Posted on 09/09/2003 7:35:51 PM PDT by Antoninus
Editorial
There are a number of difficult issues to discuss in the call for optional celibacy that 163 priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee issued in mid-August, while their archbishop was away on vacation.
The first is a question of form: Was their missive a letter, or was it a press release? It was written in the form of a letter, but it was sent to reporters first. Let's call it a "media letter."
The media letter raises another issue when it says that celibacy was optional before the 11th century.
That's not exactly true. The first people to question celibacy were the apostles, and the first person to answer them was Christ, who urged the practice on them. Everyone from St. Paul to the Church Fathers called priests to celibacy.
But it is true that the Church formally imposed celibacy on all priests in 1123 at the First Lateran Council - because married priests were involved in so many sex scandals. The Church's answer to the sex scandals of today should be the same: to emphasize celibacy more, not less.
A New York Times study suggested that the highest number of sex offenders came out of an era in the 1960s and 1970s where seminaries grew lax in the way they screened seminarians and in the way they taught about celibacy. To this day, some seminaries use professors who sneer at celibacy or make light of it, or dubiously qualified "experts."
We shouldn't be surprised when the priests that come from those cultures aren't properly committed to their vows. Don't blame celibacy, blame the seminaries that stopped teaching celibacy.
And do we really think that, in today's culture, celibacy would mean fewer scandals? Imagine priests who divorce or who cheat on their wives being added to the list of scandals.
But the media letter's main argument for optional celibacy is that it will solve the vocations shortage.
We doubt it. A married priesthood hasn't prevented the vocations shortage that Episcopalians and Orthodox Christians are suffering.
And it seems that the seminaries that are most likely to get vocations in America are those that are most committed to the Church's disciplines and teachings: Mount St. Mary's in Emmitsburg, Md.; the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio; and Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Ore.
Other dioceses that are doing well with priestly vocations include Atlanta; Denver; Peoria, Ill.; Kansas City, Kan.; Fall River, Mass.; Arlington, Va.; Newark, N.J.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Charlotte, N.C.; Lansing, Mich.; Lincoln, Neb. and Rockford, Ill.
Is the Church naive to insist on priestly celibacy? We would suggest that it's naive to idealize what a married priesthood would look like.
Father James Parker of Charleston, S.C., was a married Protestant minister who was allowed to become a married Catholic priest after his conversion. He told us a few years ago, "People who think celibacy is difficult and should not be a requirement for priests don't understand the sacrament of marriage or the nature of the priesthood."
Another married priest, Father Richard Bradford of Brighton, Mass., told the Register, "My wife, Judie, defends celibacy because she sees firsthand the responsibilities I have to my Church."
Married Melkite priest Father Miguel Grave de Peralta told the Register that "those favoring a married Catholic clergy assume marriage doesn't have stress and tensions. I see a lot of parallels between the married life and the celibate life. The intensity of devotion required for both is tremendous."
His wife, Ana, told us, "Very few people understand or know how big a sacrifice it is for the priest and his family. It's an offering the wife makes, often placing herself in second, or even third place. The pastoral obligations must always come first."
Every possible indicator says that celibacy is a good thing for the priesthood.
Vocations flourish where it is emphasized. Church teaching says that a priest's celibacy mirrors Christ's exclusive love for the Church. Scripture records Christ and St. Paul admonishing ministers to be celibate. Church history shows how celibacy is the best answer to scandals of divorce, polygamy and other sexual sins of the clergy. And modern practice shows that married priests impose considerable difficulties on themselves, their wives and their ministries.
It's time to stop apologizing for celibacy, and start promoting it more vigorously than ever.
I use my grandmother's 1962 missal when I go to the indult Tridentine. I like the Mass in vernacular but we sure do lose that "communion of the saints" and the "all that went before" unity.
Going to a Mass in a foreign country (where English is not the spoken language) is not as easy as it used to be. You know what part of the Mass it is but it is the music that throws me. At least if it were chant (hard to find) or some of the traditional Latin hymns you could join in that. I recently went to a French Mass (Quebec) and didn't mind even the homily being in French and not understanding it but I did wish the music wasn't in French.
My daughter is taking 1st year Latin and so far is really enjoying it. She asked if we could go to the Indult as soon as she learns the "Our Father" and the "Hail Mary" (she can do the sign of the Cross) in Latin... she said she thought she might now get a lot more out of it since the language no longer seems so foreign to her. :-)
On a more practical and mercenary level, it will raise her SAT verbal scores substantially! :-D
Another married priest, Father Richard Bradford of Brighton, Mass., told the Register, "My wife, Judie, defends celibacy because she sees firsthand the responsibilities I have to my Church."
