement to a crusing Peruvian journalist who documented gross abuses in a Peruvian Catholic movement, Leo said that there should be no tolerance in the Catholic Church for any type of abuse. He identified sexual and spiritual abuses, as well as abuse of authority and power in evoking “transparent processes” to create a culture of prevention in the church.

Francis, who in many ways put Leo in position to follow him up, had also confirmed celibacy for Latin rite priests while it was a discipline of the church, not the doctrine, and therefore could change. But he refused professions of Amazone bishops to allow married priests to tackle the shortage of priest in the region.

Prevost spent two decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru and would know those arguments well. But on Wednesday he confirmed the celibate priesthood as the “authentic image” of the church.

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