I filed a long piece last week for Catholic newspapers on the ongoing sexual abuse scandals that continue to plague the Catholic Church. My piece focused on what's happened in Canada since the scandal concerning the abuse by Irish Christian Brothers at Mount Cashel orphanage in the late 1980s.
In December, a public inquiry presented its report after a four-year investigation into what some news reports described as a "pedophile ring" in Cornwall, Ontario that involved Catholic priests and members of this industrial St. Lawrence River city's legal and educational establishment. Alas, after four years and millions of dollars, the inquiry did not prove or disprove the existence of at least some loose association of abusers who at times passed victims to each other.
Then last September, police laid charges of possession and importation of child pornography against the Bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Bishop Raymond Lahey's case continues to wend its way through the courts, but it has cast a pall over all the progress the Church has made in handling abuse complaints.
A few of the experts I spoke to suggested mandatory celibacy was the problem and that it might attract men who had problematic attractions they hoped they could "take off the table" because the priesthood was a profession where it would just not be allowed. But another expert, a pediatrician, noted that "drunken daddy's" and married stepfathers were also known to sexually abuse children, so marriage is not the cure all. Some brought up the proportion of homosexuals in the priesthood, others the high numbers of progressive priests after Vatican II–some of which did not make it into the final draft.
Of course, being a member of the TAC, I am not opposed to married priests and if the Holy See were to relax its rule for Latin Rite priests then I certainly would not mind at all.
But over the course of my work covering the Catholic Church, I have come to see the beauties of the gift of celibacy when an obviously heterosexual man who is comfortable in his skin is "ablaze with chastity" (I think I am borrowing this phrase from Chesterton). What a gift it is to the Church when a man who could have had the goods of marriage and family offers that up and instead of becoming dessicated and stunted or whatever stereotype one might conjure up, becomes more fully a man. The holy love in these men is transformative to be around. It's like an oasis of heaven around them. It expresses the kind of love of Christ and a living faith that is "caught" rather than "taught."
But I also think that chastity within marriage is also something beautiful to behold. One of the reasons why Christians have undercut their arguments against homosexual unions is that too many heterosexual couples are, shall we say, not living up to the demands of chastity within their marriages.
I recall a conversation I had with a priest who spoke of what a great life priests can live and how being around fathers and their families is a lesson for him in the kinds of small sacrifices earthly fathers have to make for the sake of their children and their wives—that it models for him how to be a better priest who also is willing to do things for others even when he does not particularly want to. I think, too, that celibate priests who radiate that self-giving Christlike love that expects nothing in return can also model for fathers and husbands how to love their families and to be priests in the domestic church of the family.
I have had a really hard time understanding how so many priests who hold a modernist mindset could still maintain their vows of celibacy. What context does one need for a real holy gift of celibacy? I don't think the small-s "spirit of Vatican II" provides one, does it?
What will priestly celibacy look like within the Personal Ordinariates and how will we begin to form our seminarians for the discipline of chastity–whether married or not?
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After working with abused children for over 30 years I discovered that the biggest absuer of children are straight men, not homosexuals.
I feel that naming homosexuality as the root problem is just an excuse in the effort to have priestly celibacy done away with. I agree with you that there are people who are called to a celibate lifestyle.
The internal structures have to change that hold all of us responsible for our inappropriate behaviour, especially when children are at risk.
Very good. I also have come to recognize the many ways in which a celibate priesthood can and has been a blessing to the Latin Church. The key seems clearly to be starting with men whose sexuality is normative and whole. I once had an Anglican Bishop Monk tell me that asexual men did not in fact make very good monks, having little to surrender or sublimate.
While we will continue to have – perhaps predominantly – a married priesthood, it is, of course, vital that we have celibate vocations; and I mean among the secular clergy as well as monastics. We need to raise up bishops from both backgrounds. Of course, the monastic establishment in the British Isles prior to the reformation was a marvelous thing and we should strive to emulate it.
Yes the key really is starting with a sexuality that celebrates and delights in the complementarity of the opposite sex. Celibacy is just one of the ways that allows men and women to do this. While the "giving up" of the sexual aspect may be notable for many of us, this is not as notable as the call to love in perfect chastity. Celibacy has been degraded by many of us as a call to deny our sexuality, when it fact it challenges us to live our sexual lives in perfect chastity. This challenge applies to all of us, called to love in the married, single in the world and consecrated states of life.
I would say that the ideal conditions for priestly celibacy are daily Mass in a traditional or “reform of the reform” rite, the daily Office, and a demanding parish ministry for which the priest has personal responsibility and the possibility for initiative.
A priest also needs stability (if he is happy where he is, he is doing a good job and has committed no canonical offences) and support from the parish council, the faithful in general and one or two priests to assist him.
There is nothing worse for celibacy than crushing bureaucracy, having your personality broken by constant criticism from the congregation, parish council, other members of a “team ministry” and so forth. In the present situation, becoming a Catholic priest is often a double-whammy. You don’t have a wife and family, and you don’t have a real ministry. It’s enough to break the heart of a good man.
Reform the dioceses and let parish priests minister like the Curé d'Ars did, and as thousands of priests since him have done so, and there will be the meaning of chaste marriage and celibacy.
I served as crucifer at Fr. Phillips' ordination in San Antonio in 1983 and can recall this quip by the ordaining prelate, Archbishop Patrick F. Flores: "This is the first time that I have ordained a man to the priesthood in the presence of his wife and children — that I knew about."
This reminds me of an old Greek Catholic joke: "What is the difference between the son of a Greek Catholic priest and the son of a Roman Catholic priest? The son of the Greek Catholic priest is legitimate."