I might well have been one of the most available priests in the diocese that Saturday afternoon. After four hours of shoveling, my driveway was clear before the rectory garage was plowed out. Because of a disability, our youngest lives at home. Because she needs a wheel chair, we own vans. They have four-wheel drive.
So I got to the church to celebrate mass for the small group that assembled that evening. On Sunday I said one mass at the parish to which I am assigned and one at a neighboring parish. I prepared an RCIA lesson. I shoveled some more snow. Before bed I switched on the hospital pager, since hospital chaplaincy is another part of my assignment. The four-wheel drive would have made the thirteen miles, had I been called.
Whatever the difference is between celibate clergy and us exceptions, it is, I am convinced, not availability.
There is enough time; there is never enough time. What is true for everyone in the modern world is true also for priests, equally for the celibate as the married. Clergy who bemoan the demands of their office and the lack of personal time are whining. Tough though some of their situations may be, family life would not ease them.
I entered the Catholic Church in 2003 after twenty years as a Lutheran pastor and was ordained to the priesthood in 2006. I have a wife, three children, and five grandchildren. They have claims on my time, as do our large extended families. But many a celibate priest must respond to a large extended family or provide care for aging parents. Priesthood does not bring freedom from family and human obligations, nor should it. The requirements of a nuclear family are more immediate and time-consuming, but it does not seem to me that they establish a categorical difference in availability from the rest of the clergy.
To be sure, married priests can’t easily be sent off for advanced study in Rome. Nor can we move at the drop of a hat. We are in some ways more expensive, but the costs of maintaining and staffing a rectory are considerable. And we are generally cheaper to educate, since we all come to the Church with theological educations and a personal formation refined by the reflection and self-examination that led us to full communion.
So it cannot be the practical arguments that bear the weight for celibacy. Pastorally, there are some advantages. On questions of marriage and family we do have an enhanced credibility. While it is surely wrong to think that celibate priests know nothing of family life and equally wrong to imagine that marriage and family make anyone an expert on those subjects, it is true that those of us who have made this commitment have worked hard to live out our values and stand willing to help. A huge percentage of the people in the pews are unmarried, but few seem unwilling to relate to a married priest, while the opposite opinion seems widespread.
Acceptance by other priests has not been a problem. Some who were ordained in the turmoil after Vatican II expected celibacy to fall and may resent us, but their numbers seem few. Some may also be too imbued with Anglo-Saxon notions of fairness to accept the Roman character of the Church’s law, which sets standards that the legislator may in his benignity relax.
Most of my colleagues are happy to be colleagues and to have one more hand on deck. I cannot say that I have felt unwelcome or out of place at all, whereas in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American I found myself increasingly out of step and at times could not in good conscience even attend liturgical celebrations. My day-to-day experience is not one of feeling exceptional. I feel part of the thin black line called to serve the Catholic Church in a world that has lost its way.
It would be a mistake to confuse the exception made for some of us with an experiment in married priesthood. Even less does the exception constitute a critique of celibacy. There is in any event little indication that the Catholic Church is going to change a discipline so firmly rooted in its own history and paradigmatically modeled by Jesus, Paul, and John the Baptist.
At the same time I would concede that not all the critiques of celibacy are irrational.
A married priesthood would increase the pool of available men who might otherwise suppress their sense of vocation, but to blame celibacy for the shortage of priests overlooks some possibly more significant and spiritually weighty causes. Where there is a passion for the faith and an assertive call to sacrifice there tend to be more vocations. If the problem is secularization and weakened commitment, a married priesthood is not much of a solution. Richard Neuhaus’ famous and often maligned solution to the abuse crisis—“Faithfulness, Faithfulness, Faithfulness”—is likely both the better and the more realistic solution also to the vocations crisis. But to hear it requires abandoning some widespread assumptions.
