Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
Posted on 06/22/2014 2:42:07 PM PDT by NYer
A common criticism of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual morality has to do with the largely unmarried clergy who are charged with preaching the message. The accepted wisdom is that celibate males have no business telling married couples how to live their lives: “What do they know about the subject?”
I remember a particularly egregious example. In 1974, Earl Butz, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, ridiculed Pope Paul VI’s opposition to contraception, “He no playa the game, he no maka the rules.” He later apologized, but in reality he was only saying publicly what many, including many Catholics, were saying privately.
I’ve never understood this. Jesus, God Incarnate, was a celibate male. Why would any Christian assume that a man striving to emulate Christ in the flesh would have nothing to offer about the nature of love?
Christians agree that God is love. What they don’t agree on is what should be derived from this fact.
I’ve taught natural family planning for almost twenty years and I consider one of the most important elements of this instruction to be what is conveyed about the nature of love. I always hesitate to use an adjective such as “true” to describe a noun such as “love.” It seems inadvertently to give status to any falsehood parading as truth.
Love is what it is. Everything else is a pretender and should be described with its own noun. Love is not lust; love is not use; love is not convenience. Love is divine, with all that implies.
St. John Paul II’s pontificate emphasized church teaching about love and its incarnational aspects. From 1981 through 1984, he devoted a whole series of audiences to this subject, which he dubbed “The Theology of the Body.” These talks were later gathered into a book and became the basis of serious theological reflections
Although continence for the sake of the Kingdom was an important aspect of this teaching, the theology on marriage seemed to get the most focus when it was disseminated and discussed. Celibacy was initially given short shrift, which is unfortunate, because the fact of the matter is, if you don’t understand or appreciate continence for the sake of the Kingdom, you aren’t going to appreciate or understand the nature of the sacrament of marriage.
Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
A keystone of St. JPII’s teaching in this matter is found in Gaudium et Spes:
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, “that all may be one. . . as we are one” (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. [24]
The essence of love is a willingness to give a sincere gift of self. We only love when we act like God. God the Son showed us what this means by giving such a complete gift of Self that He emptied Himself, as St. Paul tells us, going all the way to the cross.
Our life of love is a continuum that starts here on earth and is fulfilled in Heaven. The crucifixion was completed by the resurrection, when love conquered even death. Celibacy for the kingdom is the eschatological symbol of love and it has much to teach those of us who are married.
In a 1981 audience, reflecting on Christ’s words about the resurrection of the body found in Mt. 22:30, St. JPII wrote:
The reciprocal gift of oneself to God – a gift in which man will concentrate and express all the energies of his own personal and at the same time psychosomatic subjectivity – will be the response to God’s gift of himself by man, a gift which will become completely and definitively beatifying, as a response worthy of a personal subject to God’s gift of Himself, “virginity,” or rather the virginal state of the body, will be totally manifested as the eschatological fulfillment of the “nuptial” meaning of the body, as the specific sign and the authentic expression of all personal subjectivity. In this way, therefore, that eschatological situation in which “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” has its solid foundation in the future state of the personal subject, when, as a result of the vision of God “face to face,” there will be born in him a love of such depth and power of concentration on God Himself, as to completely absorb his whole psychosomatic subjectivity.
It is the mutual gift of self that is imaged in conjugal love. Without denigrating the noble vocation of marriage, it can rightly be said that the couple undertaking marriage can find no better guide to understanding the essential nature of the gift of self than the celibate priest who has emptied himself in imitation of Christ.
Let’s thank our priests for showing us this most radical example of self-gift.
**I seriously don’t know what motivates them. **
I’ve come to believe that they hate the Catholic Church because they know it is right, yet they must stick with their proddy base and not be lambasted by other non-Catholics.
So is it envy? And the way many people deal with envy is to put another person down so that they look better.
Or is it just the sin of pride, thinking they are right when the Catholic Church was here long before any of their churches.
I have no qualms with the Jewish posters, for they usually have good information.
For the last time, read what I have written, inform yourself, that celibacy is neither dogmatic, nor universal.
