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Priestly Celibacy – Priests are Men Not Angels

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Father Joe

People fail to appreciate that they are their bodies. A body without a soul is a corpse. A soul without a body is a ghost. The whole person is a spiritual-corporeal composite. There is a profound unity that Catholic morality and sacramentality respects but which many dissenters have rejected. If the body is not really “you” then it no longer matters what is done with the body. Pleasure is pursued, fertility is destroyed and the sacrament of marriage becomes mute. Marriage only makes sense if we see ourselves as animated bodies, one male and the other female. Once this distinction is dismissed, the immorality of our age comes rushing in.

Genuine celibacy appreciates our bodily nature. We are not angels. Even resurrected men and women will be restored body and soul. The celibate is in tune with his own flesh, and by God’s grace, seeks to master his passions. He does so not because he hates the body but because he wants to offer himself entirely to the Lord. God in Jesus Christ took to himself a human body. Christ is still God and man. It is a permanent expression of his identity. The incarnation makes possible the divinization of humanity. Indeed, the body (particularly upon a cross), is immediately reflective of the Lord and his saving mystery. Jesus gives a human face to God. He is the revelation of the Father. The celibate priest, standing alone before his people, is a powerful symbol of this mystery. Like Christ, he surrenders his body in fidelity to his mission and to the needs of God’s people.

The prospect of virginity and/or celibacy seriously upsets some people. They may be resentful because they forfeited their own purity and cannot go back or because they know full well that they were the instruments that despoiled others of their gift of innocence. Many cannot stand evidence of these chaste callings because they know all too well their own weaknesses, the out-of-control rapture of lust and the bondage of sexual addiction. They resent that there might be a few who could tame the beast when they could not or gave up trying.

Church authorities need to reprimand but can be excessively severe with men who violate their promises and succumb to temptation. Of course, we should remember the old saying, “it takes two to tango.” Everyone is aware of salacious reports chronicling how priests were pursued by the “cassock chasers,” women viewing celibate men of the cloth as singular challenges and as forbidden prizes. Priests are human. A man might turn to cold showers, fervent prayer, distance to certain females and support from brother priests; and yet, he remains a man struggling with sin and weakness. He might stumble in his discipleship. If so, the Church needs to respond appropriately to his contrition and remorse. When a priest is forced out of ministry, it is the end of his world. The priesthood is not his job; it is who he is. The dismissal and laicization of a priest strikes me as a form of capital punishment, a sentence of death. He can go on and maybe start over, but there is an important part of his identity that we have buried. When priests learn of a brother in their ranks who has fallen for female charms, we often hear remarked, “There but for the grace of God go I.” When priests concelebrate the funeral for a brother in holy orders, we breathe a sigh of relief for one who ran the course and did not stumble terribly and get lost along the way. I have often thought that the powers-that-be are far more harsh with a fallen priest than with the ordinary laymen who regularly visit the Confessional. The latter might commit the most egregious moral trespasses and get off with a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers; but the former in priest’s collar is frequently disowned and ruined. Sexual attraction can be almost overwhelming and those good men who fall, not the reprobates who hide their sinful lifestyles, are often immediately consumed by guilt and regret. The priest preaches a higher standard that much of the world rejects; however, if the priest should stumble, then he is ridiculed as a hypocrite and stripped of his vocation, even if he still wants to be a good and holy priest. Fallen nature seems to have a mind of its own. Some embrace a life of sin and are excused by our society; others fight sin and the devil knowing all the time that if they should lower their shield even for a moment, the enemy might get the upper hand. The celibate priest is a crucial sentinel. Armed with the authority to absolve sin and to confect the Eucharist, he does battle. A few married priests are in the ranks but the celibate men are at the front of the assault. It may be that some of them will play the part of Uriah the Hittite.* Their celibacy is an extreme that shows that we need not be mastered by the world, the flesh and the devil. They might be wronged, even by just authority; but they remain loyal. They fight where the confrontation is most fierce. It is likely that a few will pay a frightful price. The more that one has been given, the more one will be held accountable. The priest knows the truth and cannot feign ignorance. Many people fall but only as if from a few feet off the ground. When a priest falls, it is as from the roof of a skyscraper. The fall will likely kill him.

