This is interesting. Walter Cardinal Brandmuller writes to correct the record regarding the statement of the Pope that celibacy was instituted as a discipline of the Church circa 900 AD. Sandro Magister at his blog Chiesa has the English text of what the Cardinal wrote:
WE PRIESTS, CELIBATE LIKE CHRIST
by Walter Brandmüller
Dear Mr. Scalfari,
THE PRACTICE OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC CHURCH
THE PROBLEMS OF THE CHURCH OF THE EAST
Go here to read the rest. Bravo Cardinal! PopeWatch salutes you both as a fine historian and a faithful son of the Church. In these days of soundbites and throwaway lines in official Church communications, not to mention what is said in interviews by too many Catholic clerics, it is a pure pleasure to read a learned summary of the history of celibacy in the Church.
What concerns me is that the Pope’s alleged words are put into quotation marks, and include the words (in the English translation at least) ‘the Eastern Catholic Church even now has the option to allow its priests to marry’. This is demonstrably untrue, even if there were such an entity as the ‘Eastern Catholic Church’, which of course there isn’t. If Francis actually said this, it would mean that last year the cardinals elected an ignorant buffoon. So it needs to be retracted by the Pope himself without delay.