Even before the advent of clergy sex scandals, the issue of celibacy intrigued non-Catholics. Some claim it contradicts nature and goes against biblical teachings on marriage and the ministry, such as “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) and “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife?” (1 Corinthians 9:5). Although the number of Catholics in the world continues to increase (there are more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide), the number of priests to minister to all of them has decreased. Because of this vocations crisis (not enough shepherds to take care of the sheep), many people are questioning celibacy and the restriction of ordination to males only. Married clergy and women priests, some contend, would alleviate the shortage of personnel and bring a fresh perspective to the vocation. Protestant Christians have had both for decades now and wonder when Catholics will catch up. Legitimate questions and valid points to be sure, but Catholicism has some good answers and replies, as we point out in this section.
To address these issues, we must differentiate celibacy from the male priesthood. They’re two separate and distinct issues and entities, even though they overlap in practice. Celibacy is a discipline of the Church that isn’t absolute; exceptions and modifications have been made through the centuries. But the male priesthood is a part of doctrine and divine law that can never be changed or altered by any pope or council.
Flying solo for life
Celibacy is the formal and solemn oath never to enter the married state. Celibate men and women willingly relinquish their natural right to marry in order to devote themselves completely and totally to God and His Church. The Catholic Church doesn’t teach (and never has taught) that all clergy must be celibate. From day one, clergy of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine, have consistently and perennially had the option of marrying. Only in the United States was celibacy imposed on the Byzantine Catholic clergy. (See the sidebar “Only in the United States” for details.)
Celibacy isn’t necessary for valid Orders in the Roman Catholic Church. It’s a discipline of the Church, not a doctrine. The East never made it mandatory. The Western (Latin) Church made it normative in A.d. 306 at the Council of Elvira and mandatory in 1074 by Pope Gregory VII. The Second Lateran Council reaffirmed it in 1139. Although the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches have always had an optional celibacy for clergy, both have a celibate episcopacy, meaning that only celibate priests can become bishops. So although they have a married clergy, the upper hierarchy remains celibate and, to a degree, quasi-monastic. (They live and pray more like monks than like parish priests.)
A rolling stone gathers no moss
Celibacy is legitimate for both the East and the West, even though it’s optional for the former and mandatory for the latter. But why the difference between the two? Well, politics and culture. Even before East split from West in 1054 and formed the Orthodox Church, the Eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire operated differently from the Western part. (See Appendix A in this book for more on the history of Catholicism.)
In the East, a close association existed between the secular and religious spheres, which was dramatically different from the situation in the West. After Rome fell in A.d. 476, no single, powerful, and influential secular ruler arose until Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in A.d. 800.
So from the fifth to the eighth centuries, the most powerful and influential person in the West was the bishop of Rome. As pope and head of the worldwide Catholic Church, he became the icon of stability and power as Western Europe survived the fall of the ancient Roman Empire, the barbarian invasions, and the so-called Dark Ages.
Instability in the secular realm meant that the clergy, especially the bishops, took on more than just spiritual leadership, just as the pope wielded more than pastoral power in Rome and around the world. And the West found that celibacy among the clergy was beneficial and helpful because that meant no divided loyalties.
Kings, princes, barons, earls, dukes, counts, and other nobility married first to make political alliances and second to establish families. Mandatory celibacy prevented the clergy from getting involved in the intrigue of who marries whom. Mandatory celibacy ensured that the priests were preoccupied with Church work and had no ties or interests in local politics among the fighting factions, which were trying to establish the infant nation states.
Priests with families would have been vulnerable to the local nobility, because their extended families would have been under secular dominion. A celibate clergy made for a more independent clergy, free from earthly concerns and corruption, enabling them to serve the people and the hierarchy with full attention and loyalty.
Biblical background for celibacy
As noted earlier in this section, some people think that celibacy goes against biblical teachings on marriage and the ministry. But the Catholic Church actually uses the Bible as part of its reasoning for priestly celibacy.
