The Vatican reaffirmed celibacy for priests during a meeting with Pope Benedict yesterday that discussed requests by married priests who want to return to the active ministry.

A Vatican statement said "the value of the choice of celibacy according to Catholic tradition was reaffirmed as was the need for a solid human and Christian formation, be it for seminarians as well as priests who have already been ordained".

The meeting between the Pope and some 20 heads of Vatican departments had been called to debate a strategy to deal with an African archbishop who has founded a movement of men who left the active ministry to wed and want to return as married men.

It came two months after Zambian Archbishop Emanuel Milingo, a former Vatican official, raised the spectre of a modern schism when he ordained four married men as priests in Washington DC. He was excommunicated.

The meeting had been called to reflect on requests for dispensation from the obligation of celibacy and on requests for readmission to the priestly ministry by priests who had married.

According to Church law, a man who is allowed to leave the priesthood, under a procedure known as a laicisation, must receive a separate dispensation from the vow of celibacy from the Pope.

Many men, however, have married without this dispensation and want to regularise their position in the Church.

Some men who left the priesthood to marry are now widowers or separated, their children are adults and they want to return to active ministry.

The statement said the meeting discussed "the possibility of readmission to the exercise of the ministry of priests who at present meet the conditions foreseen by the Church". It did not elaborate.

Archbishop Milingo rejects his excommunication and is planning a convention for more than 1,000 married priests and their wives in New York for December 8-10.

The Roman Catholic Church insists that its priests remain celibate and has so far ruled out letting them marry.

Advocates of a married priesthood and optional celibacy say this would make some men more willing to join the priesthood and ease the shortage of priests in many parts of the world.

Priests were permitted to wed during the first millennium, but marriage was condemned by the Church at the Second Lateran Council in 1139.

In an open letter to the Pope issued two weeks ago, Archbishop Milingo said "over 150,000 married priests stand waiting and willing to serve" the Church.

"These men are already trained and experienced in theology and ministry and have many years experience as married men. These are men who have loved their wives, and raised families. They ought to be called back to ministry immediately," he said.

"The very life of the Church is at stake. Without priests, there is no Mass or Eucharist. The Eucharist is the centre of the Catholic-Christian experience and faith. No Eucharist, no Church," Archbishop Milingo wrote.

Archbishop Milingo, a charismatic faith healer and exorcist, is not just a keen proponent of marriage, but tried it himself in 2001 at a mass ceremony held by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.

The union was never recognised by the Vatican and Archbishop Milingo later rejoined the Catholic Church.