Call To Action: Dump Celibacy

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 11/8/03 | Tom Heinen

[ninenot]

Optional celibacy backed at Catholic conference

By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com

Last Updated: Nov. 7, 2003

About 2,800 reform-minded Catholics from around the nation gave a standing ovation Friday to a few of the 169 Milwaukee-area priests who took the rare step of supporting optional celibacy in letters this year to the president of the U.S. bishops conference.Celibacy's History

A short history of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church:

300: The Council of Elvira, a local synod in Spain, mandates celibacy for clergy under its jurisdiction.
366: A growing body of papal teachings favors celibacy, but the observance of celibacy is not uniform.
1073-1085: Pope Gregory VII declares that celibacy be universally observed as part of an overall reform of the church.
1522: Martin Luther condemns celibacy.
1545-1563: The Council of Trent upholds universal celibacy in direct response to Martin Luther's statements.
1967: Pope Paul VI reiterates the tradition.
1971: The World Synod of Bishops reaffirms celibacy.
1978-2003: Pope John Paul II consistently reaffirms his belief in celibacy. However, in 1980, he authorizes an exception for married Episcopal priests who want to join the Roman Catholic Church.

Source: Father Andrew Nelson, retired rector of St. Francis Seminary.

The reaction came at the annual Call to Action conference, where reformers launched a national letter-writing and education campaign to sustain and intensify the ripples of outspokenness that have spread from here to a number of dioceses across the country.

Dan Daley, co-director of the Chicago-based group, kicked off the 18-month campaign by calling attention to the Milwaukee priests in the Midwest Airlines Center on the opening night of the three-day conference.

At least three of the priests who signed the letter were seated at the front of the ballroom - Father Richard Aiken, pastor of St. Alphonsus Church in Greendale; Father Carl Diederichs, associate pastor of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist; and Father Kenneth Mich, pastor of Good Shepherd Church in Menomonee Falls.

Last weekend, a sample letter in support of optional celibacy was inserted into the bulletins at Aiken's church, one of the archdiocese's largest congregations. It included instructions for mailing the letter or any other comments about the issue to Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"I think that we just have to open ordained ministry up to everyone, both men and women, married and single," Aiken said in an interview at the convention center. "I think it's time we start looking at it now, probably a little late."

Both Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and Gregory have spoken out on the issue in response to the Milwaukee priests' letter, saying, among other things, that the celibacy issue had already been discussed at length by bishops in past years and would not be reopened.

But that has not deterred reformers, some of whom hope the Vatican's opposition to optional celibacy might change under the successor to the aging Pope John Paul II.

The new Corpus Christi Campaign for Optional Celibacy is being launched by Call to Action and a Cleveland-based reform group, FutureChurch.

Letters to Gregory in support of optional celibacy were handed out and collected Friday night. Education packets also were handed out that included, among other things, information about how to start discussion groups and spark parish-based campaigns.

There also were petitions for people to sign and send to the U.S. delegates who will participate in an International Synod on the Eucharist that the Vatican is expected to hold in late 2004 or early 2005.

At the heart of the effort are demographic data from the Official Catholic Directory that have been posted on a Web site - www.futurechurch.org - for Catholics to see how the number of priests in their dioceses is dwindling as more of the aging corps of priests reaches retirement age or die.

The campaign is building on the work of three Milwaukee-area women who earlier this year started a grass-roots campaign with a post office box and the name People in Support of Optional Celibacy - Terry Ryan of New Berlin; Roberta Manley of Greenfield; and Nancy Pritchard of Milwaukee.

Ryan wrote a rough draft of a petition and letter supporting the Milwaukee priests and shared it with David Gawlik, editor of Corpus Reports, a newsletter for married priests. Gawlik surprised Ryan by posting the letter on the Corpus Web site without further consultation with her, and the effort was quickly endorsed by Call to Action Wisconsin as the electronics documents began circulating around the country and abroad.

As of Friday, 4,485 petition letters had been returned to the post office box. Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch, planned to combine them with the petitions that were signed at the convention Friday and submit more than 6,000 petitions to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops when it meets next week in Washington, D.C.

The celibacy issue is not new for groups such as Call to Action, which called for optional celibacy when it was founded in the 1970s. But the National Federation of Priest Councils - and groups of priests in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and some other dioceses - are joining in open appeals for the hierarchy to consider optional celibacy as one solution for the worsening priest shortage and its impact on the availability of the Eucharist.

[DallasMike]

Make sure you address the occurence of pedophila in the Protestant denominations,also. You will have to explain why the absence of the celibacy requirement does not prevent pedophilia from occuring at the same frequency as in the Catholic Church. Or didn't you know that?

Of course there is pedophilia and homosexuality in the Protestant churches as well. But not, as you claim, at the same frequency as it does in the Catholic church.

Citations to your claim, please, or we will assume that you're just making up your statistic.

[independentmind]

I guess that it would be useless to point out that Jesus did have a bride--His Church.

[independentmind]

I can't do it right now, but rest assured I can document my claim and will do so.