*(David sought to disguise his sin with Bathsheba by sending her husband to her chambers; but Uriah took his rest with the other fighting men. Angered by this, David ordered that Uriah should be placed at the front of battle and abandoned. This effectively murdered the loyal soldier.)

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Priestly Celibacy – Love Not Hatred of Our Humanity

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Father Joe

Marriage and celibacy as symbols both reveal and conceal. When properly realized they reflect unity in God, divine creativity, and foreshadow the kingdom. When disfigured by sin and weakness, they place the very mysteries they are suppose to reflect into doubt and become a kind of anti-symbol: manifesting chaos or confusion, human and natural destruction and earthbound hopelessness.

No Christian symbol should utterly eclipse or disguise another. The married couple need not look down upon celibacy as unnatural or impoverished. The celibate should not see himself as radically disconnected or specially enlightened to married couples with their sexual lives and families. He is human and celibacy is a natural human lifestyle. Just as the “everything goes” hedonist violates the boundaries of decency; the prudish might develop a disgust for the physical and sexual. The way certain rigorists speak about their celibacy, it sounds a little bit like science fiction. It is as if they imagine themselves as inhuman aliens stranded on a planet with pathetic creatures more preoccupied with sensual and erotic pleasure than rational thought and spiritual pursuits. A literary reference for this might be Dr. Henry Higgins in the play Pygmalion. He coldly uses people and postures being a superior human, above most men and all women, along with their pointless pursuits at romance. Such an attitude might lead to a harsh bachelor’s life but would not be conducive to true Christian celibacy. No one should hate his humanity. This is particularly true for the celibate priest given that he participates in the one priesthood of Christ Incarnate. He signifies God-made-man. He gives a Eucharist that is the body and blood of a divine person, but offered to us in the Lord’s risen humanity. Disgust toward our human nature is hatred of Christ.

Celibacy has significant meaning largely due to the fact that marriage and sexual love are deemed to have tremendous value. Take away this value and the cost of sacrifice goes along with it. The modern hedonist may not be all that far from his opposite, the restrained woman-hater. How is this? While there is a contemporary preoccupation with the flesh, there is a disconnect with the human psyche. We see this quite clearly in the contraceptive mentality. The essential “you” is reduced to something invisible that is pushing the buttons and yanking the gears to the robotic body that gives pleasure but is regarded as somehow extraneous to the person. Life becomes like the playing of a full-time video game. We become voyeurs even over ourselves. This separatist thinking has become contagious; the escape to fantasy and sex without consequences are the fruits.

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Priestly Celibacy – Celibacy in the Holy Family

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Father Joe

If we are to properly appreciate priestly celibacy then we must first correctly understand the extensive meaning of marriage. This may sound like a “no brainer” and yet what many think they understand, they really do not. Sex outside of marriage essentially says that the matrimonial institution is expendable. It is not. Legislation permitting so-called same-sex marriage gives the impression that we have charge to redefine marriage and that its meaning is infinitely expandable. It is not. Marriage is often defined by conservative voices as the necessary institution to insure propagation, secure family life, and to safeguard civilization from the anarchy of the beast. It is more. God leaves his fingerprints upon creation. While there may be no Platonic world soul, we find emanations of the cosmic in the particular or small. Every good father reflects something of the Fatherhood of God. Mothers find their paradigm in Mary and in Mother Church. The creative focus of motherhood even touches the image of the Jesu-Pelican caring for her chicks with flecks of its own flesh and blood. We are also reminded of the Holy Spirit as personified Love. This Spirit hovered over the waters of creation, made possible the miracles and resurrection of Christ, preserves the Church in the truth, and gives efficacy to the sacraments. The triune nature of the family: father, mother and child is a figure for the divine Trinity. The love of husband and wife signifies the relationship of Christ, the divine bridegroom, to his bride, the Church. Husband and wife are figures for the dynamism and tension we find in nature. But the two become one flesh, the creative poles of the universe are joined. As Christians we do not subscribe to an Oriental or pagan dualism. The apparent ying-yang in vogue within Eastern philosophies has no quarter in the concept of the Judeo-Christian deity.

