Posted on 08/24/2003 12:42:59 PM PDT by sydney smith
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Wanderer Home PageIssue Date August 28, 2003
The Milwaukee Petition . . .
Do The Faithful Realize The
Problems With Optional Celibacy?
By FR. JOSEPH F. WILSON
From Milwaukee comes word that over 160 priests have signed a petition requesting that the Church consider allowing optional celibacy in the Roman Rite, and requesting that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) take this subject up for deliberation.
I wish heartily to second their proposal, to this extent: We should all definitely stop and think about this petition, and the fact that it has been put forward by such a significant proportion of the priests of an archdiocese. There’s much food for thought here.
First, as far as the optional celibacy proposal itself is concerned, there have always been married priests in the Catholic Church. The marriage of priests in the eastern Churches is a longstanding tradition: A married man may be ordained a priest, no one may be married after he is ordained, and bishops are chosen from the (celibate) monastic clergy. They’ve done it for centuries. Moreover, in recent years the Popes have allowed exceptions to the celibacy rule in the Roman Rite for married non-Catholic clergymen who convert and seek Ordination. This started with Pius XII, who allowed the Ordination of two former Lutheran clergymen in Germany, and has continued with the Pastoral Provision under John Paul II for married former Anglicans.
So, while optional celibacy in the Roman Rite would be a significant change, it would by no means be unprecedented in the Catholic Church. It would, though, involve significant adjustments, and I wonder how many Catholics have realized what they are.
For one thing, Catholics would need to get used to their priests living off-campus (in the northeast at least, this is still unusual), away from the parish plant, and many priests serving in troubled areas would be living significantly far away in places where they could raise their families. Compensation would have to be looked at, stewardship and Catholics’ poor level of giving addressed. In Protestant congregations, typically far smaller than ours, individual parishioners know that if they do not give significantly, their churches will not be able to afford a full program and, likely, a pastor. Catholics who are members of large congregations can avoid feeling that same responsibility.
Catholics would have to get used to the fact that their priest would have something approaching "business hours," and live with the consequence of troubled clergy families if they didn’t. We’d also have to face the fact of clergy family divorce (there already is a divorced Catholic priest, I think in Tennessee — a married former Episcopal priest who divorced after being received into the Church and ordained).
A huge change would be in the matter of incardination. Presently, at diaconate Ordination a diocesan priest pledges himself to his bishop and his successors. For the rest of my life, I will live and minister in Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y., for those two counties are my diocese. If I were married, raising a family, and, no doubt, depending on my wife’s salary as well as mine, and her job moved her to Houston, to Houston we’d need to go. Excardinating from one diocese and into another would have to become routine, as it is among Episcopal clergy. Indeed, the amount of freedom this would introduce into clerical life — priests free to live where they wish, move to other dioceses — would be a huge change to the system.
What intrigues me about this is what it would mean for diocesan day-to-day workings. You’d have, I think, a tendency for priests to migrate to family-friendly places as they’re raising children; this would be natural. Most married priests would be thinking about areas with good schools, where their wives would be able to find employment. You’d also have a most intriguing new situation: Bishops would not simply be dealing with the diocesan presbyterate as a captive body of subjects. A priest would be free to move to a different diocese if he thought its policies more enlightened, more priest-friendly. That could be very significant (in the troubled Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, for example, there are currently some 50 vacancies, well over a quarter of the total parishes — and those vacancies last for several years — so few Episcopal clergy want to work in the Long Island diocese). It would really be interesting to see bishops having to deal with their priests as something other than a guaranteed labor pool.
There might also be a significant effect on seminarians and their formation. Currently, there is a supposition in many places that a candidate seeking admission to the seminary should present himself to his bishop, rather than shop around for a diocese. This makes sense from a traditional, ecclesial perspective: one should offer one’s services to the local Church which nourished your piety in the first place.
The trouble is, of course, that in reality not every diocese takes the trouble to ensure a solid formation for its future priests; there are plenty of dioceses in the Church which don’t, as the courageous Michael S. Rose chronicled in his excellent Goodbye! Good Men on the lamentable state of many seminaries, and conscientious priests in those dioceses have no choice but to steer potential candidates to orthodox bishops.
Within the last three years, I have had four young men come to talk to me at different times. None of them were acquainted with each other; they were from different parishes, and all of them were young professionals in their early 30s. Each had decided to seek Ordination as a priest, and, strikingly, none of them were interested in studying for our diocese. They were active laymen, acquainted with church life in New York City and on Long Island, and each had concluded that he needed to find a bishop who would send him to a sound seminary. Two of them pointed out to me that they know of priests up and down the east coast who hail from our diocese but were ordained elsewhere.
Indeed, one told me of spending a weekend at the highly regarded Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., and as part of that visit he was driven out to a parish in the Arlington Diocese. "Father," the fellow said, "the pastor and the assistant there were both from our diocese. They came to Arlington because it’s solid, and they could study at the Mount." The effect of a loosening of the permanence of diocesan ties on priests might make this even more common among seminarians, and again, it would be interesting to watch as bishops felt pressure to provide solid seminary training because prospective seminarians were migrating elsewhere.
The Priesthood Is Not A Profession
All of that having been said, you might be surprised to hear that, in the end, I find myself more and more opposed to "optional celibacy" as the years go by. I say this despite the fact that I have very fine, close priest friends who are married priests engaged in fine ministries.
