Catholic official calls for end to celibacy for priests

“I would welcome allowing established married deacons to be ordained as priests,” the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics told daily newspaper Bild.

But Glück said such a decision could not be made only for Germany.

“The question of mandatory celibacy can only be determined within the Church globally,” he said.

Glück, a former conservative politician from Bavaria, was made the president of the lay organisation on Friday.

A Catholic priest in Hammelburg in northern Bavaria was suspended by the Church last month after he said he wanted to marry and announced he already had one child.

Pope Benedict XVI earlier this month raised the hopes of some liberal Catholics opposed to celibacy constraints by announcing the Church would welcome married Anglican priests wishing to convert to Catholicism.