God is good. Evil is a privation and it has no place in God. God always takes the initiative and has infinite power or jurisdiction. The devil is a creature and by definition not creative. Evil cannot be creative, only corruptive. The initiative of God is most evident first in creation itself and then in the new creation made possible by Christ. God comes into the world and joins himself to his creation in a holy virgin. The Creator and creation are made one. The course of salvation history changes. While a child is usually conceived though sexual congress; in this case the Holy Spirit conceives the Christ in an immaculate virgin. Indeed, Mary becomes the most famous virgin in the history of the world. This creative act gives a special consecration to virginity and celibate love, realized in Mary, then in good St. Joseph and finally in the ultimate model of Jesus Christ.

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Priestly Celibacy – Weeping as He Prays

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Father Joe

The Mass or Service for Marriage speaks of matrimony as the one blessing or gift given to mankind that was not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood. Those with noble and loving spouses regularly testify to their great joy. Just as this vocation has a great capacity for happiness and contentment; if something goes wrong, it conversely has the potential for devastating sadness and pain. One might argue, in this sense, that the sacrament of matrimony is more precarious than celibacy and entails sacrifices that it avoids. Indeed, it might seem that marriage can be more difficult than the life of a celibate priest. As one opens himself (or herself) to intimacy with another, the capacity for joy and sorrow increases. You cannot know true pain until you begin to love. If you want to avoid the worst sufferings, then the answer is to stop loving and caring. Of course, it would also mean that one would have to turn his back on living.

Any good mother will tell you that her child’s sufferings are her own. She is always afraid for her children. Spouses are called to a total offering of self for the beloved. But what happens when one gives and the other only takes? How can we really measure the pain that comes with coldness from a spouse, or worse yet, betrayal or infidelity? It takes two to make a marriage work. But the celibate priest has only himself. If he fails to keep his promises or stops loving as he should, he has no one to blame but himself. Of course, his vocation is informed by his celibacy as a particular way of loving. Celibacy is not a refusal to love but a way of loving unique to itself.

Every day the priest’s love must spill over like a waterfall in his loving service and prayer for others. Good priests try desperately to be holy so that they might be faithful to their charges and effective instruments for the perpetuation of Christ’s saving work. But, just as love brings both joy and sorrow to marriages; so too does it in his spiritual marriage to the Church and the family of faith. The priest laments his sins before the God he is supposed to love and to honor before all else. The priest weeps as he prays for his people, knowing both their sinfulness and indifference. The laity can be very cavalier about Mass attendance and the faith formation of their children. These attitudes wound the priest because he loves them. He wants them happy and holy. He wants them in right relationship with God. He gave up wife and family for them; and yet, sometimes it seems that they could not care less. Indeed, when asked about it by the media, they criticize the discipline and assert that the Church might be better off with married priests. Instead, their response should have been thankfulness that men loved the Lord and them so much, that they were willing to make real and perpetual sacrifices in love on their behalf.

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Priestly Celibacy – Consecrated Virginity

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Father Joe

Restored in 1970 and attributed to Pope Leo the Great, our esteem for priestly celibacy can be amplified by a parallel ritual and promise made by women who are consecrated as perpetual virgins. We read:

“You have poured out your grace upon all peoples. You have adopted as heirs of the new covenant sons and daughters from every nation under heaven, countless as the stars. Your children are born, not of human birth, nor of man’s desire, but of your Spirit. Among your many gifts you give to some the grace of virginity. Yet the honor of marriage is in no way lessened. As it was in the beginning, your first blessing still remains upon this holy union. Yet your loving wisdom chooses those who make sacrifice of marriage for the sake of the love of which it is a sign. They renounce the joys of human marriage, but cherish all that it foreshadows. Those who choose chastity have looked upon the face of Christ, its origin and inspiration. They give themselves wholly to Christ, the son of the ever-virgin Mary, and the heavenly Bridegroom of those who in his honor dedicate themselves to lasting virginity.”

