Marie-Jo Thiel tackles a sensitive, even taboo, subject within the Catholic Church: the mandatory celibacy of its priests. It must be admitted that in an increasingly secularized society and in a Church doubly weakened by the decline in priestly vocations and by sexual abuse, this discipline no longer necessarily resonates. Drawing on historical, sociological, theological, scriptural, and spiritual resources, the theologian analyzes the limitations of the systematic association between priestly vocation and celibacy. Celibacy is, above all, a grace, a gift that only acquires meaning when it is deliberately chosen to build the Kingdom of God. Marie-Jo Thiel argues for optional priestly celibacy. Certainly, this change in discipline will likely not be enough to meet the demands of the Gospel and the crisis the Church is currently experiencing, but it could constitute a first step toward articulating, in a more synodal way, the charisms of the People of God built on the same baptism.

Marie-Jo Thiel, a physician by training, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Strasbourg. Her area of expertise is ethics and moral theology. Deeply committed to preventing abuse in the Church, she has published several books on the subject, including *The Catholic Church Facing Sexual Abuse of Minors* (Bayard, 2019) and *Stronger Because We Are Vulnerable! What Abuse in the Church Teaches Us* (Salvator, 2023).