Cardinal Priest Marriage: Britain’s Top Cardinal Said Priests Should Be Allowed to Marry

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, said he believes priests should be allowed to marry if they wish to, BBC reported.

O'Brien, 74, noted that it is clear many priests struggle to cope with celibacy - and as he sees it, they should be able to marry and have children.

While O'Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, had never considered marriage himself, as he had been "too busy" with his duties, he told BBC, he thinks it should be an option for priests going forward.

"In my time, there was no choice and you didn't really consider it too much," O'Brien told BBC. "It was part of being a priest. When I was a young boy, the priest didn't get married and that was it."

"I would be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should get married," he added. "It is a free world and I realize that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood and felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own."

In an interview with BBC Scotland's Glenn Campbell, O'Brien noted that certain issues - like abortion and euthanasia - are "basic dogmatic beliefs" of "divine origin" that the church could never accept.

But some other issues that are not of divine origin could be open to change, O'Brien noted.

"For example the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry - Jesus didn't say that," O'Brien told BBC. "There was a time when priests got married, and of course we know at the present time in some branches of the church - in some branches of the Catholic church - priests can get married, so that is obviously not of divine of origin and it could get discussed again."

This cardinal will be part of the conclave selecting the new pope, following Pope Benedict XVI's resignation, according to BBC.

He told BBC it may be time for a younger pope who hails from the developing world, where the Catholic faith is thriving.