There are married Roman Catholic priests, both from the Eastern Rites, as well as former Episcopalian/Anglicans.
I was willing to agree with your second paragraph, until you brought in something completely unrelated.
If you can’t figure out the parallels between Christ, and his bride, the Church, and celibate priest with his bride, the Church, I can’t help you.
You make absolutely no sense.
By the same token, I guess non-Catholics can’t discuss Catholic doctrines.
Here are my words from post 57:
“My argument was with the idea that someone who doesn’t marry in an attempt to serve God is not superior in qualification as a marriage counselor to someone who is married to an imperfect, sinful spouse.”
Did I say marriage counselors MUST be married, or that a celibate counselor is not automatically superior to a married one? [Note: rereading it, I had one too many “not”s in the sentence from bad editing. However, my argument on this thread has been consistent and clear.]
As I said in another post on this thread:
“The specific sentence I pointed out was this one:
“Without denigrating the noble vocation of marriage, it can rightly be said that the couple undertaking marriage can find no better guide to understanding the essential nature of the gift of self than the celibate priest who has emptied himself in imitation of Christ.”
I am arguing that a celibate priest is not, due to his celibacy, superior as a marriage counselor. The celibate priest supposedly gives himself to God, who is perfect. That is not a good preparation for giving yourself to an imperfect human.
I think you make a reasonable argument. Since it is a subjective topic, there will be different opinions, which could all be equally valid.
Now, how did the thread go so far afield?
A priest marries the Church and it’s people. This is a lot more complicated then bickering about who left the cap off the toothpaste.
“Now, how did the thread go so far afield?”
Unfortunately, many of the religion threads are so reflexively Anti-Catholic or Anti-Protestant that participants assume everything is an attack. I’ve met both Catholic priests and Baptist preachers who could give good marriage counseling, and I’ve met some of both who I wouldn’t ask for directions to cross a street.
May we all remember the great love of our heavenly Father, his infinite oceans of mercy and streams of wisdom.
May the thirst of our minds and hearts be quenched in His stream, and our faults and sins washed away in His oceans.
May we all see ourselves as brothers and sisters, created by the Father, loving one another as He loves us. May this love extend most especially to those who feel unloved, unwanted, and alone. May they feel more acutely the Father’s perfect love.
I am not surprised that you wouldn't know what verse and I am even less surprised that your religion avoided that scripture in the Catholic bible, your catechism...
I guess it's no longer accurate for people to say you don't know anything...
If you wanted to be a successful criminal, would you want to learn from someone who never committed a crime?
Can we discuss politics even though we are not politicians?
If you wanted to get into politics would you go to someone that has never BEEN in politics?
Can we discuss gardening even though we are not Master Gardeners?
If you wanted to be a master, or even a good gardener, would you take lessons from someone who never grew a thing?
Get with it!
Try to learn the point!
Nobody said that they SHOULD be married. But, if you were having serious marriage problems would you feel confident in going to a marriage counselor that has never been married, has no plans to ever get married and who cannot speak from experience about the problems married people have?
This presumes that there is no transcendental component to marriage. That the institution of marriage is entirely corporeal. And maybe that's the case for many marriages. But for those married couples who do recognize that spritual component they will seek out those whose calling had lead them to perfect their love of Christ. Agape is superior to eros.
And for the corporeal there seems to be this erroneous notion that confers, automatically, authenticity to experience. "Keeping it real, yo!" in modern parlance. Experience does not equal truth. Spirit, is superior to body.
And finally, "the doctor need not..." and all that.
Thank you. I will file that for future reference.
I do know the difference but the spelling escaped me at the time.
Then why is it such a hot button issue for Catholics?
Then why aren't Catholics priests allowed to marry, as opposed to allowing Catholic priests to be married.
Catholics aren't fooling anyone with the word games they play.
We see the difference between allowing Catholic priests to marry and allowing Catholic priests to become married and do not accept the derision directed at us for being *poorly catechized* and not knowing what we're talking about.
The Catholic church makes priests who want to marry to leave the priesthood and I do know that. I saw it in my own extended family.
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