Is religious life a holier vocation than marriage?

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There’s a difference between not having a vocation and scandalizing your vocation by sinful behavior. Many abusive priests and religious are very spiritual and effective at what they do, with an extreme fatal flaw.
 
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Someone without a calling to a particular vocation can still enter into that vocation. Free will exists. God will not strike someone dead before they can do it, and vocations and seminary directors are just men who can make mistakes.
 
Okay, I’ll admit the remote possibility, but I still contend that it is vanishingly difficult to get all the way to priestly ordination or perpetual solemn vows without being kicked out. Vocations from God emanate through the Church as His instrument.

What do you call it when someone who actually has no vocation is ordained or takes vows? I think you’re setting up for a “No True Scotsman” here, frankly.
 
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The problem of this (regularly asked and answered) thread [use the search feature to find many instances of it], is that it belies the wrong question.

We shouldn’t ask “what vocation is highest,” but rather “what vocation does Christ call ME to?”

If He wants you to be a nun, that is YOUR highest calling.

If he wants you to be a husband / father, that is YOUR highest calling.

Louis and Zelie Martin were called to be married. He would have been a good priest, she would have been a good nun; but Christ called them to marriage - and gave us Therese the Little Flower, Doctor of the Church, and patroness of missionaries as the fruit of their love.
Guess what? All three of them are canonized Saints.
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Don’t make the mistake of thinking marriage is lower than consecrated life or sacred orders.

Without marriage there is no Church - no children to replenish members, no children to consecrate their lives to the evangelical counsels, no children to receive sacred orders.

Seek to do what Christ our True God asks of you,
Deacon Christopher
 
While true, that seems like relativism, and doesn’t answer the question. The traditional teaching is that celibacy is a higher and nobler calling than marriage, objectively. That may not be infallible and so your dissent may be appropriate, but it is traditional.
 
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Anesti33 said:
While true, that seems like relativism, and doesn’t answer the question. The traditional teaching is that celibacy is a higher and nobler calling than marriage, objectively.
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I still don’t see any reason why it should be - if celibacy can produce saints, and marriage can produce saints (through the daily martyrdom of selfish desires for the good of our families), then how is one yet higher than the other? What makes it so?

Same as above - what makes celibacy more holy than marriage? They’re both “tools” that exist to make saints. It’s like saying the violin is holier than the flute - when each is used by the person that God called to play them, they can both make beautiful music
 
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So people who are married can never have complete dedication to God? What about the Virgin Mary? She was a mother of a family and wife.
 
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Complete dedication to God is what St. Paul tells us.
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So people who are married can never have complete dedication to God? What about the Virgin Mary? She was a mother of a family and wife.
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She remained a virgin.
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What about the married saints who were not virgins - would you say they didn’t have complete dedication to God because they were married?

And yes, I’ve read that passage, but I don’t think it concludes celibacy as a life path is holier than marriage. It certainly says that if it’s possible for a man, the better course would be not to touch a woman, but that doesn’t mean those who do are in a lesser calling. We can agree to disagree though.
 
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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. Whether alone or married, both have to prepare for the Kingdom of God equally well, so I don’t see a reason why the celibate is more prized. But again agreeing to disagree here.
 
Is it? 🙂
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Definitely, by nature of the office.
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I disagree with you. Also, I’m tempted to ask you to rank these 7 callings by level of holiness:
  • Bishop
  • Doctor
  • Electrician
  • Mother
  • Teacher
  • Janitor
  • Grocery store cashier
 
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There is a reason they are called “consecrated” religious. That is the definition of holiness.

I think one aspect of it is that a celibate person’s secondary responsibility is the Church. A married person’s secondary responsibility is to his spouse. Of course anyone’s primary responsibility is to God. But Jesus himself has much to say about hating father and mother, and who his mother and his brothers are. I don’t think we can easily ignore those direct Scriptural teachings, and of course Jesus’ own state in life.
 
Now I’m extremely curious - what was your reasoning for ranking them the way you did - what criteria?

I think Paul’s preference is for the unmarried state, but he also knows this is a “gift from God” (1 Cor 7:7). Also, at this time Paul was expecting an imminent end to the age and return of Christ: “The time is short” (I Cor 7:29), so it would’ve been good to “get one’s house in order”, so to speak.
 
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The issue I have is that everyone has to dedicate themselves completely to God - your own patron (Saint John Chrysostom) said: “the difference between [monk and layman] is that one is married and the other is not; in all other respects they will have to render the same account.” Some choose to do this through martyrdom of their selfish desires for their spouses/children - but the Church doesn’t ask less of them than they do of monks, so to me they are equal callings because they have equal requirements for the same equal end (perfection). But we can agree to disagree.
 
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Let me give you a practical example. Do not Orthodox Christians venerate priests as one would venerate an icon of Christ? Do not Orthodox Christians honour monks with the title Father?
This is true even when the lay Christian is holier than the priest or monk in question. This is true even when the priest or monk is lacking in holiness. The vocation itself is elevated and demands reverence… which is a separate issue from personal holiness.
 
twf said:
The vocation itself is elevated and demands reverence… which is a separate issue from personal holiness.
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Yes, excellent. This is what I should have said. A bishop isn’t inherently holier than a janitor or vice versa, but the vocation of the bishop is nonetheless elevated. Celibacy is also more elevated than the married state.
 
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A married person serves his family and the Church. A celibate person serves the Church alone. The Church and religious institute is his family. A married person’s family might be non-Catholic, non-Christian. A celibate person’s family is 100% Catholic, and in the case of clergy, part of the governing hierarchy. That’s the sublimity of celibacy for the Kingdom.
 
Only if it’s yours. If you live your vocation then it’s the holiest…if you try to live someone else’s then it’s not. That is, if you are called by God to marriage and you ignore that and go into religious life then that not very holy at all, likewise if you are called to religious life and ignore the call and marry. That’s why discernment is so important. Doing God’s will is paramount.
Saying that though if you make a mistake you can ask for Gods mercy and he will make another way for you.
 
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