After much thought and prayer I have come to the decision that I am free as a Catholic priest to marry. I have come to this after long years of wrestling with myself and of pondering both the pastoral and missionary needs of the Church and the basic nature of the Christian priesthood, marriage and freedom. I have for years argued persistently for a major change in the Church’s position in this regard, a change which I see as absolutely crucial for the wider effectiveness and coherence of the aggiornamento set in motion by Pope John. It is only recently that I have come to the conclusion that in this matter as in others one cannot go on indefinitely simply affirming in print and in speech a point of view completely at odds with the structured ordering of one’s own life. There comes a moment when it is morally necessary to pin oneself to the truth and importance of what one has affirmed to be true and important.

I have been a priest for twenty-two years. I accepted the obligation of celibacy at ordination without questioning because I wished to be a priest and this was the law of the Church, and I have kept it. In the cheerful, zealous, withdrawn atmosphere of a seminary it did not seem much of a problem. I was even convinced for a time that I did not want to marry, but for many years now I have wanted to very much. So this decision is first of all a response to an honest sense of my own need. Yet at present I am living happily with my mother; I have many dear friends, and I am extremely busy as a university lecturer and writer. I have certainly not come to this decision out of loneliness or depression or because I have lost interest in the Church or the Catholic priesthood. Quite the contrary.