Malines-Bruxelles: upon returning from the Anglican synod, the archbishop reignites the debate on married priests

Mgr Luc Terlinden, returning from the general synod of the Church of England in York, proposes that the Catholic Church in turn open the debate on the ordination of married men.

The Fact

Infovaticana reports, on July 16, 2026, the statement of Mgr Luc Terlinden, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and President of the Belgian Bishops' Conference, upon his return from the general synod of the Church of England, held in York. The archbishop deems it opportune to open a debate in the Catholic Church on the ordination of married men to the presbyteral ministry, taking the Anglican discipline as an example.

Our Reading (in the Light of the Magisterium)

The Latin priestly celibacy is a matter of ecclesiastical discipline, not dogma. It was made obligatory for the Latin Church by the Second Council of the Lateran in 1139. Paul VI solemnly reaffirmed it in his encyclical Sacerdotalis caelibatus of June 24, 1967. The Second Vatican Council, in Presbyterorum ordinis 16, recalled the high suitability of celibacy with the ministerial priesthood. More recently, the 2019 Amazon Synod had proposed the ordination of married viri probati; Pope Francis, in the apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia of February 2, 2020, did not retain this proposal. Terlinden therefore reactivates a dossier recently decided, without a magisterial mandate.

On the merits, the question raised by the archbishop is not new: a country of old Christianity that is collapsing Catholic proposes a structural solution, where the magisterium first invites a missionary conversion. Belgium, where the number of priests has dwindled and secularization is eroding practice, intends to draw from the Anglican pool a reform that Rome has not wanted.

To Ponder

The Latin discipline can evolve, but always at the level of the universal Church. No local archbishop alone reopens a magisterial dossier. Let us entrust to prayer the fruitfulness of vocations, and to the vigilance of the pastors the refusal of institutional shortcuts: preferring structure to holiness is to choose the wrong medicine.