Pledged to say the Liturgy of the Hours and to regularly participate at Mass, these wonderful women must make their own way in the world while vowing themselves as brides of Christ. Suppressed for a time, it is fitting that this vocation should be restored in a day and age when most do not prize virginity. Much that is said about it could also be said of priestly celibacy, although the priest is signified on the male or groom side of the analogy. Those who fault priestly celibacy would even more ruthlessly attack consecrated virgins. However, this opposition is more the reason why both celibacy and virginity must be preserved as constitutive features for callings in the Church.

Note that virginity is accented as a great honor or benefit. It makes possible an elevation of dignity. If celibacy were a miserable sacrifice, one would hardly know it from the joyous ritual. The young woman is dressed in a wedding gown. She will be presented with a ring and a veil. I recall recently seeing photographs of a beautiful young woman being consecrated to perpetual virginity. Her friends and family were excited and happy for her. Others objected to the ceremony and what it would entail. Controversy was bred because many really no longer believe. They thought she was wasting her life. She would never marry and from that day forward would never date or pursue a romantic interest. All her talk about a spiritual spouse in Christ angered the critics. Did she hate men? What was wrong with her maternal instinct? Jesus was no where to be seen, if he even still existed, how could he be a husband to her? Their practical atheism was full in force: invisible equals absent. Hers was a relationship with the Lord that had blossomed; theirs, if they ever believed, had been aborted or feigned altogether. Those who did not understand were said to pity her and women like her. The same negative sentiment is held out for priests who are faithful to their celibacy. But the happy priest views it as a treasure, a great prize, yes, even as an exultation. The traditional warning for the celibate was to guard against pride.

It cannot be denied that there were abuses in the traditional negativity toward marriage. While it is a great mystery that signifies the unity of Christ with his Church and an awesome participation in the creative work of God; the mechanics of the marital act externally resemble the sexual congress of animals. The Church counsels that passion and not lust should accompany the act, but this admonition falls largely on deaf ears. Human bodies are objectified and made interchangeable. Viagra facilitates erections and contraception insures infertility. Sex is separated from marriage, first in fornication and cohabitation, and second in adultery. Pornography makes possible a voyeurism over interaction; indeed, it establishes a virtual adultery. Critics fail to understand virginity and priestly celibacy just as they generally confuse the meaning of sexual love in marriage.

A Christian culture and society has collapsed all around us into a neo-pagan one. Values have not merely shifted but in some cases, reversed. Virginity was once regarded as such a premium that theologians had to make concerted efforts to protect and support matrimony. But today it is virginity that is spurned while marriage, or at least sexual congress, is paraded as essential and in unqualified demand.

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Priestly Celibacy – Based Upon Christ

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Father Joe

Discussions about priestly celibacy usually cite the universal catechism or Pope John Paul II or canon law or an elevated asceticism. Indeed, there are theologians who quote ecclesial laws as if they were Sacred Scripture. Do not get me wrong, our laws are important, but only in so far as they keep good order in the Church and safeguard essential truths. We do not follow the law for the law’s sake. The conditions for holiness are not limited to those who most renounce the world or who engage in the most rigorist of mortifications, penances and sacrifices. Marriage does not close the door to holiness and celibacy does not guarantee it as a merited prize. Ultimately, everything for the Christian comes back to Christ and everything is gift. Ours is not a religion of a book or of laws or a philosophy of life and meaning. No, the Catholic Christian faith, as complex as it may seem, still comes down to a personal and corporate faith in Jesus Christ. We follow a person, the eternal Word, the incarnate Christ, God made man. Jesus is Lord and Savior and Messiah. His is the saving name. There is no other way to the Father except through him. He is the one high priest. He is the pontifex or bridge from the mortal world of sin and death to the promised kingdom of salvation, eternal life and communion with God and the saints. Both the priesthood and celibacy find their measure in Jesus. Ordained men share in his priesthood. They act in his name. Priestly celibacy resonates in harmony with the virginal priesthood of our Lord. The Church deems this as having significant value and so she makes celibacy mandatory and absolute, at least for most of the presbyterate.

