Posted on 10/25/2009 4:31:29 PM PDT by Salvation
Phil Lawler is undoubtedly correct that the rule of celibacy will not be relaxed for Catholics of the Roman Rite when married Anglican priests begin to appear under a new Catholic ordinariate. He may also be correct that Eastern Rite churches will gradually permit more of their married clergy to serve in the West as we become accustomed to married clergy through a growing familiarity with our Anglo-Catholic brethren. (See The Anglicans and the Eastern Churches.)
But the official policies of the Roman Rite and the Eastern Rite churches do not exhaust the issues raised by an increase in the number of married priests. The first issue is whether those who want the Church to change the law of celibacy will use the occasion to increase their pressure. This must be answered in the affirmative by any sane observer of the dissident Catholic scene.
The second issue is whether the Church’s “celibacy morale”, so painstakingly rebuilt over the past twenty years, will be lowered once again. Will the faithful become even more confused about celibacy? Will some Roman Rite priests think it “hard” that no special provision is made for them to marry? Will some potential future priests begin to hope once again for a relaxation of the celibacy requirement? Surely all of this is likely.
After all, it is hard to justify the imposition of celibacy by law purely on the basis of “how we do things here” while maintaining the position that it is perfectly acceptable to do things another way “there”, especially when here and there are in the same culture. This is nothing new, of course, but insofar as the proposed Anglican ordinariate utilizes married priests who become familiar to other Catholics, questions and even doubts will invariably arise.
Celibacy is Always Preferred
For this reason, it is important to state the plain truth that celibacy is the preferred state for a priest of any rite. This is eloquently attested even in the Eastern Catholic churches by the fact that a priest cannot marry after he has been ordained, and that bishops cannot be married at all. The Eastern Churches will often ordain a man who is already married, but they will not permit an unmarried priest to marry later, or a married priest to remarry after the death of his spouse. Further, the fullness of the priesthood—the episcopate—can be exercised only by unmarried men.
On this last point, it will be interesting to see how the Vatican handles the problem of married Anglican bishops. We find a full-fledged commitment to married clergy only in Anglicanism, which developed largely in direct rebellion against the Catholic Church and under the influence of both the Protestant Revolt and the English monarchy. The Eastern Churches did not develop so much in rebellion against Rome, although rebellion certainly existed on the political level, as on a separate path in which a common Tradition informed the changeable provisions of ecclesiastical discipline in slightly different ways.
Some in the Eastern Catholic Churches (though not many, I think) might contest my statement that celibacy is the preferred state for a priest of any rite. But many would contest my own pragmatic reading of the current situation, which leads me to suspect strongly that only a monumental historical accident—consisting chiefly of the need to heal the grave wounds of schism—has prevented celibacy from being the rule for all Catholics of whatever rite. But since all ecclesiastical discipline is human, and no ecclesiastical discipline infallibly produces what it aims at, this is a debatable proposition. One can argue about which disciplines are inspired by the Holy Spirit and which are permitted by men “because of the hardness of their hearts”. Indeed, one can be appalled by Eastern Rite seminarians who delay ordination until they have had a chance to find wives; but one can also look askance at the attraction of Western homosexual seminarians to a celibate priesthood.
While my historical perspective is eminently debatable, however, the proposition that celibacy is to be preferred even when it is not legislated was clearly and authoritatively taught in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (The Celibacy of the Priest), issued on June 24, 1967. The encyclical was promulgated not just to the Roman Rite bishops but to “the bishops, priests and faithful of the whole Catholic world”. In his encyclical, the Pope points both to the Eastern practice of requiring celibacy for bishops and the strong witness of the Eastern Fathers of the Church as evidence that a preference for celibacy is enshrined everywhere throughout the whole Church.
The Reasons for Ecclesiastical Law
The question, then, is not whether celibacy is to be preferred but whether it should be prescribed by ecclesiastical law. While recognizing the respect due to the alternative approach taken by the Eastern Churches, and to those among their priests who happen to be married, Pope Paul stresses the immense value and intrinsic superiority of celibacy for priests. This superiority consists in a greater conformity to Christ, who was celibate; a greater sign of the supernatural Kingdom in which we will neither marry nor be given in marriage; a greater sign of total service to the Church and to the nurture of souls; a greater self-possession and self-discipline; and a greater charity which, properly developed, will bear more abundant fruit in ministry.
