Tidligere denne uka døde Abbé Pierre, en fransk prest, som var svært kjent både i sitt hjemland og utover i alle fall store deler av Europa. Han var mest kjent for å hjelpe de fattigste og utstøtte i samfunnet, og jeg hørte om ham (i Bergen) i forbindelse med arbeidet som ble drevet der for å få innpenger til Mor Teresas arbeid. Dette arbeidet hadde i aller første fase på 60-tallet tatt sin inspirasjon fra Abbé Pierre.
Med Abbé Pierre viser det seg at han var uenig med Den katolske kirke på flere områder, dogmatiske og etiske. Noe som ikke er uproblematisk for en prest. John Allen skriver bl.a. om ham:
In October 2005, Groues released a set of reflections entitled Mon Dieu…pourquoi?, in which he frankly acknowledged that his vow of priestly celibacy had not insulated him from sexual temptation. “It happened that every now and then, I fell,” he wrote.
“I never had regular relationships, because I never allowed sexual desire to put down roots. I’ve known the experience of sexual desire and its occasional fulfillment, but this fulfillment was in truth a source of dissatisfaction, because I never felt sincere. … I’ve understood that in order to be fully satisfied, sexual desire needs to express itself in a sentimental relationship, tender, trusting. That kind of relationship was denied to me by my choice of life. I would have only made both the woman and myself unhappy, tormented between two irreconcilable options for my life,” Groues wrote.
Groues wrote that in his opinion, both married and celibate priests are able to consecrate themselves completely to their vocations, and that priests should therefore have the option to marry.
Groues also supported the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood, writing that the ban “presupposes that this practice is not in conformity with the very substance of the Christian faith.”
“The principal argument given in support of this view,” he wrote, “is that Jesus did not choose women among his apostles. But for me this argument is not at all theological. Instead, [that choice] has sociological roots.”
On the subject of homosexuality, Groues said he was not in favor of using the term “marriage,” which, he said, “has roots too deep in the collective consciousness as a union between a man and a woman.” He supported recognition of same-sex “pacts.” Groues said the question of adoption rights for gay couples was “complex,” and could not be approached “lightly.”