The Long Lent of 2002, now dawning afresh in Ireland and Western Europe, has also led many to wonder anew about the wisdom of celibacy. While a celibate community does provide concealment for offenders and has contributed to the formation of dark networks of abusers, ending celibacy would not end human sinfulness. Celibacy does not cause abuse any more than marriage causes adultery. A married clergy and the ordination of women have hardly ended violations of the sixth commandment and pastoral trust in Protestantism. Protestantism endures the scandal of divorced and remarried clergy, sexual abuse in all forms, and in the mainline the increasingly successful effort to normalize homosexual liaisons. The Protestant experience ought to warn any thoughtful person off the notion that celibacy causes sexual misconduct.
That argument is also a smokescreen. It conveniently serves a bias that was already in place. Worse, it has served the politically correct denial of the main feature of the abuse crisis, to wit, homosexual misconduct. Now again, in reports on the European crisis, the word “pedophilia” is automatically used to describe the homosexual abuse of young males, when the statistics and anecdotal accounts suggest only a handful are pedophiles and the rest are homosexual men behaving badly.
Thus to the question many would prefer to skirt: Would a married priesthood dilute the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood? Almost surely to some degree, although in Lutheranism a married clergy did not eliminate either homosexual networks or sham marriages. But the problem in the Catholic priesthood was not so much the presence of a disproportionate number of homosexual men; it was the winking at misconduct, culpable naiveté and the failure by bishops to deal with criminal acts.
While a disproportionate presence of homosexual men in the priesthood can influence the ethos in troubling ways—Michael Rose’s anecdotal Goodbye, Good Men remains relevant—the option of marriage would help less than would an authentic quest for holiness in life and ministry. Where there is a passion for the Gospel, the Church, and the Christian life, sin remains but purification comes much more quickly.
There is one other thing that is usually left out of the advocacy for a married priesthood. In our sexually saturated culture it is simply assumed that what the celibate priest gives up is sex. Naturally enough. But that is not what the tradition sees as primary. What the celibate priest “gives up” is marriage. Marriage includes sex. Naturally enough. But in any biblical understanding of human reality, sex is part of the vocation of marriage, not a free-floating good looking for a place (generally in the modern mind any place) to land.
In giving up marriage and the family, vowed celibates teach a jarring truth, fundamental to the Christian faith: The greatest of human goods, one Catholics understand to be a sacrament, in itself a means of grace, is secondary to the pursuit of the Kingdom. Speaking of himself, Jesus said that some had made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of God. It would be hard to put it more bluntly. And it is plain that he expected some of his followers to follow his example. The mind of the Western Church on priestly celibacy instantiates that vision, even as the Church recognizes that it could be otherwise and hence permits some of us married converts to be ordained.
The wise old priest who catechized Christa and me had the idea that the Orthodox could afford a married priesthood because their liturgy pointed so powerfully to the otherness and holiness of the Kingdom of God, but that in the Catholic Church that witness had come to be shouldered by the celibate priesthood. The point has value. It suggests that advocates of a married priesthood as the obvious solution to the vocations shortage and other problems would do better to lay aside the political model of entitlement and complaint and to place their energies into the reform of the liturgy. A vigorous commitment to the truth of the Catholic faith and the long-overdue realization that the world is not our friend will do more good that a laundry list of “progressive” changes that should have been made after Vatican II.
Still, in the end it may prove that we were an experiment and not an exception and that the Church will reconsider the requirement of celibacy. The Church may look at the record of married convert clergy and other aspects of clerical celibacy and re-examine the practice. Married priests were common enough in the first millennium in the Western Church, and no one can on Catholic grounds object to the practice of the Eastern churches. It may indeed be the will of God at some point that the Roman Church change its practice. I do not envision such a time, but none of us has privileged information about the future.
Meanwhile there are a few hundred married men in the priesthood in the Latin rite. We are not here to make a point but to serve. The Church will, we hope, be enriched by our experience as married men and by the positive legacies and hard lessons we bring from our past ministries. Our presence provokes discussion of things that need to be discussed, and that may be argument enough that the occasional exception is a good thing.
Fr. Leonard R. Klein is the Director of Pro-Life Activities for the Diocese of Wilmington.
