Italian Women Write Letter to Pope Asking Him to End Clerical Celibacy: 26 Admit to Having Fallen in Love with Catholic Priests or Monks
http://www.latinpost.com/articles/13043/20140520/italian-women-write-letter-to-pope-asking-him-to-end-clerical-celibacy-26-admit-to-having-fallen-in-love-with-catholic-priests-or-monks.htm
Pope Francis received a letter from a group of women requesting that he lift the long-standing requirement of clerical celibacy. The group behind the letter consists of 26 Italian women who have all admitted to having fallen in love with either Catholic priests or monks. A reversal of this policy would mean an end to a millennium-long requirement of all Catholic priests that has seen very few exceptions in the past. Currently, only about 80 Catholic priests who were married when serving as Episcopal clergy and then later converted to Catholicism are the only priests whose marriages are permitted among Catholic men of the cloth.
These women say they have endured keeping secret a love they deem sacred and deserving of the sanctity of marriage. A portion of the letter read, "We love these men, they love us and in most cases, despite all efforts to renounce it, one cannot manage to give up such a solid and beautiful bond." The Italian women indicated in their letter that this emotional distress results from the current reality that they can never be together. They suggest that lifting the celibacy requirement is the only solution, so priests can still continue with their vocation while at the same time have their own family.
According to the women behind the letter of petition, "a priest's complete service to Jesus and the community would be carried out with greater passion if he did not have to give up his vocation for conjugal love together with the priestly vocation and in addition he would have the support of his wife and children."
The clamor of these Italian women for banning celibacy comes not long after Stefan Hartmann, a German priest, sent a letter requesting the Pope allow him to continue his vocation and to lift his celibacy requirement.