It is this superiority, both as a sign and as an incomparable means of being configured to Christ, that led Pope Paul VI, in direct response to the near-overwhelming agitation for the elimination of celibacy in the 1960’s—and after carefully reviewing the major objections to it in the first part of his encyclical—to reaffirm that celibacy is as valid and important to the Church now as it has been at any time in history. He therefore established that it was wholly right and good to continue to give this singular Catholic tradition the force of law in the West. All Catholics, of both East and West, were intended to benefit from a deeper exploration of his reasons.
A. Conformity to Christ
The Pope’s points in favor of celibacy are divided into two parts. The first centers on conformity to the priesthood of Christ. “The Christian priesthood,” Paul writes, “being of a new order, can be understood only in the light of the newness of Christ, the Supreme Pontiff and eternal priest, who instituted the priesthood of the ministry as a real participation in His own unique priesthood” (19). The human priest looks to Christ directly as his model, Christ who brought forth a new creation through his total consecration to the will of the Father.
While matrimony “continues the work of the first creation”, Christ is the mediator of “a superior covenant”. As such, He has “also opened a new way, in which the human creature adheres wholly and directly to the Lord, and is concerned only with Him and with His affairs; thus, he manifests in a clearer and more complete way the profoundly transforming reality of the New Testament” (20). The Pope's namesake, St. Paul, gives advice to all Christians along these same lines: “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided” (1 Cor 7:32-34).
As Paul VI points out, it was “wholly in accord” with his mission that Christ remained celibate throughout His whole life, “which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men.” This deep connection between celibacy and the priesthood of Christ is reflected “in those whose fortune it is to share in the dignity and mission of the Mediator and eternal Priest” (21):
To them this is the mystery of the newness of Christ, of all that He is and stands for; it is the sum of the highest ideals of the Gospel and of the kingdom; it is a particular manifestation of grace, which springs from the Paschal mystery of the Savior. This is what makes the choice of celibacy desirable and worthwhile to those called by our Lord Jesus. Thus they intend not only to participate in His priestly office, but also to share with Him His very condition of living. (23)
B. Supernal Charity
The second part of the Pope's argument centers on charity. “The free choice of sacred celibacy,” Pope Paul states, “has always been considered by the Church ‘as a symbol of, and stimulus to, charity’: It signifies a love without reservations; it stimulates to a charity which is open to all” (24). Just as the priest is more perfectly conformed to Christ through celibacy, so too does he partake more fully in “the charity and sacrifice proper to Christ our Savior”. Thus the bond between the priesthood and celibacy should be seen “as the mark of a heroic soul and the imperative call to unique and total love for Christ and His Church” (25).
Here it is important to recall the mystery of the marriage relationship which St. Paul ascribes to Christ and the Church (see Ephesians 5, concluding with verse 32). Paul VI explains that through consecrated celibacy, priests manifest the “virginal and supernatural fecundity of this marriage, by which the children of God are born, ‘not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh’” (26). Owing to his own life of marriage to the Church, the priest is called to meditate daily on the prayer of the Church, to be nourished by the Word, to united himself totally with the Eucharistic sacrifice, and so to permit his life to acquire “a greater richness of meaning and sanctifying power” (29).
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone,” says the Pope, quoting the Eternal Priest, “but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (30). He goes on to explain also that the celibate priest is a richer sign of the heavenly kingdom, in which marriage between men and women passes away (e.g., Mt. 22:30). He also points briefly to all the practical considerations that make it both easier and more appropriate for an unmarried man to give himself totally to the service of his people.
