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.
Married, not married, Celibate, has nothing to do to determine the ability of the person to act as a counselor. Feel free to have the last word.
Well, considering that Jesus went to Peter's house and healed his mother-in-law from a fever she had, one could conclude, yes.
If the Catholic Church thinks Priests should be celibate then that is their prerogative. If they think these guys should be like monks who live and breathe their faith 100% of the time, then they should make that clear.
In my personal Christianity I don't see "church leaders" as anything higher than those sitting in the pews, they are also sinners, they should have the job of carrying and preaching the message. If they fail that, they need replaced.
All he can do is advise people based on anecdotal evidence from other people.
He can counsel them based on scripture and church teachings, which is what one expect from a man of the cloth and not a psychologist I think.
Why would people expect more than that?
I would expect unmarried church leaders to be about as good marriage counselors as computer programmers. They can tell us what God wants and how we are expected to behave toward each other, but after that.... *crickets*.
I was responding to this question of yours.
“So are you suggesting that the Catholic Church force all priests to be married?” It never even entered my mind. I don’t see how you could have gotten it out of my comment.
It should be the choice of the man.
A wife can be a tremendous encouragement to a man in the ministry.
While being married can have it’s issues, being alone is not all it’s cracked up to be either. A single person has to take care of all the day to day mundane things in addition to working, that a spouse can help with.
There’s pros and cons to both positions and the individual himself is the best person to determine which would work out best for him.
Freeing up married men to become priests would provide more than enough men to carry the work load without them having to compromise their families.
Easy. You referred to a “married clergy” being able to get rid of the gays. If single men are still allowed there is still a chance for gay clergy. In that post you made no mention of choice. And I wasn’t sure what you meant. That’s why I asked.
And like I said, I’m not arguing about Catholic celibacy. My issue is the gay clergy.
I heard an interesting point on Catholic Answers Radio about a month ago on this issue.
Apparently, Scripture records St. Peter had a mother-in-law yes, but no where does it record his wife was still alive, either when he met Jesus or anytime after that.
So it’s entirely possible he was a widower when he met Jesus.
Also, and this is what I found particularly interesting I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, he was at his mother-in-law’s house and she was the one waiting on them. I do believe if his wife was alive at the time, she would have been the one waiting on them at his (their) house.
That is interesting.
There are some areas of marriage that an unmarried marriage counselor simply cannot give advice on.
It's all good in theory. When it comes to the practical application, they have no experience.
I read a great book once called *And Then I had Kids* written by a lady who had all the answers for child reading until God blessed her with a bunch of kids of her own, including a boisterous set of twins.
And honestly, who would expect someone without children to be qualified to give advice on raising children?
Yet somehow, an unmarried marriage counselor works?
Jesus was unmarried. Would you consider his advice on marriage valueless?
Are your priests perfect like Jesus was?
Do they know everything?
I can’t think of any either.
Well, if you aren’t Catholic, it ain’t your board!
Alternatively, Catholic busybodies have no reason to strut around on non-Catholic boards. Just sayin...
Scripture mentions Peter's mother in law; hence, he had a wife. However, she is nowhere mentioned. I find this strange. Imagine the scene. There is the mother-in-law, lying in bed. At her side, as one would expect, is her dutiful daughter—except that Matthew and Luke make no reference to her daughter. Leaving her out of the story is strange. It is not the way a writer would be expected to handle the incident, since a daughter usually is the one most frantic about a mother’s condition. The story is tantalizingly brief. Maybe the Evangelists decided to leave out all but the most salient facts. Or maybe it was because Peter’s wife wasn’t there—she already may have died. I think this is the most likely explanation for her non-appearance.
Then we should also dismiss the teachings of Christ and St. Paul on marriage, since neither of them was married.
Lighten up, Francis, you're getting hyperbolic! This non-Catholic Christian (Protestant is a term you guys use for ALL those who claim to be Christian but who aren't Roman Catholic) doesn't HATE the Catholic church, just the false and accursed gospel CatholicISM teaches. If you're looking for depravity, that church doorstep needs a good sweeping.
“Then we should also dismiss the teachings of Christ and St. Paul on marriage, since neither of them was married.”
Did I SAY to dismiss unmarried counselors, or say “their celibacy does not make them superior as marriage counselors”?
Hmmmm?
Since the scriptural normal, per Timothy, was for Overseers (Bishops) to be married, should we reject marriage advice from all married men?
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