A Maltese priest who has been serving in Canada for 20 years has been silenced by his bishop for urging the Catholic Church to consider ordaining women and making priestly celibacy an option.
Fr Edward Cachia, 56, of Naxxar, who was pastor of St Michael's church in Cobourg, Ontario, has been deemed "unfit to serve the Catholic flock" by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peterborough, Canada.
Fr Cachia (picture) has had to bid farewell to his community after refusing to retract his public statement urging the Church to reopen a dialogue on the ordination of women.
On July 26, nine women (eight American and one Canadian) were "ordained" - four as priests and five as deacons - during a secret ceremony on a boat in Gananoque, risking excommunication.
Three days later, the Maltese priest wrote in the Cobourg Daily Star to congratulate these women, expressing hope that the event would spark dialogue. He said he saw this as the beginning of a new and awesome change in the life of the Church.
Mgr Nicola de Angelis, the Italian Bishop who heads the Peterborough diocese since 2003, asked Fr Cachia to publicly retract his claims which were in clear violation of the teachings of the Church.
On October 19, the diocese said Fr Cachia could no longer lead St Michael's faithful. He currently resides with a family within his parish.
During a parting speech after the 9 a.m. Mass last Sunday (October 23), an event which was widely reported in the Canadian press, Fr Cachia said: "It's a matter of conscience for me, a matter of justice. I believe God calls all people. He does not select by gender."
Speaking to The Times on Friday, Fr Cachia said his suggestion was to reopen dialogue.
"In Canada and North America, hundreds of churches have been closed down because there are no vocations and the few remaining priests are overworked and burnt out," he said enthusiastically, dropping Maltese expressions and speaking of his close relatives who live in Malta.
"I cannot see why the Church should prefer to leave people without Mass because of this issue. In Canada less than five per cent of Roman Catholics go to Sunday Mass. The reasons given by progressive thinkers within the Church is that it is becoming increasingly stifling," he said.
Fr Cachia said he loves the Church and his priesthood and said the Eucharist is the centre of his life. However, he firmly believes that women have a very valid contribution to give as priests in the Catholic Church.
"Besides the fact that equality is a very important social value today, I am convinced that God does not discriminate between genders when he calls a person to serve him," he said.
Fr Cachia said the Church's main argument to ordain men only was that Jesus chose 12 male apostles. "The apostles were also all Jewish and all white; the argument does not hold. What we should see is that women were a very important part of the Church in its early years," Fr Cachia added.
Another issue which Fr Cachia feels strongly about is priestly celibacy, which he thinks should be an option. "If the Roman Catholic Church ordains married men, there will be more vocations," he said.
His views definitely differ from the teachings of the Church. Pope John Paul II had declared the issue of women's ordination closed in May 1994 in his apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In 2002, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, excommunicated seven women after they were ordained in Austria.
In a 1998 interview with the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, Fr Cachia acknowledged that his views differed from what one might call the Church establishment.
"I just said we should reopen dialogue. What's wrong with that? My bishop took that as an offence. But people want to send a message to the Church. In Malta, in 10 years' time you will have fewer priests.
The Church should be planning for the future. Seminaries will never be full again, so why not open the doors rather than shut ourselves up and risk dying out," he asked.
Fr Cachia says he is very much at peace with himself about his situation and says he is in God's hands. "Sometimes God uses us to change things," he said.
The 90 supporting e-mails Fr Cachia receives daily are another consolation. He said nationwide statistics show that 95 per cent of Canadians agree with his view.
He does not even hold a grudge against his bishop. "I meet my bishop regularly and I keep constant dialogue with him. We are on very good terms," Fr Cachia said.
He explained once again that the gospel calls for social justice. "We as priests often forget that. It is a justice issue for me and that is why I spoke out. God willing, the situation will change," Fr Cachia said.