Nuala O’LoanI believe that the time will come when celibacy becomes optional, writes Nuala O’Loan
I was at what they say was St Peter’s house in Capernaum recently. Reading the recent debates about celibacy and Catholic priests, remembering the story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever, made me think again about St Peter who was clearly married at the time, yet was the one chosen to be the rock upon which Jesus built his Church.
As we debate the issue of celibacy today it is important to remember that this is not the first occasion upon which it has been debated. This is a complex historical subject, but it may not be inaccurate to suggest that priestly celibacy is something which emerged over the centuries for a number of reasons, all valid but not necessarily totally compelling, nor indicative of the need to mandate clerical celibacy for ever.
I believe that the time will – and should – come when celibacy becomes optional, when men seeking ordination will be able to choose to be married. There will of course be those who will not marry, just as there are laypeople who choose not to marry. I believe too, that the time will come when the Church will consider inviting back into active ministry those who have left to become married, and who are priests “for ever according to the order of Melchizedek”.
Changes
Were the western part of the Catholic Church to change its position and permit men to become priests after marriage as some Eastern Catholic Churches do, or to permit priests to marry, we as the people of the Church would have to accept other changes too. If priesthood is to be a vocation which is exercised all the working week then we would have to fund priests in a much more generous way in their formation and in their ministry, for we would have to pay them enough to keep a wife and children.
We would also have to accept that their ministry would inevitably be limited by the obligations they have to their wives and children – they would become less accessible than many are at present, because they would have to attend to their other lives. We would not have the same ability as a Church to ask priests to move from parish to parish – the situation of their wives and children would have to be factored into any decision.
These are pragmatic issues. They are faced by many Christian churches. We need to be aware of them, but they are not a reason to preclude married priests, and indeed we currently face such situations in the cases of those priests who were originally Anglican and converted to Catholicism.
St John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, in 1992, wrote this: “Priests are called to prolong the presence of Christ…embodying his way of life, and making him visible in the midst of the flock entrusted to their care. In the Church and on behalf of the Church, priests are a sacramental representation of Jesus Christ, the head and shepherd, authoritatively proclaiming his word, repeating his acts of forgiveness and his offer of salvation particularly in baptism, penance and the Eucharist, showing his loving concern to the point of total gift of self for the flock which they gather into unity and lead to the Father through Christ and in the Spirit.”
It is this total giving of self which is the greatest challenge, just as it must have been for Jesus during his short ministry, and during those terrible days in Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion. The current debate on whether priesthood really demands that total gift of self seems to me to be a confused and limited one.
There is constant reference to homosexuality and the priesthood – as if the proportion of priests who are homosexual is an issue. Why should it be? What is demanded of each aspiring priest is that he is chaste. People of all sexual orientations are capable of chastity if they so choose. They are also capable of making the decision to enter into relationships, committed or otherwise.
We have seen comment too on clerics who have entered into relationships with women, and of other clerics who have established relationships with men. We have seen assertions that men are attracted to priesthood for all sorts of inappropriate reasons. These are reasons to ensure that those who seek to enter the priesthood should be supported during selection and in their human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation to discern “whether the Lord’s call is a true voice or not” (Pastores dabo vobis).
Ordination
After ordination they must also be supported, for promises made at the time of ordination, just as at the time of marriage, are promises made voluntarily, and, are predicated upon a willingness to act totally selflessly, yet neither marriage nor priesthood is easy: selflessness can be a challenge to all of us. Faithfulness, though, is possible.
It is the case too that whilst priests must abjure sexual relationships, they can have firm friends, men and women, who play a very important role in their lives, offering support and walking the journey of life with them. Those friendships, such as that between St John Paul and the Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, can enrich and enable a life of ministry lived very well.
Perhaps maturity is needed to ensure that those friendships do not become something they should not be, but is there something about cherishing and enabling relationships of a variety of kinds across the sexes, which is really not quite accepted in the context of priesthood, but which could and should be accepted?
Fundamental
Is there something even more fundamental in this debate which applies equally to those in marriage and those in priesthood? Is it what we understand by the promises we make, and what, we believe the promises demand of us in terms of constancy and faithfulness? For the Church does not just require chastity of its priests, it requires it of its married couples – that they remain faithful to one another for the rest of their lives.
We do recognise that sometimes people just cannot continue in the life to which they once felt called, and we can provide for those who find themselves in such situations.
However, is it possible that we need a different debate and a deeper understanding of priesthood, something which is understood by so many priests who value celibacy for what it enables them to do, notwithstanding the challenge it may present?
We should never minimise the effect of this call to be “least of all and servants of all”. Do we ever really think about what these men do for us, often working 50 and 60 years exclusively in our service and that of the Lord?
As the debate about priestly celibacy continues perhaps we need to re-frame the arguments and start by thinking what priesthood actually is.