Get Rid of the Celibacy Requirement

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Way back, celibacy was encouraged to protect Church property, but that is no longer necessary.

Current church teaching sees celibacy as a gift that God bestows on those who are called to the priesthood. Among the church’s arguments in defense of celibacy is the example of Jesus, which must be reflected in the life of a priest. Through celibacy the priest mirrors the love that Christ has for all, a love that the priest, unattached to spouse and children, can also extend.

uscatholic.org

Why are priests celibate?

Technically, celibacy is the commitment not to marry. In the Latin (Roman) Catholic Church, it is a prerequisite for ordination to the priesthood.
uscatholic.org uscatholic.org

If a man cannot remain celibate and extend that kind of love to his congregation, I don’t think he’s right for the priesthood.

I would not want a priest who divides his love and his time.
 
Marriage does not save anyone from sexual disorders such as porn addiction or pedophilia nor is celibacy a cause of those disorders.
 
Sarcelle said:
Marriage does not save anyone from sexual disorders such as porn addiction or pedophilia nor is celibacy a cause of those disorders.
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The Church could see divorced priests applying for annulments. That would be strange.
 
Not very helpful. “I don’t want to tell you” would have been as useful.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Not very helpful. “I don’t want to tell you” would have been as useful.
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I’m not going to flip through 900 pages to give you the exact page! Since you’re discussing it, I assumed you had all the facts. My apologies.
 
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No big deal. I doubt you read the 900 page report but got the information from some secondary source. But never mind.
 
Ridgerunner said:
No big deal. I doubt you read the 900 page report but got the information from some secondary source. But never mind.
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No, I actually read the report because I was on a long airplane flight. I admit, that was the only reason I read it all, but I did read it. I really haven’t read any secondary sources. No need to.
 
CampionTheChampion said:
Make celibacy optional for the priesthood to prevent another sexual abuse crisis. Not because celibacy produces sexual abusers, but because it shrinks the pool of men the Church can draw priests from.
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Doesn’t meaningfully address abuse. Married men are just as likely to abuse.
CampionTheChampion said:
If 1 in 100 men are called to celibacy, then opening the Roman rite to non-celibate men should increase priest vocations 100-fold.
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The math doesn’t work. Priests have never been permitted to marry, only to be ordained when already married.

A father would have to go through formation while raising a family, or wait until the children are grown. This does not boost the potential pool of priests significantly.

Only single men willing answer the call to service could supply sufficient priests.
CampionTheChampion said:
The more numerous priests are the more expendable perverted priests are.
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Perverted priests are 100% expendable. The crisis occurred when preists were far more plentiful and subject to far less scrutiny.
 
I’m noticing a lot of cherry picking. “Sure, Jesus was celibate and Paul taught that it was good, but Peter had a wife!”

Do you willfully ignore the reasons Paul gave for remaining celibate, or is that just an unfortunate side effect? Nevermind the fact that Peter was married before receiving his call to become an apostle- and isn’t it Saint Paul also who says that if a man has a wife, he shouldn’t seek to leave her? Peter’s call by Jesus wasn’t an invitation to abandon his already-established family- and would one go as far as to say that Jesus chose Peter to shepherd His Church because he was married?

Paul recommends celibacy so that priests can dedicate their lives to the service of God. Why couldn’t a married man fully dedicate himself? Because he worries about earthly things, how to please his wife. And if the couple has children, he must then find a way to balance his full time job (which isn’t limited to 40 hours a week) with being an earthly father. And Paul seeks to spare us from this.

I’m finishing my undergraduate degree and entering seminary, if the Church will have me. No one here has any idea how much I desire to have a wife and children, yet it’s something that I didn’t desire until around the time I began my discernment. Who here wishes to know what I said to the vocation director when I last saw him?

“I desire earthly fatherhood, but I want to sacrifice that for the Church” It’s not just that I’m willing to give it up, but that I desire to- and some will hold onto this and say, “Maybe you want to, but not necessarily others”. And to them I say, “Why should we want men to offer sacrifice on our behalf when they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves whole and entire?”

And this I don’t say to married converts who’ve been raised to the priesthood, who heard their call to marriage before their call to Catholicism just as Peter did- but I say it to those who probably have no interest in or lack the ability to be priests, only considering marriage a means of eliminating abuse.
 
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In that he does not have children to care for they may have allowed for that.