Celibacy is rooted in Christ’s life and witness; much of the rest is window dressing. While celibacy gives the priest a wonderful freedom and facilitates his charge as an agent of the Church, this is only a fruit of his sacrifice, not its cause. It is also not motivated by any desire to escape the ordinary cares of the world and the demands of the flesh. These side-effects may be overly emphasized, but he is not so much running away from the world as he is racing toward the kingdom. The Reformed Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, speculated that the sin of the fallen angels was that they “tarried” or hesitated to do God’s will. Ultimately, there can be no hesitation, either from angels or from men. We cannot look back. Jesus tells a disciple to let the dead bury the dead. While there is a degree of hyperbole, he says that he who would turn back even to assist family is not worthy of him. There is an urgency to the coming kingdom and the work that must be done. Celibacy, in Christ and in his priests, communicates this divine imperative.

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Priestly Celibacy – Visions of the Church

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Father Joe

It is in light of serious debates over the substance of faith and morals that certain critics wonder why we have purposely sidelined ourselves to apologetics over the accidental of celibacy? They would say that if it be not essential and of original divine mandate, then we are needlessly complicating the dialogue of faith and hampering evangelization. What is more important, the priesthood or celibacy? What is more pressing, making sure that priests sleep alone in their beds or staffing parishes where the flock hungers for the Eucharist? Is the millennium-long tradition of celibacy worth deprivation of hurting people from the healing sacraments and from the absolution of their sins? These critics feel the argument over celibacy is a cuckoo in the nest, a substitute for the real egg that should be there. However, it is my contention that the meaning and value of celibacy comes not just from men but from God. It cannot be honestly dismissed out-of-hand.

Celibacy and marriage are both vocations but also themes that intersect how we bring the saving kerygma to the world around us. Marriage speaks to cooperation and partnership. It is open to dialogue with the world. Celibacy is representative of being a sign of contradiction. We are called to do battle with the world, the devil and the flesh. We struggle as Catholics with both attitudes. Much of this has fueled the tension after the Second Vatican Council. We embrace a certain religious freedom for ourselves, and by practical necessity, for others; and yet, all the while maintaining the proposition that error has no rights. The Catholic Church is the true Church. We pursue a course of ecumenism but always skirting the perilous cliff of religious indifferentism. The kernel or seed remains the same; we embrace dialogue over anaphora for the same purpose, the conversion of souls to Catholic truth. There is give-and-take about accidentals; but there can be no compromise upon substance. Truth is not relative but objective and fixed. We can look at it from different perspectives. Our appreciation can grow deeper but the deposit of faith is passed on only, not reinvented. Marriage and family life is the vocation of dialogue: entailing compromise, diplomatic speech, intimacy, touching, and sometimes confusion and messiness. Celibacy is the vocation of decree: along with obstinacy, command, distance, bulwarks, discipline and order. These themes are not absolute but they are illustrative of the necessary tension that is maintained in the Church. One might argue that the eclipse of celibacy would bode poorly against the dogmatic quality we find vital in Church authority and structure.

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Priestly Celibacy – Short-changing the Church?

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Father Joe

A question that is increasingly coming into vogue with the emergence of Catholic Eastern rites in the West and the accommodation for former Anglicans is this: why should our priests of the Roman rite be deprived of modeling Christian fatherhood and spousal love as do the clergy of Protestant denominations? While there is no denial that a celibate priest can teach and preach on matters of marriage and sexual morality; this perspective merely stresses that we may be depriving ourselves of a wonderful witness for family life from the men who stand at our pulpits and altars. There is no denying that a married minister brings a certain experiential knowledge that has value. Similarly, though, the celibate priest brings a certain distance that may help us to discern issues from a more dispassionate or panoramic view. We can alternately be too far from an issue to offer any applicable solutions or too close to problems to see any available remedies.

