A case for celibacy for priests

The scandal surrounding the Rev. Alberto Cutie has raised questions in the minds of many concerning the Catholic Church's discipline of priestly celibacy.

Why does the church continue to defend a practice that seems so unnatural and so unnecessary?

There is a very bad argument for celibacy, which has appeared throughout the tradition and which is, even today, defended by some. It goes something like this: Married life is spiritually suspect; priests, as religious leaders, should be spiritual athletes above reproach; therefore, priests shouldn't be married

This approach to the question is, in my judgment, not just stupid but dangerous, for it rests on presumptions that are repugnant to solid Christian doctrine. The biblical teaching on creation implies the essential integrity of the world and everything in it.

Genesis tells us that God found each thing he had made good and that he found the ensemble of creatures very good. Catholic theology, at its best, has always been resolutely, anti-dualist -- and this means that matter, the body, marriage and sexual activity are never, in themselves, to be despised.

But there is more to the doctrine of creation than an affirmation of the goodness of the world. To say that the finite realm in its entirety is created is to imply that nothing in the universe is God. All aspects of created reality reflect God and bear traces of the divine goodness -- just as every detail of a building gives evidence of the mind of the architect -- but no creature and no collectivity of creatures is divine, just as no part of a structure is the architect.

This distinction between God and the world is the ground for the anti-idolatry principle that is reiterated from the beginning to the end of the Bible: Do not turn something less than God into God.

Isaiah the prophet put it thus: "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways, says the Lord." And it is at the heart of the First Commandment: "I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods besides me." The Bible thus holds off all the attempts of human beings to divinize or render ultimate some worldly reality. The doctrine of creation, in a word, involves both a great "yes" and a great "no" to the universe. Now there is a behavioral concomitant to the anti-idolatry principle, and it is called detachment. Detachment is the refusal to make anything less than God the organizing principle or center of one's life.

Anthony de Mello looked at it from the other side and said "an attachment is anything in this world -- including your own life -- that you are convinced you cannot live without." Even as we reverence everything that God has made, we must let go of everything that God has made, precisely for the sake of God.

This is why, as G.K. Chesterton noted, there is a tension to Christian life. In accord with its affirmation of the world, the Church loves color, pageantry, music and rich decoration (as in the liturgy and papal ceremonials), even as, in accord with its detachment from the world, it loves the poverty of St. Francis and the simplicity of Mother Teresa.

This is why, the Church is convinced, God chooses certain people to be celibate. Their mission is to witness to a transcendent form of love, the way that we will love in heaven.

The same tension governs its attitude toward sex and family. Again, in Chesterton's language, the Church is "fiercely for having children" (through marriage) even as it remains "fiercely against having them" (in religious celibacy).

Everything in this world -- including sex and intimate friendship -- is good, but impermanently so; all finite reality is beautiful, but its beauty, if I can put it in explicitly Catholic terms, is sacramental, not ultimate.

In the biblical narratives, when God wanted to make a certain truth vividly known to his people, he would, from time to time, choose a prophet and command him to act out that truth, to embody it concretely.

For example, he told Hosea to marry the unfaithful Gomer in order to sacramentalize God's fidelity to wavering Israel. Thus, the truth of the non-ultimacy of sex, family and worldly relationship can and should be proclaimed through words, but it will be believed only when people can see it.

This is why, the Church is convinced, God chooses certain people to be celibate. Their mission is to witness to a transcendent form of love, the way that we will love in heaven. In God's realm, we will experience a communion (bodily as well as spiritual) compared to which even the most intense forms of communion here below pale into insignificance, and celibates make this truth viscerally real for us now. Though one can present practical reasons for it, I believe that celibacy only finally makes sense in this eschatological context.

For years, the Rev. Andrew Greeley argued -- quite rightly in my view -- that the priest is fascinating and that a large part of the fascination comes from celibacy. The compelling quality of the priest is not a matter of superficial celebrity or charm. It is something much stranger, deeper, more mystical. It is the fascination for another world.