Jesus Christ never married and was celibate, and the New Testament affirms the value of celibacy:
- 1 Corinthians 7:8: To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do.
- 1 Corinthians 7:27–34, 38: Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided… . So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.
According to Catholicism, to claim that celibacy is nonbiblical is erroneous. Many significant people in the Bible were unmarried, and the preceding passages show that the New Testament and the Early Church didn’t frown on or merely tolerate celibacy. They saw it as a gift — as much a gift as the gift of faith and the gift of a vocation to serve the Church.
Mandatory celibacy for the priesthood is a discipline of the Church, not a doctrine or a dogma. Theoretically, any pope can modify or dissolve mandatory celibacy at any time, but it’s highly improbable because it has been part of the Western Church’s priesthood since the fourth century. Additionally, the Church teaches and affirms that celibacy isn’t just a sacrifice; it’s also a gift.
Is celibacy to blame for the priest shortage?
Because of the declining number of newly ordained Catholic priests, some people think that allowing married clergy would alleviate the shortage of personnel. But statistics show that even Protestant ministers and clergy — who can be married and, in many cases, can be women or men — are decreasing in numbers, too. The Church believes that relaxing or eliminating celibacy isn’t the panacea that would answer the priest shortage in the West.
Socially and culturally, first-world nations, such as the United States, Canada, and most of Western Europe, are having smaller and smaller families. The birthrate has dropped to an all-time low because many couples in these affluent countries are having only one or two children. Big families aren’t the only, or primary, source of priests and nuns, but they do bring possible vocations into the world.
But if a pope were to decide to change, modify, or end mandatory celibacy for the Western Church, the Church would still maintain and follow the same tradition observed by the Eastern Catholic Church concerning married clergy. Among the married clergy in the Eastern Church, marriage must come before ordination; if a cleric is ordained unmarried, he must remain unmarried. Therefore, ending mandatory celibacy would affect only those yet to be ordained. In addition:
- Seminarians would have to decide before ordination whether they wanted to be married. They’d have to find a wife prior to their ordination or remain celibate.
- Anyone aspiring to be ordained a bishop would have to remain celibate.
- Catholic priests who were ordained celibate and then later left the active ministry to get married would not be allowed back into the active ministry as a married priest.
The pros and cons
Celibacy can be difficult for those who don’t come from a large, extended family. An only son may feel anxiety and tension when his elderly parents become sick and need attention, and no other adult children are available to care for them. And a priest who comes from a small family may feel lonely more often during the holidays. He sees married families in his parish sharing the joy of the season with one another, and yet he doesn’t have many aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews to visit.
Another sacrifice is not having a lifelong companion to support, encourage, advise, and, of course, correct you at times. Not having a baby to rock to sleep, a son to watch in his first little league game, and a daughter to walk down the aisle on her wedding day are all sacrifices required by celibacy.
But at the same time, celibacy gives a priest the time and opportunity to love hundreds of people and to give 100 percent of his attention, effort, zeal, and talent, whereas a married man must balance family and work. A celibate priest doesn’t have to make the painful decision of whether to respond to an emergency phone call at 3 a.m. or stay home with a seriously ill wife or child.
Celibacy can be distorted into being only a sacrifice (“I gave up a wife and children”), or it can be seen as the Church intended — as both a sacrifice and a gift. (“I freely gave up a wife and children so that I can love and serve my parishioners as if they’re my children.”)
Catholic priests use the title Father because they’re spiritually considered the father of many children through the sacraments. Catholic Christians are spiritually born in Baptism, fed in the Holy Eucharist, made mature in Confirmation, and healed during Penance and the Anointing of the Sick. The responsibilities of parents parallel those of the priest: Parents give birth to their children, feed them, heal them, and help them grow and mature. So the Church is considered the spiritual mother. Catholics call the Church the Holy Mother Church, and the priest is their spiritual father.
