Posts tagged Clerical Celibacy

I have a document that probably sheds a considerable amount of light onto why the authorities of the Church are retaining celibacy as a rule and allowing generous dispensations from this discipline at the same time. I am sure most of our readers are aware that not all Catholics are orthodox or traditionally-minded. Many have exactly the same agenda as the Anglican churches we once belonged to and had to leave for reasons of conscience.

I found a statement on the website of the European Federation of Catholic Married Priests commenting on the Apostolic Constitution, and was quite flabbergasted on reading it. The document in question is a pdf, and can be downloaded from here. Rather than praise what might seem to be the thin end of the wedge towards abolishing celibacy, the attitude is sneering, as we will see from the quotes. It’s unfair! – they protest.

Before going on with the appropriate quotes, the uppermost idea in my mind is that celibacy can be compared with the issue of Latin in the liturgy at the Council of Trent. Making of celibacy a dogma or something irreformable would be the biggest blunder the Church could ever make, but that does not mean the flood-gates should be opened at this time. The implications go so far, that a general relaxation of celibacy is simply not opportune. It is a question of a whole conception of the priesthood, as the quotes will illustrate. Many lay apologists make the cardinal error of nominalism – singling out issues and failing to see the big picture or the connection between everything.

The European Federation of Catholic Married Priests made a statement about the Apostolic Constitution and commented on the proposal to dispense from celibacy generously. They firstly manifest their appreciation of the idea of there being a choice between marriage and celibacy, and that this would contribute to a healthy diversity of vocations in the Church. So far, so good.

Here comes the big tamale:

(…) it is difficult to see how this decision by Rome can ever be justified as there is not a shred of supporting ecclesiology to sustain it — that is unless it is also accompanied by the offer of re-admission to ministry of those catholic priests who have married and who wish to resume ministry. More than 100,000 married catholic priests have been prevented from exercising their ministry. Our view is that to consider these latter as traitors while at the same time believing it is alright to encourage a group of married Anglican priests to break their allegiance to the Anglican Communion is hypocritical. When the situations are compared there is clearly a danger that this will give rise to great confusion within our communities.

It is such an arbitrary and difficult to understand decision – unless, of course, we take for granted the fundamentalist and conservative views which are at the core of this group of married priests for whom the Catholic Church is throwing open its doors. They are against the ordination of women and the possibility of homosexuals being priests in the Anglican Communion, both of which were agreed as acceptable by a majority vote of that communion. However, the Vatican seems to have decided that the type of priest in which it places its trust is not one that is aligned with Gospel openness nor capable of reading the signs that the Holy Spirit is at work.

It seems to us that this gesture damages ecumenism because it fails to take account of the many years of dialogue in order to pursue a return to Catholicism. Rather than bearing in mind the progress made during Vatican II and in the ARCIC discussions on the eucharist, ministries, and authority in The Church, the Vatican is dishonestly recruiting by allowing Christians to get around a decision of their own Church. By doing this it increases division in a Church that is already having so much difficulty trying to sort out disputes touching in particular on important issues of morality.

This is quite mind-blowing stuff, considering that those liberals would like to impose their own “type” of priest as normative and compulsory for all. Their argument is that if it is good for dissident Anglicans, it is also good for all those Latin American base communities and their Congregationalist ecclesiology to have their own! Little Jonny has to have four sweets, and little Cynthia has to have four sweets. If there’s any squabbling, all eight sweets will go right back into the bag and into the kitchen cupboard. Then it’s fair for all!

Now, we have come to the crux of the matter. Is accepting Anglicans into the communion of the Church a matter of just another dose of inculturation to make the bitter pill of the Gospel relevant and meaningful, or is it a question of the revival of Catholic orthodoxy? Well, we’ll have to give it to these liberals: they hit the nail on the head. They’re dead right.

It is a question of a conception of the priesthood. The flood-gates are not being opened because it would be further secularisation in the Church. For the liberals, the ordination of married men (and the marriage of priests) is an issue that cannot be separated from the cause for the ordination of women and same-sex pseudo-marital unions.

That is the reason. About a year ago, I discovered this organisation in France and contacted one of the priest members. My wife was keenly interested in the idea of contacting married (laicised) priests and perhaps learning a thing or two. We entered into correspondence, and invited this priest and his wife to dinner at our home. And very pleasant they were too. However, we soon began to understand the issues. The priest in question is in his late 70’s and was involved in the worker priest movement in the 1950’s. Those men, fundamentally, had concluded that Christianity had run its course and that the only power in the world that could implement the radical ideals of the Gospel was Marxist Communism.

They become “committed”, meaning that they were acquired to the cause of the Revolution and the class conflict between workers and the factory owners and bourgeoisie, etc. This priest’s charming wife had been a religious sister, and they were married in about 1968. We spoke about non-controversial things like children, non-religious interests like sailing or fishing, but we understood that we had nothing in common in religious terms. I was marked by the fact, according to this laicised priest, that the vast majority of married former Catholic priests are so secularised that they have forgotten every last vestige of their vocations. None says Mass (fortunately, not only because they were no longer serving as priests under a Bishop, but also because they had celebrated in lay clothes on the kitchen table when they were in good standing). A good proportion no longer attend Mass or have any identifiable belief. They would not be asking to return to the priesthood as they have gone so far away from orthodox Catholicism.

The day this vital distinction will be made, and it is understood that married Anglican priests moving towards the Ordinariates and the married laicised men described above have nothing in common, it will be possible to help people understand what superficially looks to the average journalist like hypocrisy.

The issue, in short, is not whether or not we priests have wives – but whether or not we are Catholic in our doctrine, spirituality and understanding of the Catholic Priesthood.