Three "priests with families" allowed to officiate weddings

CEBU, Philippines - Three Iloilo-based "priests with families" won a round in their battle to allow optional celibacy in the Catholic Church after the Philippine Statistics Authority has given them the legal authority to officiate weddings.

The three, Fathers Jose Elmer Cajilig, Hector Canto and Jesus Siva finally received their certificate of registration of authority to solemnize marriage, issued by PSA-Region 6 director Norman Julag-ay.

"It's just a first step. It will be a long battle but we are bent on our fight to allow priests to get married," said the 52-year-old Cajilig.

It was three years ago when the three priests established the Compania de los Padres de Familia (Padres de Capilla) Inc. in Lambunao town of Iloilo.

Presently, the group has five members but only Canto, Siva, and Cajilig, were given the authority to perform weddings.

The 53-year old Canto, the only married of the three priests, will have his fourth child in a months' time while Cajilig's partner of 10 years is carrying their third child. Siva, on the other hand, has two children.

Cajilig has not gone into marriage contending that he might lose his fight for optional celibacy. "Under the Canon Law, being celibate is being in a state of marriage. The fact that I did not marry means I am still celibate," he said.

Even before the PSA accreditation, the three have been performing rites for baptism, burial and wedding. For Cajilig, the rites they performed were binding both civil and church.

"It's just that, because we are open about having families, we were stripped of a parish and archdiocese. In short, we were given no endorsement to perform weddings," he said citing that it could be a "punishment" for them for having children.

Cajilig and his group have been further elated after Pope Francis I promised "solutions" to the issue of priestly celibacy in the latter's July 13 interview. The papal statement has raised the possibility the Catholic Church may eventually lift the interdiction on married priests.

Speaking to Italy's La Republica daily, Pope Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted "900 years after Our Lord's death" and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage. — Jennifer P. Rendon.