Gift or curse?
Phillips, Randall R.
GIFT OR CURSE? Randall R. Phillips hen I was a student in Rome, in the 1980s, I at-tended a presentation on the U.S. bishops' newly re-leased document, The Challenge of Peace. During the session, a...
...My "problem" is that, at various times during my priesthood, I have fall-en in love and will probably keep falling in love...
...Some-one blurted out, "Could that be applied to celibacy...
...The word "curse" comes to my mind, yet given celibacy's positive witness, that characterization would be too strong, too limiting...
...It is difficult to see how mandatory celibacy for all priests functions as such a gift...
...Does clerical celibacy speak to people of resurrection, or does it convey an inhumane and unusual sacrifice...
...It is best simply to let go and move on—alone...
...In other cases, the anguish and anger have been too intense...
...Through nature, God has given us the desire for sexual union and procreation...
...It has been acutely painful when love is reciprocal but cannot be reciprocated...
...People have the ability to love...
...It was a good question, and one I've come back to often in my twenty years as a priest...
...I keep falling in love because I find it hard to believe that I am really being loved and capable of giving love, because I want to be affirmed not only for my intellect, my preaching, and my caregiving, but also in my body...
...I do not view mandatory celibacy as a "gift...
...Sometimes, following much anguish, a little laughter, and wrenching heartache, we have been able to remain friends despite our mutual longing...
...The church has taught that celibacy is a sacrifice and a discipline...
...The presenter remarked, "Possessing something that you can-not use is morally questionable...
...Celibacy provides witness to the significance of other forms of love: that of parents and grandparents, friends, coworkers, and neighbors—to name a few...
...True enough, but aren't there other signs, such as the preferential option for the poor and the reunion of Christian churches, that would be an even dearer witness...
...It defies the idea that love requires genital expression...
...Celibacy resists the prevailing assumption that if you are not paired off, there must be something wrong with you...
...Through physical symbols, such as water, oil, bread, and wine, we see God's presence and salvific plan unfold in our lives...
...Now there's an attempt to add a more positive spin: celibacy is a charism...
...Although celibacy can be a powerful act of resistance, I don't see how resistance alone can justify the church's position on a celibate priesthood...
...I live it awkwardly...
...Celibacy is also heralded as a sign of the reign of God and of the resurrection...
...During the session, a key sticking point for many was the issue of possessing—but not being morally able to use—nuclear weapons...
...Mandatory celibacy places grace in a titanic struggle against nature...
...All of this affirms the sanctity of the human person, the earth, the desire to love and to be loved...
...Given the number of priests who have left the active ministry and the number of men who have declined to enter the semi-nary because of the celibacy requirement, this "gift" appears to be imploding the church, not building it...
...Commonweal 3 9 September 10, 2004...
...The Reverend Randall R. Phillips is the pastor of Saint Blaise Parish in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and an adjunct instructor of theology at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan...
...If celibacy makes sense at all, it's only as a practice of resistance...
...I believe too deeply in the Incarnation and resurrection of the body to renounce flesh and blood made in the image and likeness of God, and I am certain that the longing for companionship and the desire for communion are inherently human...
...Knowing I am loved gives me the strength to fulfill my vocation: to give my parish twelve-to-sixteen-hour days, to tolerate the demands of the chancery office, the complaints of parishioners, society's judgment that I'm not really a man, and even my own faults and nagging conscience...
...One ignores them at one's own peril...
...Let's just say that celibacy is a "thorn in the flesh...
...Such dualism is decidedly nonincarnational...
...All of it speaks of incarnation: the unity of divinity and humanity, body and spirit, flesh and soul, grace and nature...
...By definition, a charism is a gift given by God to a person or group to strengthen the community...
...This is earthy stuff, as is our understanding that marriage is not constituted until it is consummated...
...How does a universal law of celibacy speak of the Incarnation...
...We honor Mary's Immaculate Conception, a feast that celebrates the love-making of Saints Joachim and Anne...
...In MARY VILLAREJOthe sacraments, the church powerfully bears witness to the Incarnation...
...In North America, celibacy may serve to resist a culture that can't get enough sex, while remaining unsatisfied and al-ways searching for more...
Vol. 131 • September 2004 • No. 15
