Sandra Aguinaldo follows married priests' campaign for optional celibacy on 'I-Witness'

“PADRE de Familia”

Dokumentaryo ni Sandra Aguinaldo

Jan. 24, 2015

 

In a small chapel in Iloilo, three Catholic priests are preparing for a baptism.  Donned in their traditional long white vestments, they face family and friends gathered for this special day.  But unlike any other baptism, this event attracts the local, national and even international media. Two of the priests, Father Elmer and Father Hector are the fathers of the children being baptized. Officiating priest, Father Jess, is also a father of two.
 

The Roman Catholic Church forbids their priests to marry and have children. But on this day, three of them come out in the open to send out a message urging the church hierarchy to consider optional celibacy for priests.
 

Their campaign has cost the priests to lose their parishes.  Their families have been treated like pariahs. But they have found a small community in the outskirts of Iloilo where they seem to be accepted.  In fact, they continue to say mass, often assisted by their own children. They are also called to officiate weddings and to give final blessings to the dead.
 

Watching the priests perform their clerical duties, they do not seem different from other Catholic priests.  Except when done, they go home not to their parishes, but to their wives and kids. They now also have to work for a living. 
 

Church officials call their performance of the sacraments a farce. Though they admit that celibacy among priests is only a church discipline, and therefore not Biblical law, taking on a wife and having families is a serious violation among priests.
 

This Saturday on I-Witness, Sandra Aguinaldo gets to know the married priests who are fighting a thousand year-old tradition for their right to be a father, not only to their parishioners but also to their own children.  “Padre de Familia” airs on GMA-7, after Celebrity Bluff.