Why married priests won't really fix the shortage

Denver, Colo., Apr 9, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In 1970, there was one priest for every 800 Catholics in the United States.

Today, that number has more than doubled, with one priest for every 1,800 Catholics.

Globally, the situation is worse. The number of Catholics per priest increased from 1,895 in 1980 to 3,126 in 2012, according to a report from CARA at Georgetown University. The Catholic Church in many parts of the world is experiencing what is being called a “priest shortage” or a “priest crisis.”

Last month, Pope Francis answered a question about the priest shortage in a March 8 interview published in the German weekly Die Zeit. The part that made headlines, of course, was that about married priests.

“Pope Francis open to allowing married priests in Catholic Church” read a USA Today headline. “Pope signals he's open to married Catholic men becoming priests” said CNN.

But things are not as they might seem. Read a little deeper, and Pope Francis did not say that Fr. John Smith at the parish down the street can now ditch celibacy and go looking for a wife.

What the Holy Father did say is that he is open to exploring the possibility of proven men ('viri probati,' in Latin) who are married being ordained to the priesthood. Currently, such men, who are typically over the age of 35, are eligible for ordination to the permanent diaconate, but not the priesthood.

However, marriage was not the first solution to the priest shortage Pope Francis proposed. In fact, it was the last.

Pressed specifically about the married priesthood, the Pope said: “optional celibacy is discussed, above all where priests are needed. But optional celibacy is not the solution.”

While Pope Francis perhaps signals an iota more of openness to the possibility of married priests in particular situations, his hesitance to open wide the doors to a widespread married priesthood is in line with his recent predecessors, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as the longstanding tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.

So why is the Church in the West, even when facing a significant priest shortage, so reticent to get rid of a tradition of celibacy, if it is potentially keeping away additional candidates to the priesthood?

Fr. Gary Selin is a Roman Catholic priest and professor at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. His work Priestly Celibacy: Theological Foundations was published last year by CUA press.

While the debate about celibacy is often reduced to pragmatics – the difficulty of paying married priests more, the question of their full availability – this ignores the rich theological foundations of the celibate tradition, Fr. Selin told CNA.

One of the main reasons for this 2,000 year tradition is Christological, because it is based on the first celibate priest – Jesus.

“Jesus Christ himself never married, and there’s something about imitating the life our Lord in full that is very attractive,” Fr. Selin said.

“Interestingly, Jesus is never mentioned as a reason for celibacy. The next time you read about celibacy, try to see if they mention our Lord; oftentimes he is left out of the picture.”

Christ's life of celibacy, while compatible with his mission of evangelization, would not have been compatible with marriage, because “he left his home and family in Nazareth in order to live as an itinerant preacher, consciously renouncing a permanent dwelling: 'The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,'” Fr. Selin said, refering Matthew 8:20.

Several times throughout the New Testament, Christ praises the celibate state. In Matthew 19:11-12, he answers a question from his disciples about marriage, saying that those who are able by grace to renounce marriage and sexual relations for the kingdom of heaven ought to do so.

“Of the three manners in which one is incapable of sexual activity, the third alone is voluntary: ‘eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs [emphasis added].’ These people do so ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,’ that is, for the kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming and initiating,” Fr. Selin explained.

Nevertheless, it took a while for the “culture of celibacy” to catch on in the early Church, Fr. Selin said.

Christ came to earth amid a Jewish people and culture who were instructed since their first parents of Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28, 9:7) and were promised that their descendants would be “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (Gen. 22:17). Being unmarried or barren was to be avoided for both practical and religious reasons, and was seen as a curse, or at least a lack of favor from God.

The apostles, too, were Jewish men who would have been a part of this culture. It is known that among them, at least St. Peter had been married at some time, because Scripture mentions his mother-in-law (Mt. 8:14-15).

St. John the Evangelist is thought by the Church fathers to be one of the only of the 12 apostles who was celibate, which is why Christ had a particular love for him, Fr. Selin said. Some of the other apostles likely were married, in keeping with Jewish customs, but it is thought that they practiced perpetual continence (chosen abstinence from sexual relations) once they became apostles for the rest of their lives. St. Paul the Apostle extols the celibate state, which he also kept, in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8.

Because marriage was such an integral part of Jewish culture, even for the apostles, early Church clergy were often, but not always, married. However, evidence suggests that these priests were asked to practice perfect continence once they had been ordained. Priests whose wives became pregnant after ordination could even be punished by suspension, Fr. Selin explained.

Early on in the Church, bishops were selected from the celibate priests, a tradition that stood before the mandatory celibate priesthood. Even today, Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, most of which allow for married priests, select their bishops from among celibate priests.

As the “culture of celibacy” became more established, it increasingly became the norm in the Church, until married men who applied for ordinations had to appeal to the Pope for special permission.