Comments:
Only one quibble: Any Western reform that makes the ordination of married men less a matter of exception and more of a norm will need to treat the entire trajectory of Western Church history, including the first-millennium discipline of continence often expected of married men who were ordained to the major orders. This means wrestling not merely with the question of marriage, but more narrowly with sexual discipline, which has been an abiding feature of specifically priestly ministry under both the old and new covenants.
The celibate priesthood in the Catholic Church has many problems, none of which are helped by papering over the problems by platitudes about "availability" and focus.
For the truth on the ground is brutal - and the truth on the ground is that priests are human beings who will, after that initial honeymoon period, do all they can to minimize their "availability" to their congregants, who see the people of their parishes as problems, as obstacles, rather than as God's people to be served. Even if they are "celibate" (and not all are, of course), they find things or forces to be "married" to - to be absorbed in. It may be recreational - like golf. It may take the form of a focus on buildings and property or power within the system. It might be alcohol.
There are priests who buck this - they are the saints among us.
But we would be all well served to admit that a celibate culture produces its own problems - by the time they are in their fifties, a bunch of bachelors who can hardly wait for their days off, just like the rest of us. Perhaps the answer is not to abandon the Western discipline completely, but for the hierarchy to at least recognize the serious problems in the Catholic presbyterate, much of which can be traced to the effects of clerical culture.
It makes perfect sense to me, and seems as if the Western Catholic Church is well set up to transition. We have the experience of the Orthodox and Protestant ministers as a caution - to warn us about the impact of ministry on family life, and of the very special demands this type of life places on a marriage and children - and caution, just for that reason. We have the experience of Protestant bodies which warns us of a different type of settling that takes place with married ministers - a loss of the eschatological witness, a "professionalism" of ministry. . .
But at the same time, we have what they and even the Orthodox do not have - we have religious orders. Religious orders which have, throughout Church history, been the backbone of the missionary activity of Catholicism. Celibacy is an integral part of the charism of religious orders, and always would be. Making celibacy optional for diocesan priests while celebrating and highlighting the role of celibacy in religious orders would only strengthen both, I think.
Thank you again, and GOD BLESS you in your ministry!
I don't want to get into Bible-verse wars here, because that is not the Catholic way, but "tradition" indicates a married priesthood as a part of that "tradition." - read 1 Timothy. And remember - the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox - are *apostolic* churches, as well, with a "tradition' that involves married clergy, as well as celibate monks and bishops.
And, dear Paul, please read the article again more slowly. "Almost surely to some degree"? A bit of a double hedge perhaps? I teach my seminarians to attend to the argument and not to arrogant allegations such as "incorrect," "selective quotating" and "reading to [sic] fast."
"The story is told of the Irish woman, 40 years married and the mother of seven, who left church after hearing a sermon from a young priest on marriage and motherhood and remarked, 'Sure and I wish I knew as little about it as he does.'"
I am inclined to make the same remark about many of those who comment on the subject of priestly celibacy. To those who speak of the lofty calling of marriage and its sacramental participation in the consummation of Christ and the Church: Fine, but consider the Lord's words on "eunuchs for the kingdom," and the example not only of the Lord but of St. Paul.
To those who postulate that you can have it all, that there can be no conflict among these blessings: That was manifestly not St. Paul's opinion.
Most of all, to those who reason that we must not exclude viable priestly candidates simply because of marriage: When, if ever, have God's elections ever made practical, earthly sense? Does a man ever rightly marry a woman solely because he's thought it through and decided she's the most suitable spouse? Which of the great Christian heroes, biblical or otherwise, were chosen by God because they represented the most efficient means of achieving God's ends? When it comes to marriage and holy orders, no earthly wisdom will do, but only extravagant self-gift.
This was the only priest I have ever met who described loving someone as a real gift without compromising integrity.
I believe that many priests who struggle with celibacy struggle with the balance between intimacy and integrity. Young priests today don't have many relationships with women religious that have made similar vows, thus limiting their contact with women to be in either the single or married state. This is a pain many people over look. Priests need women—even celibate women to “help them carry its burdens and its joys.”