Dog, meet manger. Manger, meet dog.
Incorrect. Celibacy and the Catholic priesthood finds its origins with the Apostles. Celibacy and the Levitical priesthood finds its origins with Melchisedech in the Old Testament. The "financial considerations" claim is an urban legend. Suggest you study Canons XXVII and XXXIII of the Council of Elvira and Canon III of the Council of Carthage, which says in part:
"It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep... It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity." (emphasis added)
The Orthodox Church has always allowed priests to marry. We haven't seen any sex scandals in the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Church does indeed ordain married men but once ordained single priests may not then get married. Suggest you read about these sexual abuse cases in the Orthodox Church:
The argument that allowing for a married clergy would solve the sins of sexual abuse is a specious one at best and is soundly refuted by the many examples of Protestant sex abusers.
Enforcement of the Vatican's 1961 ban on ordaining homosexuals would render the problem of sexual abuse of minors virtually nonexistant.
by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo
Scriptural interpretation all depends on the version one reads
In a previous article on the apostolic origins of celibacy, I wrote:
Among the Apostles, only Saint Peter is known to have been married because his mother-in-law is mentioned in the Gospels. Some of the others might have been married but there is a clear indication that they left everything, including their families, to follow Christ.1
A reader disagreed, saying that all I needed to do was to check a passage of Saint Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (9:5) to find that all the Apostles were married, Saint Paul inclusive. For the sake of truth, I was requested to correct the article. It so happens that the truth demands that I reaffirm what I wrote.
According to the translation sent by the reader, Saint Paul wrote: “Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?”
Divergent Translations
There can be no doubt that Saint. Paul was celibate This translation, taken from the Protestant New International Version of the Bible, appears to leave no doubt that “the other apostles,” including “Cephas” (i.e., Saint Peter), were married. The King James version provides a somewhat different translation: “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
The classical Catholic translation of the Bible into English, commonly referred to as the Douay-Rheims version, gives us a text that excludes the interpretation that all the Apostles, Saint Paul inclusive, were married: “Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister, as well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
An objection could be raised that the Douay-Rheims version does not translate the text directly from the Greek but from a Latin version known as the Vulgate. This Latin text reads mulierem sororem or “a woman sister.” A return to the original Greek should dispel any discrepancies in this regard.
The Real Meaning of Adelphên Gunaika
What are the Greek words which have been translated as “believing wife,” “a sister, a wife,” or “a woman, a sister”? The key words (transliterated into Latin characters) are: adelphên gunaika.
Gunaika (the accusative or objective form of gunê) can mean both “a woman” and “a wife.” This happens, incidentally, in Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Portuguese, in which femme, mujer, and mulher, respectively, can have both meanings.
To avoid any ambiguity as to the meaning, Saint Paul qualified the word gunaika with the word adelphên (the objective form of adelphê), which means “a sister,” thus making a composite expression translating literally into “a sister woman.”
To understand the meaning of the expression “sister woman,” some historical background is needed. Among the Jews, it was the custom for pious ladies to follow their spiritual masters to aid them in their domestic needs. The Gospels record the fact that pious women followed the Divine Master and served Him. In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, one reads:
And there were there many women afar off, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him; among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee (27:55-56).2
Likewise, Saint Luke writes:
And it came to pass afterwards, that He traveled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with Him. And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who is called Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, and Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto Him of their substance (8:1-3).
The Greek word employed by both Saint Matthew and Saint Luke referring to these pious women who followed and served Our Lord is the same word used by Saint Paul: gunaikes.3 None of the exegetes thought of translating the expression as “wives.”
The Apostle of the Gentiles
Returning to Saint Paul, the context of the Epistle to the Corinthians does not warrant any conclusion that the Apostle was claiming some right to take a wife with him since a little earlier (7:7-8), he had made clear that he was not married and had no intention to marry. He preferred perfect chastity to the married state which he, nonetheless, held in high esteem. In that passage, addressing both the single and widowed, he writes:
For I would that all men were even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried, and to the widows: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I.
