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.
We have a religious sister at our parish who spent over 40 years as a school teacher and principal. I've found her counsel on child-rearing extremely helpful.
How do you presume to know how God treats his priest? You really have no idea what it’s about. All you can think of sex. Is that all your marriage is about? I think you need to get over this.
They think our religious and clergy live in a box and only come out on Sunday, or when they want molest kids or kill babies and drink their blood. ;) Broken record.
I guess the two following passages have nothing to with what God proclaimed??
God the Son said this: “ For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it].” Matthew 19:12
And then St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (7:7): “For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
No, those wouldn’t have anything to do it, not at all. Sheesh.
“How do you presume to know how God treats his priest? You really have no idea what it’s about. All you can think of sex. Is that all your marriage is about? I think you need to get over this.”
I think you need to repent of your sins.
I know God treats priests and all humans with perfect justice and love, and my spouse does not always do so. And I did not write about sex. My marriage, now in year 27, doesn’t need your advice, and I think you need to get over yourself.
I just don’t know. One of my friends had a religious brother of the Marianist order who lived next door to her. He was an attorney. When her husband left her with extreme prejudice - things like having the power to the house turned off without telling her - the Brother represented her in the divorce at a very modest fee. How could they not understand all the realities of married life?
Our Sister Veronica came from a family of 10 children; she was 8th or 9th, and their father died before she was 10. Before she went into the convent, she saw not only her parents’ life but her older siblings’ marriages. We could just sit trading stories for hours, until finally, “I have another appointment, Cynthia.” “Oh, shoot, Sister, I think Tom’s making lunch at home!”
They don’t have infant oblates any more. Everyone is in real life.
"But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
Sounds pretty much like Paul is leaving the door open . . One man after this manner (celibacy) and another after that (marriage). There is NO requirement to be celibate recorded for clergy. Some prophets were married and some were not.
Priests do for nothing what shrinks get paid a $100 dollars an hour for.
Why do you feel the need to stick your beak into our Church then? I really don’t know what your issues are, but I’ll take care of my soul and you take care of yours, OK?
IIRC, and I do, one of the reasons the sisters dropped the habit, was they felt that people did not approach them as people.
Now you can read peoples minds?? You are making it personal and that is not allowed. Mr Rogers was conducting himself deliberately and courteously. You have not.
Pope John Paul II would go to Confession weekly.
All men, including priests, and all women, including nuns and sisters, know they are sinners.
What’s your point?
Well I’ll tell you why I care. The article starts off with a straw man argument. “The accepted wisdom is that celibate males have no business telling married couples how to live their lives”. I don’t think that is accurate. Priests may do very well at counseling as well as any married counselor who has had proper training. So I think this article has a false premise. I challenge it. Otherwise I might as well agree with it if I don’t challenge it. We can follow the rules of debating without resorting to name calling or making it personal (like you did).
You attacked my Church and my clergy, I defended. I didn't call you any names. Go back and read the threads I called you not one name.
Your attempt to silence me has failed.
BINGO! We have a winner!
That's pretty meaningless...Perhaps the guy should have said it's a sign of the Resurrected...But it's still meaningless since in after the Resurrection there will be no desire for relations with the opposite sex to contend with...
Good grief, why all the attacking from the non-Catholics?
I don’t know . The word Catholic is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Day after day, after day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.