I can agree that being a single man is necessary for a ministry like Paul's, but is that the calling for every Catholic priest?
Thank you for your 1:14 post. It shows true calm, collected mastery.
Bravo!
The road from cleric to clerk, instead of priest to hero/saint is short, logical and full of good intentions. I remember when priests were manly and calling them "father" made sense. Now it's Mr. Priest... or just "Bruce"...
Keep it crazy, special and non Mr. and Mrs. Padre Pio, Signora Don Bosco, e tutti i figli di cardinale.
Celibacy is important not only for the individual benefits it gives to the celibate but also as witness value to the Church in these modern times of liscentiousness.
If the Church caves on celibacy, she will cave on everything else, creating a new schism and only a small remnant to keep the faith.
Moreover, it may be argued that St. Paul was sterner about the need to make a choice between marriage and ministry precisely because he held a precociously high theology of marriage. Already in the Apostolic Era he intuited what it took the Latin Church several centuries to discern---that it was unfair to both partners to expect married priests to live continently, and that the best way to maintain the eschatological witness of a sexually disciplined clergy was to ordain celibate men.
St. Paul even in his own day declined to make his inference a hard rule, and the Church has made varying degrees of exceptions in every generation. Most recently, and for the first time in history, the Latin Church now routinely ordains married men to the diaconate. The author of the post above is yet another category of excpetional clergyman.
A priest is ordained to teach, govern and sanctify, but often finds himself doing otherwise, especially when it comes to governing, which for a priest means the responsibility of maintaining unity. It is fine for a lay person, especially a theologian, to argue publicly against the celibacy rule, but improper for a priest who took a vow of obedience to the Magisterium. This vow has a singular purpose: to maintain unity, the only true way for others to know us Christians. This is the human particularity of Christ that is most important for the priest to understand: a vow of obedience, to never do his will, but the will of his father. And for the priest that is lived out in his vow of obedience to the Magisterium, a sacrifice no doubt, but the only sacrifice that can ultimately guarantee unity.
Simply put, for a priest to be publicly divisive of the flock is a violation of his vow to govern (establishing unity), pitting one group of Christians against another, a divisiveness the priest cannot transcend in his representation of Christ for his flock if he is taking sides.
Both celibacy and marriage for priests can be supported by scripture, both have been a valid expression of priesthood from apostolic times, both are present today as authentic expressions of priestly life and ministry. We are not talking about celibacy and marriage as an "either/or," but a "both/and" -- each being a great gift to the priesthood, a path to priestly holiness, a counter-cultural witness of Christ, and of great benefit to the mission of the Church! In a time of "New Evangelization," Christ's message needs to be witnessed by a priesthood that can bring to bear all these gifts.
For example: "A married priesthood would increase the pool of available men who might otherwise suppress their sense of vocation." A weak speculation by his own understanding: "...but to blame celibacy for the shortage of priests overlooks some possibly more significant and spiritually weighty causes."
He further speculates: "...a celibate community does provide concealment for offenders and has contributed to the formation of dark networks of abusers..." There is absolutely no evidence of this. In our nation's school system there have been conservative estimates of sexual child abuse that are 100 times higher than what occurred in the Church, and the public educational network is as far from a celibate network that we have in this country. The problem was not celibacy, but of protecting one's own in a bureaucratically minded upper-management clergy in contradistinction to a holy one. And I have speculated that this begins when Paul VI's “Humanae Vitae” was close to universally rejected within the Church, and the restoration of its prophetic depths would not occur until John Paul II's publication of "Theology of the Body".
Father Klein is obviously a man who was called to the priesthood, and there is no fault in how he arrived, for he lived deep within the integrity of his calling first as a Lutheran minister and now as a Roman Catholic priest. I do not in any way glean anything but orthodoxy in his intent. I believe his dilemma resides in a soul-searching concerning his place in the Church as a married priest, and he has a way to go in this search.
I would remind Father Klein and others who seriously believe there is hope for a married clergy other then the exceptional, that included in the lay office is the vocation of marriage, and it is properly there that priests should go to understand this domestic church.