In his Theology of Saint Paul, Fr. Fernand Prat, S.J., states:
If there is one thing certain, it is that the Apostle lived in celibacy, for the discordant voice of Clement of Alexandria only accentuates the harmony of Catholic tradition in this respect. That he considered virginity as more excellent than marriage it is impossible to doubt, and the efforts of some heterodox writers to escape this annoying testimony have ended in putting it in the clearest light.4
In a more recent study analyzing the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers, Fr. Christian Cochini, S.J., also affirms that most of these attest to Saint Paul’s state of celibacy concluding, “The largest group rejects the idea of marriage for the apostle and affirms that Paul was single before believing in Christ and remained so.”5
He further extends this belief when writing about Saint John:
Jesus’ special love for the apostle John is frequently attested in the Gospels and other texts of the New Testament. Tradition was unanimous in crediting this preference on the part of the Lord to his beloved apostle’s state of perpetual virginity.6
Translating a Protestant Agenda
Protestant reformers began to question the validity of the Latin Vulgate about this text of Saint Paul because they opposed priestly celibacy. Theodore de Beze (1519-1605), a Calvinist leader, was one of the first to replace the translation of adelphên gunaika with “sister wife.” This translation was refuted by, among others, the scholarly Catholic Scripture commentator Cornelius á Lapide (1567-1637) from the standpoint of philosophy as well as from a scriptural and patristic context.7
One is therefore perplexed to see such mistranslations reappear – even in versions approved by Catholic sources. This can be seen in the translation of the passage of Saint Paul in the New American Bible, which is sponsored by the Bishop’s Committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In its 1970 edition, we read: “Do we not have the right to marry a believing woman like the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?”
This translation is totally contrary to Catholic exegetic tradition and appears to have been tailored to favor campaigns for the abolition of priestly celibacy carried out by associations of married ex-priests.
The 1991 edition of the same Bible on the web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops avoids the verb “to marry,” but the sense of the Protestant mistranslation favoring an end to priestly celibacy remains: “Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Kephas?”
As I wrote in the previous article, even if several Apostles had been previously married – and the only inkling found in the Scriptures relates to Saint Peter – it is certain that all of them, including the Prince of the Apostles, lived in perfect chastity after the divine calling.
Thus, in the Gospels, one reads that Saint Peter asked Our Lord:
What about us? We left all we had to follow you. The Divine Master answered: “I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents, or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life (Luke 18:28-30; cf. Matt. 19:27-30, Mark 10:20-21).
A Firm Apostolic Tradition
Rather than repeat all the arguments of the previous article, I will conclude with the words with which Father Cochini closed his accurate study of more than 400 pages, solidly establishing the Apostolic tradition on this matter:
Let us conclude that the obligation demanded from married deacons, priests, and bishops to observe perfect continence with their wives is not, in the Church, the fruit of a belated development, but on the contrary, in the full meaning of the term, an unwritten tradition of apostolic origin that, so far as we know, found its first canonical expression in the 4th century.
“Ut quod apostoli docuerunt, et ipsa servavit antiquitas, nos quoque custodiamus” - “What the apostles taught, and what antiquity itself observed, let us endeavor also to keep.” The affirmation of the Fathers of [the Council of] Carthage [390] will remain an essential link with the origins.
May it help the Churches of the East and of the West, who are both referring to it, achieve a stronger awareness of their common inheritance.8
Notes:
1. Tracing the Glorious Origins of Celibacy is available by clicking here.
2. All subsequent passages are qouted from the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible. The emphasis throughout is our own.
3. Cf. www.awmach.org/library/parallel.htm
4. Westminster, Md.: The Newmann Bookshop, 1952, Vol. I, p. 107.
5. Christian Cochini, S.J., Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), p. 77.
6. Ibid., p. 68.
7. Cornelius á Lapide, Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram (Paris: Vives, 1863), Vol. 18, pp. 328-329.
8. Cochini, p. 439.
What triggered my acute interest in the subject was the "cavalier" throwaway statement that so many catholics and nonCatholics use during conversations on the issue. You know,the "the apostles were married,Peter had a wife" stuff. One day I had just had it and said "prove it" from the Gospels. It couldn't be proved at all.
Then came the onslaught of the passage from Corinthians about carrying a "wife". I did learn early on that the word translated as "wife" in Corinthians was the very same word that Jesus used when talking to His mother at Cana. However,in the Cana passage it was translated as "woman",so it seemed and has seemed ever since,to be a very shaky foundation on which to build a case for "marriage" for Apostles,their Successors and those they ordain to act in their stead.
Your posted article explains and expands on that quite nicely and confirms my initial insight. And,it doesn't even use my Cana example,which I think is really pretty telling.
I was trying to explain this to Tantumergo on another thread running yesterday.
If I weren't legally blind and slothful,I would be formidable.(wink)
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