I think we’d lose something very precious, would end up "professionalizing" the priesthood, to our great loss. Traditionally, there’s supposed to be a bond between a bishop and his people; we’d lose that, it would be submerged among a couple of dozen "practical considerations," and in my mind’s eye I can just see clergy employment agencies opening offices near chancery buildings. Something would be lost.
The priesthood is not a profession. It cannot be lived as a profession. It is a state of life. You don’t compare the priesthood to a profession such as law or medicine; you compare it to a state of life, like holy Matrimony. The sad fact that so many bishops hand over their candidates to a professionalized, secularized seminary training doesn’t change the fact that the sacred priesthood cannot be fruitfully lived as a profession.
And I think the proposal of the 160 Milwaukee priests is a perfect example of how we rearrange the deck chairs as the ship is sinking — here’s a problem, let’s change the rules. Pope John Paul II addressed this in one of his early Holy Thursday Letters to Priests: to say, "the people have the right to the Eucharist." So must we change some rules to get more priests? But that would be to treat the Eucharist as an entitlement, not a Gift. The question we should be asking is, "If the Eucharist is the center of our faith, why aren’t there enough young men coming forward to give themselves to Its service?"
Are the 160 Milwaukee priests planning to address the faith crisis we see today, or are they just looking to change the rules? Why don’t they have enough priests in Milwaukee, a city with a grand Catholic tradition? Have they stopped to wonder about that? Last year, in the pages of The Wanderer, I pointed out (April 4, 2002) that the clergy sexual abuse crisis is not The Crisis:
The Church in this country is locked in the grip of a far more profound crisis of faith, which has manifested itself in at least 12 different, major areas over the past 40 years, and I argued that until we face this, we’re at best treating a symptom, not the disease.
Since that time, not one single bishop in this country has said anything, to my knowledge, recognizing the widespread faith crisis in this country. Nothing. Nothing about the crisis in catechesis, religious life, priesthood, seminaries, universities and colleges, high schools, family life, moral theology, liturgy, and spirituality. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Zip.
For 40 years, we’ve heard this time of apostasy incessantly described as an "Age of Renewal"; even now, with the sexual abuse crisis providing undeniable evidence of something tragically wrong, it is utterly remarkable that we have no single specimen of an episcopal utterance sounding the clarion call rallying the faithful, alerting the Church to the danger. Nothing. The shepherds have contented themselves with saying, "A couple of wolves got a few sheep. It was too bad. Should’na happened. But we’re on a learning curve now. We have been enlightened, so we’re appointing a National Review Board."
I’m grateful for the 160 Milwaukee priests. Thank God for them. We need to be reminded that there are still people — even priests, pastors of souls — so incurably dense that they cannot see a profound spiritual crisis here, and think that rearranging the deck chairs, shuffling canons about will solve the problem. And I love and support their plan to ask the USCCB to take this matter up in its deliberations. An excellent idea. Drop this in the laps of the bishops, gently — Oh! so gently, lest we wake the poor dears up.
And, yes, there’s no harm in their deliberating this, none at all. And they can refer it to the Bishops’ Committee on Women-Nuclear Weapons-Economics-Homosexuals-Environmental Concerns, and let them develop a pastoral letter on optional celibacy. I’m sure it will change the world. At least for the six people who read it.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is in the grip of a massive crisis which has been evident for 40 years, affecting at least 12 major areas of the Church’s life, robbing the faithful of the faith-filled parishes in which they should find it their joy to worship, pray, and raise their families.
I really don’t mean to interrupt anyone’s nap, but is it really too much to ask that the existence of this crisis be acknowledged?
+ + +
(Fr. Wilson is an associate pastor at St. Luke’s Parish in Whitestone, N.Y.)
And it is a choice. Just like a couple must constantly work making a marriage work. A marriage is a way of life that is always a work in progress and always a choice!
And how many are truly faithful anymore? Faithful to the Magisterium and the Pope and the Catechism? The faithful do realize the problems. Those who profess faith, but are often most faithful only to their own whims, they are another story. Voice of the Faithful, a perfect example.
Profoundly stated!
(Fr. Wilson is an associate pastor at St. Luke’s Parish in Whitestone, N.Y.)
I taught computer classes (grades 1 through 8) at St. Luke's for 3 years!! There were still 2 teaching nuns there at that time. One of them taught 1st grade. I WILL NEVER FORGET one of the first fire drills I experienced, after being assigned to their school. (My employer was retained by the school to set up a computer lab and provide an instructor ... me.) There was no advance warning; the alarm went off and the other teachers knew the routine. They filed their classes outside, across the street and into the school's parking lot. My classroom was empty, so I simply observed from my window.
Across the street, I could see that the teachers had organized their students into neat and tidy lines. While scanning this scene of well behaved children in school uniforms, I caught sight of the First Grade nun reprimanding a little scofflaw. As I watched, she proceded to grab his tie and physically lift him up off the ground. I gasped! The boy, undaunted, returned to his place in the line; he never tried those antics again. Can you imagine the ramifications if a public school teacher were to do that today? Lol! I later learned from several of the parents that they specifically asked the school principal to place their child in sister's class. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this aged nun is still teaching and 'correcting' misbehavior in her students.
Bravo Zulu Father Wilson.
It would be helpful in your discussions if both sides were really familiar with how the married priesthood in the East actually works in practice.
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