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“Deus lo volt!”
-Crusader motto-
Many argue if Catholic priests married, the vocation crisis would be solved and problems, some associate with clerical celibacy, would reach closure. Priests must have an extraordinarily high degree of moral discipline and personal freedom to minister properly. A Franciscan priest friend from my former South Chicago parish told me of his priest friend and member of the Old Catholic Church. This branch of Catholic-Christianity severed connections with Rome shortly after Vatican Council One (1868-1870) over doctrinal issues. Like the Roman Church the Old Catholic and Polish National Churches have valid Orders and observe similar rites like the parent denomination. Their priests may be male or female and are free to marry. The good father told my Franciscan friend of his dilemma. In addition to his daily Mass he has weddings, funerals, a hospital chaplaincy, devotions, a wife, four kids, parish baptisms and other sacerdotal functions to keep his parish functioning. To complicate matters his parish is poor. He held an outside job to help with family and parish finances. He praised the Catholic Church for clerical celibacy a positive practice that should be maintained.
Months later while attending a Christian writer’s seminar at Loyola University I struck up a conversation with a young Episcopal priest. He told me he couldn’t picture himself a Catholic priest citing he couldn’t imagine living without his loving wife and their two children.
Clerical celibacy has a long and varied history. Since the earliest days of the Christian Church there were always mixed opinions regarding it. Reader, you probably know during Christianity’s first thousand years presbyters, bishops and popes married. Celibacy applied only to monastic orders. All of the Apostles were married men except St. John the Evangelist. During those early times there were growing sentiments urging Christian clerics to imitate St. Paul’s dictum of remaining virginal for the sake of the Kingdom; folks back then expected the Parousia any time.
Jesus in Matthew 19:12 appear to be leaving the matter up to the individual. Celibacy was codified into canon law for Western Christianity after a millennium long doctrinal tug-of-war among clerics and theologians of all ranks. Arguments pro or con on the celibacy issue are a legion. Go on line and type ‘The history of clerical celibacy.’ You’ll have hundreds of sites to sift through. I personally recommend ‘Catholic Encyclopedia,’ Bread from Heaven’s ‘History of Clerical Celibacy,’ and for a more nitty-gritty no-holds-barred version Glenn Weiser’s ‘A brief history of celibacy in the RC Church.’
Proponents for an unmarried Western Catholic clergy cite the difficulties of married non-Catholic ministers encumbered with families in mission fields. While this argument has validity one only has to look at the record numbers of converts to Mormonism, Islam and evangelical denominations all of whom have married ministers. Many argue that Roman Catholicism could have been spared the ravishes of the global clergy pedophilia scandal if priests were free to marry. Statistics prove that’s not entirely true; clerics of all religions have their share of child/adult sex abusers along with teachers, military personnel, police officers, medical professionals, office supervisors and people in authority from all ranks of global society.
Celibate priests are freer to teach/preach to guide parishioners to heaven. Non-Catholic clerics are oftentimes at the whims of self-centered or misguided church officers (deacon boards, trustees, etc.). I’ve read of dedicated Protestant pastors being removed from parishes for espousing unpopular stances/opinions contrary to parish officers. If a Catholic priest is given the boot he’ll be easily transferred to another parish/ministry. The downside to this practice is pedophile priests transferred to other parishes infect those faith communities. If non-Catholic pastors are sacked their families suffer grievously. Case in point: In the waning years of the Civil Rights struggle there was a Protestant pastor who lost his church. He was transferred because of his pro integrationist stance. His firing impacted his wife and school age children who had to uproot their lives from their close knit prosperous Texas community to an impoverished one in another city. Many opine if Catholic priests were married this would cap the aforementioned vocation crisis. Not true; if so, why are there so few Catholic deacons and lay ministers all of whom are free to marry?
Intangibles are highly prized in technological societies. ‘Stuff’ is power. In morally challenged societies the real measure of a man/woman is how big is her bank accounts/stock portfolios. In ideal situations the option for clerics to marry is left to the individual. Parish communities would be small leaving clerics plenty of time and personnel to give personal ‘service’ to co-church members. The people of God are adversely affected by clergy shortages. My wife and I visited a sick friend in Glenview, Illinois. This lady suffered a severe stroke that left her paralyzed on one side. A priest was called to anoint her. The padre arrived quickly enough only to greet, anoint her with holy oil and bless her within a record of four or five minutes max. He left as quickly as he came and administered the rite as though he was racing. If I remember correctly he never
gave the dying woman a sideways glance.
At a popular upscale South Side church whose controversial pastor made media headlines a few years ago paid my mother a hospital sick call. Mom fell and injured herself on a patch of ice in front of his church. This busy pastor spent considerable time conversing and praying with her before leaving to attend other sick parishioners who needed him. If church communities had a clergy surplus they could better live the Apostolic ideal by getting their hands ‘dirty’ like the rest of us working a job at least part-time with the parish bringing up the financial rear. Worker priests would be the norm, not the exception, and paid accordingly:
“Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain…the worker deserves his/her wages.” (1 Tim. 5:18 NIV)
“For you remember, brothers/sisters, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thess. 2:9 ESV)…for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s break without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.” (2 Thess. 3:7-8 ESV)
Does God require men/women to shun marriage and family living and sacrifice their sexual selves for greater good, such as religious order priests/sisters/brothers who take permanent vows of celibacy? Serving God is rough enough; why make the highway to heaven harder than necessary? Satan has the “golden road” planted with IED’S. Catholic-Christianity need not overburden its soldiers with extra ‘baggage.’ Your writer think clerical celibacy should be left up to the individual provided their families don’t become burdens to their faith communities. Priest families shouldn’t be allowed to run their parishes like the family business, a primary reason for mandatory clerical celibacy.
Next edition our Lenten series continues with ‘Opportunity not Alms’ a primer for alleviating the dreaded ‘P’ word (Poverty); peace and all things good.