This information comes from a converted Anglican priest who has a family and he said that the bishop informed him of this up front when he requested to be considered for formation.
 
Brendan said:
You mean a widower such as St. Peter.
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I thought his wife accompanied St. Peter on his missions. This means she was alive. 1Cor 9:5 Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
 
StandUp4Truth said:
It’s a shame that we have to rely on missionary priests from other countries
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I see no shame in it. It is a matter of demographics. Europe is leading America in secularization, but not by a lot. Americans do not believe in God, Truth, or morality as much as in the past. The shortage of priests is not caused by celibacy, but secular humanism and rationalism.
 
The shame is that the US was once a country which sent missionaries to save souls in other countries, now other countries are sending missionaries to the US in order to save souls - EVERY US Catholic should be ashamed that this has become necessary!

I disagree with your point that celibacy isn’t causing the priest shortage, because I am living proof that many young Catholic men must choose between becoming a priest OR getting married. If that “OR” were changed into an “AND”, I and many others (many, many deacons) would be priests. Enough to overcome the shortage? Hard to know unless we try.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think celibacy is the SOLE cause of the priest shortage, but I think it’s undeniable that it is a contributing factor (in addition to many others).

There are a lot of people here throwing stones at proposed solutions without offering any of their own, so I hope you remember this when your local Church has to cut back on Masses or close its doors entirely someday - this is where the “no change” mindset is going to take us.

I read the same arguments against removing the celibacy requirement a decade ago here on CAF, and since that time many churches have closed their doors while US Catholics were all told to “pray more for vocations”. Since that time, the crisis has only worsened.

For many, having their local parish closed is the spiritual equivalent of being “left for dead” (especially for the elderly or mobility impaired). The Church MUST do something to address this problem or many souls will be lost.
 
Agreed. A real effort at catechesis would help, but it’s sorely lacking.
 
StandUp4Truth said:
I disagree with your point that celibacy isn’t causing the priest shortage, because I am living proof that many young Catholic men must choose between becoming a priest OR getting married. If that “OR” were changed into an “AND”, I and many others (many, many deacons) would be priests
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That may well be true for you. Not disputing it. But I don’t think that’s generally true. Being a priest is, to my understanding, extremely demanding if one does it well. So is being a good husband and father. I raised five children and I don’t see how on this earth I could have worked in any kind of priestly duties. Keep in mind, there’s no certainty the Church could afford to support priests with families. I realize Byzantine and Orthodox priests can marry. But they also have to work at jobs to support themselves and their families, and they do.

So their time to function as priests is pretty limited. In those churches, they also have a celibate clergy.

But there also has to be the desire. Not at any time in my life did I ever want to be anything other than a husband and father. I have no desire at all to be a priest. I don’t know how many married men do.
 
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AlNg said:
This means she was alive. 1Cor 9:5 Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
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You are working off of an incomplete translation
The key Greek words in 1 Corinthians 9:5 are " adelphaen gunaika ." The first means “sister,” and the second can be translated as either “woman” or “wife.” This means the phrase translates as “sister woman” or “sister wife,” with “sister” indicating not a biological but a spiritual relationship. It would make sense for the apostles to be accompanied by “sister women” who could assist them in ministering to women—for example, at full-immersion baptisms, where a question of modesty could arise, or in cases where it would be more appropriate for a woman to perform a charitable or catechetical function.

 
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I agree that being a good priest can be very time consuming, but maybe that’s because our priests today are forced to do the work of 3+ priests?
With more priests, it would be easier to share the burden, so many of the old limitations may not apply.

Many men who become deacons are already financially established with good careers and do not rely on the Church for housing and food - married priests could function the same way.

By the way, there are already married priests in the Roman Rite, there are even some who have left the Church, became married Anglican ministers, then rejoined the Church as married priests. How is this allowed when loyal Catholics who remain in the faith are denied the possibility of combining marriage and the priesthood, does anyone else believe this is inconsistent?

We have churches in the rural USA with enough funding to stay open for years and enough parishioners to pay the bills, but they are still being closed due to a lack of priests. Many faithful Catholics will no longer enable to receive their basic sacraments, and the Church is abandoning them.
As I’ve said before, I think many of these Catholics would welcome a married priest if the alternative is no priest at all.
 
Why aren’t all of these married men desiring to become priests entering the Eastern churches?
 
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