A response to Fr. Joseph Wilson's defense of mandatory celibacy

Fr. Joseph Wilson, an associate pastor at St. Luke’s Parish in Whitestone, N.Y., has written ---forgive me--- a rather shallow and alarmist defense of mandatory celibacy in the pages of The Wanderer. The piece is full of exaggerations and alarmist non sequiturs. On the one hand, he pretends to welcome the request of the some 160 priests from Wisconsin who are asking for the USCCB to deliberate on the question of mandatory celibacy; and, on the other hand, he says, "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..."

Because Fr. Wilson finds it (rightly, I might add) offensive that US bishops have not spoken out sufficiently about the "crisis in catechesis, religious life, priesthood, seminaries, universities and colleges, high schools, family life, moral theology, liturgy, and spirituality...," he thinks that to take up the matter of widening the pool of candidates for better propsects, real men, for the priesthood at this time, is a mere "rearranging the chairs on the Titanic".

I'd prefer to hit the lifeboats myself, because with our current Scandal, which mandatory celibacy, in case he hasn't noticed, did NOT prevent, and with a shrinking pool of priests to choose from thanks to the nihilistic zeitgeist which is our sorry lot----the problems he cites look trivial indeed. I list his anxieties:

* For one thing, Catholics would need to get used to their priests living off-campus (in the northeast at least, this is still unusual).

* 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 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.

* Most married priests would be thinking about areas with good schools, where their wives would be able to find employment

* The Priesthood Is Not A Profession. I think we’d lose something very precious, would end up "professionalizing" the priesthood, to our great loss...

Let's get real. People would prefer any possible flu to cancer. Almost any scenario ---and the Eastern church has disposed of so many of these alarmist caricatures and worst case scenarios --- is better than the lusty Scandals and utter horrors which so many (already too often absent) sexually deviant, supposedly celibate priests have brought us to, in an age of declining numbers of good priests.

Unlike the Episcopalians, the Eastern churches have not let go of their dogmatic foundations and Catholics have much more in common with the latter than the former. Honest to God.

Catholics can cope with any practical problems which changes might bring, but they cannot abide what we have been going through, and which mandatory celibacy has not prevented. To frame the proposal as a liberal conspiracy is far too simple. TCR raised the issue long before the Wisconsin priests did. It's been on the minds of many, you can be sure, since the Scandal raised its ugly head.

What Catholics want is the sacraments, daily, in abundance, from real men, secular priests, not necessarily from monastic celibates only. Very few Catholics go to the rectory after five PM anyway in my experience; and a married priest will presumably be just as available as a good doctor who will often interrupt his dinner or day off when an emergency calls for it.

Moreover, we believe that a truly optional celibacy will allow many thousands----who knows but possibly millions worldwide?---- of theologically conservative men who believe in the natural and morals laws, who believe in family values, to choose seminary and priesthood. Catholics can only benefit from this. There will always be liberals and rebels and problems to solve, but with a better and wider pool of Catholic priests and real men to choose from, those liberals may find themselves in a minority one day.

What a cruelty--- Father Healy, SJ, in the pages of The Wanderer, a man informs us, is "a voice of sanity" relative to the call to reexamine the mandatory nature of celibacy in the wake of the utter horrors of the recent scandals. In The Wanderer Healy implores:

"Further, ‘discussion’ about the issue invites an attitude of ‘reservation’ in the minds of many already committed; and it suggests a ‘tentative’ commitment to those considering a vocation. "I see nothing but further harm coming from prolonging discussion of the issue. "Quite obviously, the commitment to celibacy is, in effect, a commitment to total chastity — in deed, thought, and desire.

What a cruelty---considering the times. The eastern church has long,as stated above, disposed of this either / or absolutist mentality, though we all agree on the virtue of chastity, obviously, by virtue of our Catholic Faith.

10,000 men leaving the priesthood to get married, and, along with good priests, an incredibly powerful corruption consisting of sexual deviants which has astonished the most ideal of us, however, is what we got for such absolutism which has clearly lasted too long. But idealists prefer dreams, it seems. The Church, however, will be the one which will have to pay the terrible and unnecessary price for it.

In principle, I am not opposed to priests being married, and in theory, what would work best is if a parish is served by a celibate pastor, while the vicars would be married priests. The role of the married priests would be mainly liturgical in nature.

That said, it would be a disaster in the present day if the church allows a married priesthood on a universal scale. The biggest problem is many of the men who would be first in line for the priesthood, those who are semi retired or retiried who are in the 50s and 60s, also hold views on liturgy and often on church teachings that are in severe conflict with tradition. Also if this is allowed in the present day, it would further extend the life of the modernist heresy, it would give the dwindleing numbers of progressives a dramatic boost.

Maybe in 30 years time, after the liturgy is retored using the real objectives of Vatican II, after the modernist heresy and the "sprit of Vatican II" fade away, after the dissent retires and passes away, this issue can be taken up, but now it would be a disaster.

I have no problem with married priests in the Eastern rites. But they have a culture that already knows how to do it. Sink is resentful of the Anglican priests who have been ordained as RC priests. But, again, they have a history. Sice 1965 we have had far too much experimentation and, I must say. failures to admit failure. The message of the early reformers was "WE DON'T NEED so many PRIESTS. The result ws that the seminaries emptied and so did many rectories. Why accept the sacrifices of the traditional priesthood if ordinary professions offer the same opportunities for service?

I remember a visit I had in 1965 with a young priest was was serving two parishes in a Texas country district. He ws full of strange talk, such as whether the priests authority came from the bishop or from the people. He also said something that also bothered me. I was single and teaching school. "he said, "Well, that is your whole life." I stared at him and said, "Well, father, I hope not." I never darkened his door again. Luther was written across his forehead. although I did not think that at the time. Just that what he was saying was false.

We hsve been fed with so much baloney by priests whose education was shallow and which wholly inadequate to enable them to honor the Holy Tradition. Many of these men have become theologians and bishops and have never in their whole lives bothered to revisit the past and ask if the master plan for remaking the Church might not have been flawed and their youthful impulses misdirected? I fear that like Gary Wills, the only thing they regret is that their will has been frustrated.

Didn't he say he was willing to subject his personal opinions about married priests to the Magisterium and hasn't the Pope said the matter is closed and that celibacy is a great gift to the Latin Rite?

The correct response to the sins/crimes associated with the Vice of Lust is a return to the old school ways of priests centering their lives on Christ and embracing the Virtue of Temperance.

I think that a married priesthood can be of great help to the Latin rite, but only after the liturgical and theologoical nonsense the church has been experiencing for the last 35 years is done away with, and married priests status is clear, that they should not be pastors, and their functions would by mostly liturgical in nature. But again as I said, introducing a married priesthood right now would be a disaster because the men thatw ould be in first in line also by in large hold views that push modrenism.

Other problems by the introduction of a married priesthood that have to be ironed out before this is introduced is it may further devastate the vocations of celibate men, also dramatically shrink the pool of men that can be elevated to the level of Bishop. Again I can not say this enough, untill any steps towrds a marriued priesthood are taken, the mess the church is now has has to had long since been dealt with.

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