There is no conscious intent that I can detect in the still entrenched clericalism of the Church, but it is certain the clergy has a long way to go before it really understands the office of the laity. Both clergy and lay offices involve enormous sacrifice. Paul rightly believed that the calling and office of laity is a much more difficult office (why even want to take on two offices?), and we laity are still waiting for the clergy to find ways to support us in evangelization instead of continuing to find ways to expropriate our office.
Be clear that a deacon cannot perform the consecration. Why? Because the Church has consistently held that there is great value in maintaining a clergy that comes as close as persons can get to representing/remembering Christ. Is there great value in this or not? I am convinced that this is at the heart of the issue. Exceptions can be made, yes. But again, is there value in maintaining a Roman Rite that requires (not dogmatically, but spiritually inspired) priests to fully represent Christ as he moved among us on earth? Once you agree to at least explore the possibility of this gesture as having great value, the floodgates will open revealing the mystery of calling and office, and how the Church in her wisdom sides with Paul in understanding the office of the laity, including the vocation of marriage, and how it is distinct from the office of the ministerial priesthood.
A priest once said in a homily that in his view it would be inappropriate for a one-armed man to be a priest (only in the Catholic Church could this apparently insensitive statement still be uttered and received in mystery). The reason he gave: "The Church must retain an office that fully represents Christ to the degree possible, which includes all his gestures, especially the gesture of the consecration which requires two arms." That Jesus did not marry and have children must have great spiritual and theological significance. I just don't see the Church ever abandoning a solid representation of that significance, and that representation will be specifically honored until the end of time in the Roman Rite. And when the inevitable conversion of theologians and educators within Catholic institutions gets into full swing (Catholic youth give me real hope), the clutter and clamor of the secular world will finally fall away into quietude, and then there will be many young men hearing and responding to a call from God to enter the Roman Rite’s ministerial priesthood.
Given the Eastern Orthodox stance on married priests, you must think that they have their heads in the sand as well--on your argument, either they are theologically incorrect (at worst) or they are wildly imprudent. They think it traditionally and theologically acceptable to allow priests to marry (though bishops, I think, must come from the ranks of those priests which are unmarried). And for them, allowing married priests is both a matter of prudence and, it seems, theology. In fact, it's been a real point of conflict with Rome. Your position entails that that the Eastern practice on this front is simply wrong. And it would seem therefore to constitute a theological bar to the reunification of your two churches (its not the only bar, to be sure--from the Eastern Orthodox standpoint, Roman theology is problematic on other fronts as well--such as purgatory). But, of course, the pontificate of John Paul II seemed to suggest something quite different to most of us. He seemed quite interested in reunification. So this raises the question, was he willing to modify the celibacy requirements for priesthood within the Catholic church (beyond the present allowances for married men, in rare circumstances, to become priests)? Or was he, in his enthusiasm, blinded to the extent of disagreement between your churches on this matter? I simply ask as a matter of curiosity. All things considered, on this question Eastern Orthodoxy seems to hold the wiser position, though I'm sure you disagree. At any rate, I didn't suggest that Rome should change it's position. I only suggested that Fr. Klein had made a legitimate argument. And it seems to me a bit trite to suggest that the only lessons to be learned from the experience of married priests is a negative one. That's not the only lesson the Eastern Orthodox learned. So even if you despise Protestantism, you might turn your gaze to a church for which the late John Paul had great admiration.
Secondly, I in no way see the Eastern Orthodox Church as being wrong or having its head in the sand when it allows priests to marry. I have not made any argument against priests being married. My argument is that the Roman Rite's celibacy rule for priests is theologically and spiritually sound, and that there is no reason of great substance that would require it to be abandoned. In fact, there is great substance and value in having priests represent Christ's physical being to us in all his physicality, including his gestures, that his physical being and movement does have deep theological significance. No doubt this has much to do with the Eastern Orthodox Church's celibacy rule for bishops that you allude to.