The question remains, have we shortchanged ourselves without the recourse of optional celibacy or optional marriage for candidates seeking priestly ordination? Many of us would contend that the way out of this apparent conundrum is to better train and employ our married permanent deacons. They cannot celebrate Mass, hear confessions or anoint the sick; however, they can still witness as married men in sacramental ministry. Eastern rites and former Anglicans aside, just because Protestants have something that we do not is an insufficient rationale for a change. Many non-Catholic faith communities also have women ministers and Pope Francis has reiterated the infallible prohibition of both Benedict XVI and John Paul II that priests must be male. However, we can again cite our current Pope who invites us to be more inviting and enterprising at finding authentic ways for women to serve the Lord and his Church.

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Priestly Celibacy – Qualified to Instruct Couples?

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Father Joe

Marriage preparation can be quite an ordeal for the celibate priest, not because he is ignorant or because he is envious of what these couples possess; but rather due to the lack of faith that is increasingly brought to these forums. Couples are often having sex and living together before marriage. They want a church wedding for aesthetic reasons or because of parental pressure; but they, themselves, neither practice their faith nor give much thought to Catholic truths. The priest comes across as an intrusive busybody who wants to know their business and then tries to tell them how to behave. The response is either anger or ridicule. “Who are you to tell us what to do? Just because you cannot ‘get laid’ is no reason to tell us that we should not have sex! We love each other. If only you loved someone or had someone to love you, then you would know. You’re not even fully a man! Just tell us what is the minimum we have to do to get married. That is all we want from you!” As an effort to avoid such confrontations, either the priest relinquishes his moral authority behind silence or humor, or the couple will purposely deceive the priest and conceal fornication and cohabitation. Such a situation might be similar for a married minister, with the exception that he would not be mocked as an ignoramus for being celibate. Nevertheless, it is into this setting that the celibate priest should still instruct upon the sacrament of marriage, the openness to human life, the value of coming to the marriage bed undefiled, and the theology of the body. Retaliating against criticism, some priests will argue that a celibate priest can speak about such themes just as a doctor can be informed as to how to treat cancer, without having cancer, himself. The problem with this analogy is that marriage is compared to a disease. A better analogy might be with the astronomer. He can tell you all about the moon even though he personally has never walked there. Similarly, before you drove a car, you studied and had to pass a test on the manual which gave you pointers and rules for the road. Sex and marriage are far more complicated than driving. The priest speaks not for himself but from the experience of the Church and her teachings, as in the universal catechism. Important guidance is given as to how couples can live out their marriages, sacramentally and naturally. Love and joy are enhanced by such positive direction, yes, even if it comes from a celibate priest. But he does not stand alone. There are many married Catholic lay men and women who stand with him and give witness to the truth and value of Catholic teachings.

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Priestly Celibacy – The Loss of Credibility

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Father Joe

Given the loss of esteem given celibacy and the higher levels of education available in the West to the laity, the teachings from a priest, monk or nun on the subject of sexuality and marriage have lost a great deal of credibility. This is a fact that we must acknowledge and seek to resolve. In days gone by, the priest was one of the few people in a community who could read and had gone to school. Many of the immigrant families tell me that their grandparents would seek the priest’s advice for about everything, not just on faith and morals. The celibate priest was given incredible moral authority. The enemies of the Church knew well that the only way to undermine Catholic teaching and values was to devalue the clergy. The criminal abuse cases had accomplished what our enemies long desired. The abuse scandals, the defections of priests from ministry, and publicizing their affairs in books, has also done much harm. They might argue that such was only to force a discussion; but the actual effect has been scandal and ridicule against the so-called institutional Church. The defectors, themselves, clamor that no institution can demand perpetual celibacy. Little or nothing is said about personal culpability, promises freely made and then broken, and entanglements with women that were sinful.

The infamous Father Cutie scandal in Florida is a case in point: he has an affair, gets caught, jumps to the Episcopal church without a word to his bishop, marries a divorced woman, writes a book, and is given a forum from the secular news to continue spreading his rebellious discontent. There is almost nothing about what he did that one could judge as commendable. He was a disgrace from beginning to end. Now he belongs to the church of priestesses, contraception, multiple marriages, and gay unions. If he has no ideological issues with that then good riddance…they can keep him. I do not see how any authentically Catholic-minded priest could suffer such nonsense, and bring excommunication upon himself and judgment down on someone he claims to love. But that is me. God will be his judge.

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