Peter Forster, 71, is the fourth Anglican bishop to be received into the Catholic faith in less than a year and the fifth to become a Catholic in the past two years.

“For some priests, it would be better if they were married—not just for sexual reasons, but because it would be better for their life and they wouldn’t be lonely,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in a newspaper interview.

Bishop George L. Thomas said he would not ask priests to police the Communion line but asked pro-choice politicians to voluntarily “refrain from the reception of Holy Communion while holding public office.”

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said it was time for a fundamental revision of church teaching, and the way Pope Francis had spoken about homosexuality in the past could lead to a change in doctrine.

Italy’s Catholic military chaplain has pushed back strongly against calls by a former Vatican ambassador to resist Covid-19 vaccine mandates, saying the ambassador’s “conspiracy theories” were a source of confusion and disinformation.

“I am not clinging to my office,” Cardinal Marx said on Thursday. “The offer to resign last year was meant very seriously. Pope Francis decided otherwise and asked me to continue my ministry responsibly.”