In the 11th century, St. Gregory VII issued a decree requiring all priests to be celibate and asked his bishops to enforce it. Celibacy has been the norm ever since in the Latin Rite, with special exceptions made for some Anglican and other Protestant pastors who convert to Catholicism.

Another reason the celibate priesthood is valued in the Church is because it bears witness to something greater than this world, Fr. Selin explained.

Benedict XVI once told priests that celibacy agitates the world so much because it is a sign of the kingdom to come.

“It is true that for the agnostic world, the world in which God does not enter, celibacy is a great scandal, because it shows exactly that God is considered and experienced as reality. With the eschatological dimension of celibacy, the future world of God enters into the reality of our time. And should this disappear?” Benedict XVI said in 2010.

Christ himself said that no one would be married or given in marriage in heaven, and therefore celibacy is a sign of the beatific vision (cf. Mt 22:30-32).

“Married life will pass away when we behold God face to face and all of us become part of the bridal Church,” Fr. Selin said. “The celibate is more of a direct symbol of that.”

Another value of celibacy is that it allows priests a greater intimacy with Christ in more fully imitating him, Fr. Selin noted.

“The priest is ordained to be Jesus for others, so he’s able to dedicate his whole body and soul first of all to God himself, and from that unity with Jesus he is able to serve the church,” he said.

“We can’t get that backwards,” he emphasized. Often, celibacy is presented for practical reasons of money and time, which aren’t sufficient reasons to maintain the tradition.

“That’s not sufficient and that doesn’t fill the heart of a celibate, because he first wants intimacy with God. Celibacy first is a great, profound intimacy with Christ.”

Father Douglas Grandon is one of those rare exceptions - a married Roman Catholic priest.

He was a married Episcopalian priest when he and his family decided to enter the Catholic Church 14 years ago, and received permission from Benedict XVI to become a Catholic priest.

Even though Fr. Grandon recognizes the priest shortage, he said opening the doors to the married priesthood would not solve the root issue of that shortage.

“In my opinion, the key to solving the priest shortage is more commitment to what George Weigel calls evangelical Catholicism,” Fr. Grandon told CNA.

“Whether you’re Protestant or Catholic, vocations come from a very strong commitment to the basic commands of Jesus to preach the Gospel and make disciples. Wherever there’s this strong evangelical commitment, wherever priests are committed to deepening people’s faith and making them serious disciples, you have vocations. That is really the key.”

He also said that while he’s “ever so grateful” that St. John Paul II allowed for exceptions to the celibate priesthood in 1980 – allowing Protestant pastor converts like himself to become priests – he also sees the value of the celibate priesthood and does not advocate getting rid of it.

“...we really do believe the celibate vocation is a wonderful thing to be treasured, and we don’t want anything to undermine that special place of celibate priesthood,” he said.

“Jesus was celibate, Paul was celibate, some of the 12 were celibate, so that’s a special gift that God has given to the Catholic Church.”

Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield is another married priest, who resides in Dallas and is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He recently wrote about his experience as a married priest, but also said that he would not want the Church to change its celibacy norm.

“What we need is another Pentecost. That’s how the first 'shortage' was handled. The Twelve waited for the Holy Spirit, and he delivered,” Fr. Whitfield told CNA in e-mail comments.

“Seeing this crisis spiritually is what is practical. And it’s the only way we’re going to properly solve it…. I’m simply not convinced that the economics of (married priesthood) would result in either the growth of clergy or the Church.”

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest diocese in the United States, clocking in at a Catholic population of 4,029,336, according to the P.J. Kenedy and Sons Official Catholic Directory.

With 1,051 diocesan and religious priests combined, the archdiocese has one priest for every 3,833 Catholics – more than double the national rate.

Despite the large Catholic population, which presents both “a great blessing and a great challenge”, Fr. Samuel Ward, the archdiocese's associate sirector of vocations, told CNA he doesn’t hope for or anticipate any major changes to the practice of priestly celibacy.

“I believe in the great value of the celibate Roman Catholic priesthood,” he said.

He also sees great reason for hope. Recent upticks in the number of seminarians and young men considering the priesthood seems to be building positive momentum for vocations in future generations.

The trend is a national one as well – CARA reports that about 100 more men were ordained to the priesthood in 2016 than in 2010. Between 2005 and 2010, there was a difference of only 4.

In the Archdiocese of New York, the second largest diocese in the United States, there is a Catholic population of 2,642,740 and 1,198 diocesan and religious priests, meaning there is one priest for every 2,205 Catholics.

“I think we’re probably like most every other diocese in the country, in that over the past 40-50 years, the number of ordinations have not in any way kept pace with the number of priests who are retiring or dying,” said Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese.

It’s part of the reason why they recently underwent an extensive reorganization process, which included the closing and re-consolidation of numerous parishes, many of which had found themselves without a pastor in recent years.