Pope John Paul II’s letter Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Will Give You Shepherds) reminded Catholic priests that although they have no wife and children of their own, they’re not alone. They do have a spouse — the Church. A priest is to treat the people of his parish (and every member of the Church, for that matter) as his beloved bride. The parishioners aren’t to be treated as stockholders, employers, employees, servants, customers, or clients. They’re to be treated as a beloved spouse. The priest marries the Church because the Church is considered the Bride of Christ, and the priest is considered “another Christ” by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. So the priest must love the Church as Christ loves the Church. It’s a spousal relationship and covenant of love.
When put in this context, celibacy is merely the means to making the reality more possible and more dynamic. Married clergy can do a superb and phenomenal job, no matter what their denomination or gender. But celibacy for the Catholic priesthood in the Latin tradition makes sense, and although it’s not always easy, neither is married life.
The sexual abuse issue
Celibate clergy aren’t more likely or prone to sexual misconduct (homosexual or heterosexual) than any other group, despite the rhetoric that ensued soon after the blitz of pedophilia cases came to light in the United States a while back. Catholic priests were the focus of much media attention — mostly because of the unconscionable actions of a very small minority of deviant clergy and a few bishops who merely transferred clergy known to be sex offenders from one assignment to another.
Sadly, 80 percent of physical abuse of children is perpetrated by parents, and other family members account for another 7 percent. Teachers, coaches, neighbors, daycare providers, scoutmasters, youth ministers, and clergy are among the remaining 12 percent who know the children. (Complete strangers account for only 1 percent of this abuse.)
The 2004 John Jay Report, a study based on 10,667 allegations of Catholic clergy engaging in sexual abuse of minors between 1950 and 2002, showed that 4,392 priests had been credibly accused. That number amounted to 4 percent of the 109,694 priests in active ministry during that same time period. Estimates indicate that between 2 and 5 percent of Protestant ministers, Eastern Orthodox priests, Jewish rabbis, and Islamic imams use their position of authority to sexually abuse minors as well.
Even one case is one too many, of course, because abusing children is one of the most heinous evils any adult can commit. But this horrible behavior isn’t limited to — or even primarily found in — the celibate male clergy. It’s an evil that afflicts a few pastors of all denominations, as well as people from all other walks of life.
We in no way think that the statistics take away from the horror, shame, and diabolical evil of a few celibate priests committing the heinous crime and sin of child sex abuse. But it’s important to also look at the whole picture — to see that the overwhelming majority of child abuse cases are committed by married laymen who are related to the kids and that the overwhelming majority of celibate priests aren’t pedophiles and have never abused any boy, girl, man, or woman.
The evil of child abuse makes no distinction between Catholic or Protestant, Christian or Jewish, celibate or married, black or white, young or old. All ethnic, religious, and racial groups have a few deviants and perverts in their ranks. Indiscriminately associating the Catholic priesthood and its discipline of celibacy with pedophilia doesn’t make sense. Yes, sadly, some priests and bishops did abuse children, and more disturbing is that some bishops merely moved these weirdoes from place to place instead of stopping them once and for all. Nonetheless, no credible or logical argument or data supports the notion that celibacy encouraged or promoted sexual misconduct among the clergy. And from now on, those found ought to be — and will be — removed from active ministry, suspended of their ordained faculties, and reported to the civil authorities.
No-woman’s-land
With an apparent priest shortage and so many Protestant denominations embracing women ministers, some people wonder why the Catholic Church doesn’t allow female priests. First of all, it’s not because women aren’t qualified or that they’re somehow not worthy of this calling.
Having a male clergy is a constitutive element of the Sacrament of Holy Orders — no pope, council, or bishop can change it. The same is true about the use of water for Baptism and wheat bread and grape wine for Holy Eucharist. The elements of every sacrament can’t be changed because Christ established them. This belief is shared by the Eastern Orthodox, who don’t ordain women for the very same reason. It has nothing to do with who’s more worthy or suitable for Holy Orders, in the same way that the ban on non-Catholics receiving Holy Communion has nothing to do with any moral or spiritual judgment on the persons involved. It has to do with Sacred Tradition, which is considered as divinely inspired as Sacred Scripture. (See Chapter 2 for details about Sacred Tradition.)