Until the Middle Ages, celibates were monastics and in monasteries. The overwhelming majority of parish priests were married men. This is still true in all of the Eastern Churches. Some of the best and holiest parish priests I have known were celibates, but the overwhelming majority of effective and best and holiest parish priests I have known were married men with families. And the holiest people I have known, by far, are all monastics and in monasteries where that holiness flourishes.

b, its a rare celibate who doesn’t, for the sake of his or her own theosis, belong in a monastery.

Two other reasons:

-Not to have the clergy evolve into a caste, such as with the Levites or the Brahmans.

-That while an unmarried priest caught "cheating" would be a scandal, a married priest in the same situation would be catastrophic.

And the key to this is the fact that RCC church has the sacrament of Confession. Today there are Confessional booths. But until about the late 16th century,confessions, while given in private, were give face-to-face. This close physical situation occasionally ended up in seduction -- by either party. (Priest or penitent)

I’ve always wondered about reasons for the celibacy rule, considering that so many religions permit married clergy.

Many religions DON'T permit married clergy -- take Eastern religions for example: Buddhist clergy are celibate too as are Jain monks, Hindu sanyasis and sanyasins etc. The idea of those are the same, to be part of, yet not part of, the material world.

It was established in the medieval years to keep wealth inside the church and not to provide for the offspring of the priests. I have never seen a Christian denomination besides the RCC demand celibacy.

Not correct. The earliest monks in the East (Egypt, North AFrica etc.) were celibate, not as a rule, but as a choice. The priests in the earliest Church were not as a rule, celibate. however, let's compare priests in the Latin Rite of The Church to pastors in groups outside The Church.

There are Holy men in groups outside The Church, yes, but having a family has led to transgressions like you see in Benny Hinn and the Anglican groups. This was true in the early Church as well, and many people contrasted this with the life of the monks who were, in their eyes, more devout.

This is the main reason in the LATIN Rite of The Church.

To John Wills -- firstly, there are other rites of The Church that DO allow priests to get married, like the Maronites, Syro-Malankara and Syroa-Malabar rites and the Chaldeans, among others. Secondly, The Church is not a denomination, it is The Apostolic Church with the Orthodox, Oriental and Assyrian/Chaldean Church.

It was established in the medieval years to keep wealth inside the church and not to provide for the offspring of the priests. I have never seen a Christian denomination besides the RCC demand celibacy.

No, that's Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda.

The earliest known call to sexual continence is that of the Council of Elvira (c. 306):

"Bishops, presbyters, deacons, and others with a position in the ministry are to abstain completely from sexual intercourse with their wives and from the procreation of children. If anyone disobeys, he shall be removed from the clerical office."

In 387 or 390, or according to others in 400, a Council of Carthage decreed that bishops, priests and deacons abstain from conjugal relations, in accordance with a tradition dating from the Apostles:

"It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep... It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity."

Clerical continence is said to be of apostolic origin also in the Directa Decretal of Pope Siricius (10 February 385):

"We have indeed discovered that many priests and deacons of Christ brought children into the world, either through union with their wives or through shameful intercourse. And they used as an excuse the fact that in the Old Testament – as we can read – priests and ministers were permitted to beget children. Whatever the case may be, if one of these disciples of the passions and tutors of vices thinks that the Lord – in the law of Moses – gives an indistinct license to those in sacred Orders so that they may satisfy their passions, let him tell me now: why does [the Lord] warn those who had the custody of the most holy things in the following way: "You must make yourselves holy, for I am Yahweh your God" (Lev 20:7). Likewise, why were the priests ordered, during the year of their tour of duty, to live in the temple, away from their homes? Quite obviously so that they would not be able to have carnal knowledge of any woman, even their wives, and, thus, having a conscience radiating integrity, they could offer to God offerings worthy of his acceptance. Those men, once they had fulfilled their time of service, were permitted to have marital intercourse for the sole purpose of ensuring their descent, because no one except [the members] of the tribe of Levi could be admitted to the divine ministry."

Thus, in the West, during the patristic era and into the early Middle Ages, clerical celibacy (i.e. being unmarried) was not in force; but a cleric was obliged by canon law and, it was claimed, by a custom dating from the Apostles, to be continent and have no sexual relations even with his wife.

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