A Brilliant Jewel
In the remainder of the encyclical, the Pope takes up and answers various questions regarding the potential negative impact of celibacy on those who are unsuited to it, or on human nature generally (as was often urged in the years following the sexual revolution), and he considers the importance of proper discernment and formation. These considerations need not detain us. What is most important in today’s context is that, by urging the value and importance of celibacy and by maintaining it in law, Pope Paul VI hoped celibacy would again become a sign and stimulus of a greater reliance on Divine grace, first on the part of the Church’s ministers, and consequently for the entire body of the faithful. Consider the following inspiring passage:
Supported by the power of faith, We express the Church's conviction on this matter. Of this she is certain: if she is prompter and more persevering in her response to grace, if she relies more openly and more fully on its secret but invincible power, if, in short, she bears more exemplary witness to the mystery of Christ, then she will never fall short in the performance of her salvific mission to the world—no matter how much opposition she faces from human ways of thinking or misrepresentations. We must all realize that we can do all things in Him who alone gives strength to souls and increase to His Church. (48)
In the context of the differences among Rites and ordinariates, which are likely to bring the question of celibacy to the fore again in ways that are not entirely welcome, it is vital that we try to capture the essence of the Pope’s argument in Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. Its essence is this: Celibacy in the Roman Rite is not to be tolerated as a dull burden but, in Paul VI's own words, to be “guarded as a brilliant jewel”.
Celibacy does not cause or create hypocrisy, it is the homoesexuality that does that.
I don’t think the priests, Bishops and Pope are nuts, they are realists and believe that being married in a prophetic sense to the will of God is far preferable than anything early.
Do we think too much as men do and not as God does?
Keep praying for holy vocations to the priesthood, religious life, marriage and single Catholic lives.
/johnny
Exactly what Holy Scripture are you quoting?
The gates of hell will NOT prevail. Unless scripture is wrong (which I do not believe!). It may get a bit rough, but they will not prevail.
I am so sorry to hear about your father :( , my prayers are with you. Jesus knows his heart, and your intention to get him last rites. Be at peace knowing that. May God hold you and your precious father in the palm of His hand, and grant him heavenly peace.
I met a brand new group of nuns in the Diocese of Spokane while I was at the Serra Club conference on supporting vocations together.
I may not have the name quite right, but they had beautiful havy and white habits — Sisters of Mercy of the Mother of God, I believe.
Oops.
navy and white habits
Thank you.
This is a topic of another article I am banging out. The revelation came to me as I was kneeling waiting to go to communion. I looked up at the altar and it was completely covered in women. There was a priest, and all females-the altar servers, eucharistic ministers, the organist and lector, every one of them was female.
I felt God speak to my heart letting me know that women have no visible role models in the church because it removed “His nuns”. When I grew up, there was a convent at my church. The nuns taught CCD, did the altar linens, made the altar bread, cleaned the church etc. I have not seen a nun in a church for all of the 10 years I have been a revert(unless it was a special occasion- just this 9/11 we had ONE in habit at a memorial mass. First one in 10 years), and it is disheartening. Young ladies today have no role models but male ones in the church. Is it any wonder they want to be altar servers and then priests? They don’t see the options out there, every day, watching women who devoted their lives to God. Thanks for the ping. I hope your nuns will be visible in the parishes! The young girls need to see them!!
“You won’t mind if I remain at large, and celibate. I’m not even Catholic.”
Not in the least, unless you are a monk of some sort in which case, you belong in a monastery.
/johnny
I’m a widow 2-1/2 years, and now living the celibate life after 36 years of a true, wonderful marriage.
I’m grateful for the celibate priesthood. Although it is not exactly the same as my life, I think my incredible loss is understood, with compassion not possible for those who still have their spouses.
Selfishly, I suppose, I’m grateful.
“I’d rather spend a weekend in a convent.”
We call them monasteries, johnny, whether they are filled with nuns or monks.
We now have a priesthood of about 42000 priests.
According to writings By Father Cozzens, Petersen and others, somewhere between 20% and 60% are admitted Homosexuals.
This alone is an Oxymoron since such priests practicing Homosexual Lifestyles are living in sin and it is against the teachings of the bible.
If you are not practicing such a lifestyle why announce you are Homosexual.
This problem is surely confusing and a burden for celibate, straight priests to be living among. in and of itself.
