Married priests? Celibacy, pro & con
Garvey, John
JOHN GARVEY
MARRIED PRIESTS?
It works for the Orthodox
We must pray for the strength of the Catholic Church," an Orthodox monk once told me. "If they collapse we will look pretty foolish, and we'll...
...Celibacy does have something to do with it, in the sense that someone who is confused about his sexual longings might make the mistake of thinking that celibacy undertaken in a religious context will repair the problem...
...I have had parishioners tell me that they would find it impossible to confess to a priest who was not married, who had never had teenage children-how could he relate to their spiritual condition...
...I'm angry at the bishops...
...To make it a part of the job description for every priestly candidate is a mistake, I think, because it unnecessarily limits the number of people willing to undertake the life...
...In a time when the culture sends the message that it is healthy to yield to every desire, especially the sexual kind, this is important...
...But there are positive arguments for celibacy...
...The problem is the violation of vows...
...Catholic priests are not notably more loving or generous than the Orthodox priests and Protestant ministers I have known-not to speak of doctors, nurses, counselors, and other people whose work demands compassionate involvement with others...
...The second is more disturbing...
...To say that such people cannot be valid-ly ordained, as papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Vails recently did, is not only wrong-headed in the extreme but would also discourage good people from offering themselves to a church that needs good people more than ever...
...No," the woman answered...
...That was meant to be funny and is a half-truth, of course-there are celibate priests who also have to worry about furnaces-but it makes a good point...
...He was referring to his disappointment at the anti-Catholicism he had encountered on Mount Athos, and his point was that among the churches, only Orthodoxy and Catholicism had any living sacramental sense of a tradition extending uninterruptedly back to the apostolic age...
...Are you angry at the church...
...The first is that although a growing number of gay clergy presents a pastoral problem of sorts if it discourages heterosexuals from choosing to enter the priesthood, it is wrong to say that the problem here is homosexuality...
...It is directed at the hierarchy, who moved known abusers from parish to parish rather than defrock them...
...As the revelations continue, it is clear that some bishops have also been personally involved in the sexual abuse of young people...
...One Orthodox priest said to me, "The Catholic system can produce some saints and some real neurotics, but what it doesn't produce is a priest who lies awake at night worrying about his furnace, like everyone else in his parish...
...I have known Catholic and Orthodox priests who were homosexual...
...Perhaps one reason for the secrecy with which these cases have been surrounded is the possibility of blackmail: Blow the whistle on me, and I'll let everyone know about you...
...A fast teaches us what food we really need...
...And there may be an evil minority who deliberately use the monastic life or priesthood as a way of gaining access to potential victims, but I am sure this is extremely rare...
...The church is all of us...
...but it would be too easy in the current climate to see celibacy in merely negative terms...
...Her distinction is not only a good one...
...it offers whatever hope there is here.here is here...
...It is negative only in the sense that a fast is negative...
...How we have lived them will have an eternal import, but husbands and wives die, children grow up and leave...
...The celibate can help to show those who are involuntarily single or divorced or widowed that a good life can be lived alone...
...he asked...
...Finally, no matter how intimate our relationship with another person is-as husband or wife, father or mother-we are alone before God...
...It works for the Orthodox We must pray for the strength of the Catholic Church," an Orthodox monk once told me...
...There is a widespread assumption that the problem is based in celibacy-an assumption that is, of course, far too simple...
...There is another important pastoral aspect of celibacy...
...Ultimately those of us who are married must learn what celibates know, and live-just as we hope that those who are vowed celibates, through their commitments, will learn the love of particular people...
...it forces us by making us go against the grain of our usual desires to go more deeply into what desire does to us...
...I am reasonably sure the statement would also rule invalid the ordinations of several canonized saints...
...I mentioned the pastoral benefits of a married clergy...
...A couple of other things need to be said about this current controversy...
...and like a fast, it can teach us something...
...JOHN GARVEY MARRIED PRIESTS...
...Those other relationships are given to us as trusts, but they end...
...In the great majority of cases, they were and are faithful to their vows of celibacy, and the church would be much poorer without their services...
...I remembered what he said as I read of the sex-abuse crisis facing Catholicism, talked with Orthodox and Catholic friends, and tried to address the questions raised by people in my parish...
...If they collapse we will look pretty foolish, and we'll be alone...
...On the contrary, if you are not capable of loving one person deeply, in a committed way (this need not mean a sexual way), you are not capable of loving anyone, much less everyone...
...One argument made for celibacy has been that the commitment to celibacy frees someone to love all people in a way that the commitment to marriage does not...
...The anger of most of the people I know is not centered primarily on the fact that sexual abuse occurs in the church, though the violated trust makes the church an especially tragic locale for these crimes...
...Where Orthodoxy has had difficulties in the area of sexual abuse, they have usually occurred in monasteries or involved other celibate clergy...
...It is not that there are never any celibate exceptions to this rule, but I do think a married priesthood makes more pastoral sense for ordinary parish ministries...
...Having seen the way priesthood is lived in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, I do believe that the Orthodox discipline-which allows priests to marry before ordination-is the better one, for pastoral reasons...
...I was encouraged to hear a television interviewer corrected...
Vol. 129 • May 2002 • No. 9