Thirdly, I did not state that "the only lessons to be learned from the experience of married priests is a negative one." I simply believe that everything the Church needs to learn about marriage can be learned from the sacrament of marriage as lived by the laity. I also am curious to know what a married ministerial priesthood contributes to the Church that a celibate priesthood cannot. I didn't find anything convincing in what Fr. Klein had written. This in no way implies that married priests like Fr. Klein cannot be extraordinary and holy priests who contribute to the Church as well as any celibate priest, and vice versa.
I, like John Paul II, yearn for the reunification of all Christians, including Protestants. The reason is that I am convinced the way the world will know us is by our unity. To in anyway be opposed to unity would be an opposition to the Holy Spirit himself, which could be argued is a sin against the Holy Spirit, a thwarting of his desire. I do not in any way see the phenomenon of married priests as a major roadblock in reunification. I believe it is possible for holy Christian men and women throughout Christendom to live with the reality of married priests and celibate priests in unity.
The purgatory issue is something else that I won't veer too far into. I do recommend Hans Urs von Balthasar's book, "Mysterium Paschale". It doesn't explore purgatory, but Jesus' descent into hell, and Balthasar makes the case that God's love for us goes so deep, that Jesus' descent into hell demonstrates that his love is not only for the righteous, but even for those who are convinced they are destined for hell. Where we reside in our deep personal understanding of ourselves, if at any time we are convinced there is no hope for us in our rebellious sinfulness, we are reminded that Christ is still with us in absolute love and a desire to bring us home.
How this relates to purgatory: Eternity can exist inside a temporal second. It would be presumptuous of us to believe that we know what goes on in the interior life of the greatest sinner who lives in that second where he appears to have crossed over to the other side. Christ is still with that person in that temporal eternal second. We simply do not know what transpires in that second. What we do know is that the power of love that is God can save that person in that second if that person desires it. That is a place called purgatory, at least how I envision it. And because purgatory is a mystery, many explanations of it exist, all of which can be freely indulged by Christians in their own discernment. But the point is that God's love doesn't leave any stone unturned in seeking our salvation, and there are millions of stones that we have in our blindness not even looked at, including the stone of that second before final judgment.
You take umbrage with my reply. But I must confess, as G. K. Chesterton did with respect to his novel The Man Who Was Thursday, that you have misunderstood me because you missed something at the very opening--in this case, not the subtitle to a book but the introductory line to the post. I was replying to DNB and not to you. I confess that as I but pop in from time to time I hadn't read your earlier posts. In other words, nothing I said in my post was in response to anything that you had written, and so can't be understood as a misstatement or misunderstanding of your position--unless, of course, you and DNB are one in the same. In which case, you got me. All I ever meant to say was that perhaps Fr. Klein had something worth paying to--and that he didn't deserve the callous and cavalier treatment he seemed to be receiving--a treatment I found a bit out of step with Christian charity. You'll remember the apostle Paul commending a certain congregation searching the Scripture to see if what he said was true rather than just accepting his word for it. Well, doesn't charity and such searching spirit, that the apostle commends, require a bit more than the sort of responses this post evoked? Best Regards.
Jean Luc Marion, in his astonishing book, "God Without Being", makes clear that the two dominant names of God, "I Am" (Ex 3:14) and "Love" (1 Jn 4:8), are both valid, but as we move forward to the Omega Point, "Love" is the name that we must now explore more deeply. And this is what you suggest here, rightly so.
Whether married men should be allowed to become priests and whether priests should be allowed to marry are two quite separate questions. Until the 16th century, all Churches (except some Syrian Nestorians) were unanimous in rejecting it.
Celibacy is a great gift to the church and the Latin Rite is right to prize it but when things go wrong - and they have - things go very, very wrong.
Another reason for that is simply that I am single and have little prospect of rectifying that fact. Anyone who ministers will sooner or later have to preach chastity. And frankly that often does come off ill from married clergy. It is unfair considering the stresses the job puts on preachers married or single, but I can't help thinking the thought "garrittrooper". It is relief that at least some ministers are in fact celibate willingly as a sacrifice and thus can encourage those who have no choice about it.