My point is celibacy did not cause the hypocracy, the decision by the Pope and the Vatican to accept thousands of Anglican Married priests to join the Roman Catholic Church, and keep their own structure and practices will cause it.
If I was a celibate Catholic Priest and chose to get married I would join the Anglican group aligned and part of the Catholic church and take a wife.
How can one group be married and another in the same church be refused. it doesn,t make sense.
Under these rules a man joining the priesthood should be able to choose to live Celibate or get married.
The church still needs a purge!!
Marriages may end up half ending in divorce, including Catholics. But you do not go further. You should ask, “Who initiates most of these divorces?” The answer is the female.
A more interesting question is who initiates abortions, the slaughter of unborn? It isn’t the men. Men have no legal rights concerning unborn children. It is all done through women.
I am not pointing a finger of blame at women but on the fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely. All the legal power of marriage is in woman’s hands. People in America are not married to one another, they are married to the State. All a woman has to do is sign some papers and the man becomes a slave to the government. And it is done all the time.
Yet, people like you did not *see* this or even want to see it. No one wants to take up the cross of enslaved men, or the millions of men put in jail based on bogus rape charges or child support statements. For some reason, abortion is blamed on the “culture” or on the “society”, yet one gender, men, have absolutely no power, no say, and really nothing to do with it. Yet, this gets *ignored as well*.
By failing to fight the injustice for these men, we are getting the injustice of socialism rained on us. We can’t fight for freedom in general unless we fight for it in specific.
I, myself, have never been divorced because I was too smart not to marry. Only an idiot man would do so in today’s legal climate. The Church hasn’t helped at all. The “Theology of the Body” nonsense is nothing more than trying to convince the man that the way how Nature made his body is wrong and he must submit to the wife’s will.
The Church used to be filled with manly men. They were necessary to drive back the invading Muslims. Today, the Church is filled with a bunch of pansies. If the Crusades happened today, the Church would just deliver a fruit basket.
Your story of women everywhere in the Church is the reason why I left. The Church is becoming feminized.
There is no reason for a man to be in the Church today. Men are, by law, put on a lesser plane than woman. But in the Church, it is to make the masculine be guilty. However, the “nurturing” and “caring” women get accolades. Being a “man” is no longer welcomed in the Church.
We should keep in mind that Jesus didn’t just tend the sick and hungry, he also whipped those blasphemed his temple. Can you imagine today’s priest whipping merchants like Jesus did? They would just get on their hands and knees to beg while the merchants would just walk on them.
Womb to Tomb, please stop hating men. And know that by driving men from the Church, you not only diminish the Church but liberty as well. John Locke pinned the Rights of Man based on Matrimony, so when Matrimony crumbles so do our rights.
I’m unclear on whether new priests, under the Anglican arrangement, will be required to be celibate. Do you know?
–adjective
3. observing or pertaining to sexual abstention or a religious vow not to marry.
4. not married.
---------------------------------------------------------
Origin:
1605–15
celibate
n.
One who abstains from sexual intercourse, especially by reason of religious vows.
One who is unmarried.
adj.
Abstaining from sexual intercourse, especially by reason of religious vows.
Unmarried; unwed.
Usage Note: Historically, celibate means only "unmarried"; its use to mean "abstaining from sexual intercourse" is a 20th-century development. But the new sense of the word seems to have displaced the old, and the use of celibate to mean "unmarried" is now almost sure to invite misinterpretation in other than narrowly ecclesiastical contexts. Sixty-eight percent of the Usage Panel rejected the older use in the sentence He remained celibate [unmarried], although he engaged in sexual intercourse.
Celibacy is built on the concept that there is a level of living above the one where most of us live...one which denies the flesh, and seeks a spiritual plane. But that is not from Scripture. The presbyters (elders) of the church are to be the husbands of one woman, and lead their own households well that they might lead the church (1 Timothy 3). That is the highest level of leadership in the church. There is no additional level for those who have denied their own flesh. That concept comes from Plato, and especially, neo-platonism.
That is a personal choice, but it is not the biblical pattern. 1 Tim 3 makes that clear.
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