[JesseHousman]

How about just cleansing the ranks of the clergy of homosexuals?

[JesseHousman]

I can see why you're called Wacky Kat.

I'll bet someone else suggested that handle to you.

[tortoise]

The Seventh Commandment didn't exist at the time?

A great many Jews, including the orthodox ones, would tell you that the 7th Commandment does not forbid out-of-marriage sex. The seventh commandment is fairly narrow in scope, and was generally interpreted that way by Hebrew culture. Sex before marriage is not generally considered a sin in that context, unless it is breaking some other rule (like if the woman is currently married).

Total celibacy out of marriage is something appended to Christianity at a later date, and does not come from the Hebrew cultural roots. Christianity drops some parts of Judaism from whence it came, and adds parts that were never in Judaism. This kind of thing is to be expected. Jesus did not consider himself to be a "Christian" per se, but more like a Hebrew reformer of Judaism with that cultural context; early Christianity reflects the culture standards it was formed in, which evolved later as it moved across the globe. Kind of like how the Founding Fathers considered themselves to be British, and shared that cultural context, rather than "American". We have to be careful not to paint an ex post facto perspective on the perspectives contemporaneous to an event.

[Dajjal]

Bumpus ad summum

[y2k_free_radical]

One could argue celibacy has helped spawn the homosexuality.pedophilia rampant in the priesthood and history shows many a pope,bishope and priest had concubines even as they hypocritically clocked themselves as GOD'S VOICE to the common man

[tortoise]

Chapter and verse documenting he was married?

The Bible is a sparse history. It omits many major contemporaneous events that were recorded by other cultures at the time. It can hardly be considered an exhaustive treatise. Remember also, the Bible does not contain every writing that references Jesus from that time, just those considered particularly relevant to Christianity. There are more mundane pieces that were left out of the standard Christian Bible. And while I actually have no opinion on whether or not Jesus was married, I do know that when you piece together the entire collection of original texts, including the esoteric ones that are not included, there is a strong implication that Jesus was in fact married, though I believe it is never explicitly stated i.e. there are a number of things that in that time and place would have automatically implied that he was married, in the same fashion that you can usually assume someone is married today by a number of cues that strongly imply it even if they never state it.

[WackyKat]

You are exactly right.
Of course, some people have been so indoctrinated that their response is the equivalent of children covering their ears and saying neener,neener,neener, when they don't want to hear something.

[RobbyS]

The underlying assumption is that there is something wicked in the reproduction of the species that earns favor by being left aside. How can what has been continually called heresy by the Church be the "underlying assumption" of monasticism? The "crusade" against the Albi was undertaking to stamp out precisely that false teaching. The idea of the nun as the bride of Christ is founded on the notion that they must give up all to follow him, including the joy of having children.

[WackyKat]

I can see why you're called Wacky Kat. I'll bet someone else suggested that handle to you.

How "Christian" of you to say that.

I'm sure you're a fine "Christian."

[gcruse]

The idea of the nun as the bride of Christ is founded
on the notion that they must give up all to follow him,
 including the joy of having children.

Is it a case of do as I say, not as I have done?  Consider:

1 Cor 9:5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and [Peter]?

[RobbyS]

The Church in America never had any trouble recuiting priests before Vatican II. On the contrary, celibacy requirement included, the seminaries had more applicants than they could turn away. So obviously a change in social attitudes has occured. Catholic families used to take pride in sending sons and daughters to the Church. Nowdays this is less often the case. One reason is the size of families. The acceptance of contraception means that familes are smaller. There is also the deprecation of the role of the priest. Where once the priest was as proud of being a priest as a marine was proud of being a marine, now many are ashamed of their calling. The fall off in the number of priests began in the 1970s because priests no longer sought to recruit young men to replace the. As the numbers fell off, skankier types such as Homosexuals made their way in. Most of the "pedophile" cases involved homosexual priests who were actually hitting on teenagers rather than little children.

[RobbyS]

And if they make the same choice that Paul made? Was Paul trying to buy his way into heaven by not marrying? Or was he saying that there is a higher calling than family and children? Our Lord himself says who his real family is.

[Askel5]

Nice.

[gcruse]

Or was he saying that there is a higher calling than family and children?

From a strictly human standpoint, I would say no, there is not.
And for church elders to require their most ardent
followers  to give up the greatest joys of being human
is, well, inhuman.  God seems not to require it. It was not
an issue with Jesus, and did not come into effect for
three hundred years.  What a waste.

[Askel5]

=== I don't think a person can live a fully human life while excluding entirely sex.

Folks who don't have sex aren't fully human?

Does it follow that folks who use Artificial birth control to prevent pregnancy aren't having "fully human" sex?

[Askel5]

=== I suspect that most of the priests who agitate for clerical marriage are not themselves the marrying kind.


I suspect you're right.

[gcruse]

Uhmm, did I say "giving birth?" Shame on me if I did.
Living a life devoid of something as integral as human sexuality when one has the ability to do otherwise is a
pointless sacrifice. God does not demand it, Jesus did
not require it.