“Rather than wait for it to hit crisis mode we wanted to be prudent and plan for what the future would look like here in the Archdiocese of New York,” Zwilling said.

Monsignor Peter Finn has been a priest in New York for 52 years, and as rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary for six years in the early 2000s, he has had several years’ experience forming priests. While he admits there is a shortage, he’s not convinced that doing away with celibacy would solve anything.

“After 52 years of priesthood I’m not really sure it would make any big difference,” he told CNA.

That’s because the crisis is not unique to the vocation of the priesthood, he said. The broader issue is a lack of commitment – not just to the priesthood, but to marriage and other vocations of consecrated life.

My father wanted to be a priest. Luckily for me that never happened. He entered Boston College in 1961. He quickly discovered the vast majority of seminary students were homos. That was it for him. Meeting my mother helped. Her uncle was a priest and he was gay also. Always creeped my mom out.

I don’t understand the resistance to married priests. It would help cut down on the gays would it not?

For a couple decades now the seminaries have been the taken over by the gay mafia...

...and real men don’t want to hang with deviant homosexuals. Why make it any harder than it is?

not following your logic- you are comparing apples to oranges

there are far more married men, so the number would be higher.

As a percentage of population- how does it stack up?

for example, 3 percent of the population is young black males- and that group is responsible for 50% of the homicides

I believe that a higher percentage of married men do it , than single men.

By the way, do you really think normally disposed men do this because they can't get married?

“I don’t understand the resistance to married priests.”

The Catholics that are pro-homosexual, pro-’gay marriage’ and pro-priestess all invariably hate the discipline of celibacy and want it ended. I’m not making that up, anyone can do a search for liberal Catholics and what they think about the discipline of celibacy. Try to find a single liberal of any faith or none that thinks the Catholic discipline of celibacy is valuable and should be continued.

“It would help cut down on the gays would it not?”

Every single religious group that has accepted gay clergy in active relationships and ‘gay marriage’ has also allowed married clergy for centuries. Many of them proudly put gays into positions of leadership where they can be married. How come their married clergy didn’t stop this from happening?

Freegards

Read the book, “Goodbye Good Men.” It details how the churches seminaries turned away hundreds of qualified men because they recognized that there was rampant homosexualism i. The seminaries and tried to blow the whistle. Instead, they were run out of the seminaries. Pope Benedict XVI worked hard to eliminate the bad actors and Makonde great progress.

Easy answer...they deviated from the clear teachings of the NT on this topic.

The Bible is clear...homosexuality/lesbaianism is not tolerated.

From what I've seen those groups that allow women as pastors/priests aren't far behind in accepting homosexuality/lesbianism.

Yeah, as far as I can tell every group that has accepted those things first accepted female clergy/pastors. Maybe the only ones that didn’t are some of the charismatics, at least that’s what I have been told once or twice on FR. Try to find one wacky lib female pastor or even anyone that thinks women clergy is a good idea that doesn’t think the Catholic discipline of celibacy should be ended. Same thing for those that support homosexual acts or ‘gay marriage.’ If married clergy was such a barrier for gays I reckon they would be clamoring to keep it around.

Freegards

The RCC can require its priests to be celibate, but it wasn’t a requirement in the NT church...else Paul wouldn’t have included instructions/qualifications for men seeking to become leaders in the church. That was a much later development in the RCC with some of the reasons not related to truly serving God.

You are correct, nick!

Watch out for the married man (uncle for example) who might coach a Little League team and is also a Sunday School teacher!

“The RCC can require its priests to be celibate, but it wasn’t a requirement in the NT church...”

All liberals everywhere invariably think that the RCC should do away with the discipline of celibacy, they hate it. I think there is a reason for that. If it was so inimical to the homosexual agenda the gays would be clamoring to keep it. But it is the opposite, they are the ones who hate it the most. Check for yourself, do a search.

Freegards

>>“The RCC can require its priests to be celibate, but it wasn’t a requirement in the NT church...”<<

Bro...I'm hardly a liberal.

My statement is correct...celibacy was not a requirement of elders in the NT church. If it were Paul would not have included the qualifications for elders as he did...which permitted for wives.

Hey...even Peter had a wife as did many of the other disciples.

Yes, there are conservatives who think the Catholic discipline of celibacy should end, both Catholic and non-Catholic. This FR thread shows that, right?

And all liberals everywhere invariably agree with them, and want the Catholic discipline of celibacy ended. Just try to find a liberal who supports abortion, ‘gay marriage’ and female clergy who also thinks the Catholic discipline is valuable and should continue. It’s easy to check, just search a liberal forum for the topic of Catholic celibacy and see what they say about it.

Freegards

And what is the percentage of priests that are homosexuals?

I guarantee it is many times the percentage of the general population

Same with male airline flight ‘attendants’ - nearly 100%

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