The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are unable to ordain women — to the diaconate, priesthood, or episcopacy — for three reasons:
- The Church can’t change what constitutes valid matter for any of the seven sacraments.
- Sacred Tradition, nearly 2,000 years old, has never had an instance of women priests.
- Jesus didn’t ordain any women or call any of them to be apostles — not even his own mother!
The Sacrament of Holy Orders
No pope, bishop, or council can change the constitutive elements of any of the seven sacraments, and a valid Sacrament of Holy Orders requires a baptized male to be ordained by a validly ordained bishop (see Chapter 9 for more). Maleness is as essential to the Sacrament of Holy Orders as wheat bread and grape wine are to the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. So just as the pope can’t change the requirements of valid matter for the Holy Eucharist, he can’t change the requirements of valid matter for Holy Orders.
Sacred Tradition
Both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches believe that the revealed Word of God is both written (Sacred Scripture) and unwritten (Sacred Tradition). When the Bible is silent or ambiguous, Sacred Tradition authentically fills in the gaps. Sacred Tradition shows that women were never ordained, and Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) clearly stated that women can’t be ordained. (For more on encyclicals and other papal documents, see Chapter 2.)
Ordaining only males is not considered a matter of injustice because not all men are allowed to be ordained. Just having a personal vocation isn’t enough. The local bishop must call the man, giving an official recognition from the Church that a man may indeed have a priestly vocation. No man can demand or expect ordination because it’s a gift, not a right. Think of it like this: Just as it’s not unjust for men not to be able to give birth, it’s not unjust for women not to be ordained.
Jesus and his apostles
The Church points to the fact that Jesus was both God and man. From all eternity, He was divine with a divine nature, intellect, and will. But He was also born of a human mother and took on a human nature as well. In His divinity, Jesus was God and pure spirit, but in His humanity, He was a man. His gender was more than accidental because the Church is His bride. And because the priest acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) as an alter Christus (another Christ), the priest reflects Christ to the entire Church whenever he celebrates any of the sacraments. The maleness of Christ was part of who He was, and therefore, Jesus only called men to be His apostles (even though His mother would have been a far better choice). If a woman were to be ordained, she couldn’t be espoused to the Church because the Church is considered mother. A mother needs a father to complement the equation.
Catholicism regards Jesus as the groom and the Church as his bride. The priest is another Christ who acts in the person of Christ. The male priest represents the male Christ, and the priest is in a spousal relationship with the Holy Mother Church. Women priests don’t fit into that typology.
The changing roles of women
Women have come a long way since the early and medieval Church. Although they can’t be ordained priests, women have equal rights to be sponsors at Baptism and Confirmation. In Matrimony, they’re treated and regarded as 100-percent full, equal partners with their husbands. Women can serve on the parish council and finance committees. They can be readers at Mass, extraordinary ministers (laypersons who assist the priest at Mass to give out Holy Communion) if needed, and ushers. They can work in the parish office, teach religious education courses, and so on, just like their male counterparts. And many parishes have women pastoral associates — usually nuns, religious sisters, or laywomen who help the pastor with many spiritual and pastoral duties. In addition, women can even hold positions of influence and power in the diocesan chancery. The Church has women who are canon lawyers, judges, and chancellors across the country. The Church has allowed local bishops and pastors the option to permit female altar servers at Mass. Now many parishes have both altar girls and altar boys.
Realizing why priests must remain single
Whether it’s the pill, a condom, an intrauterine device (IUD), or a sponge, any artificial method of contraception is deemed immoral because the Church believes that it divides what God intended and may frustrate a divine plan to bring a new life into the world.