I’m posting on a separate block, because I don’t want to delete what OTJM wrote, just to make room for my comments.
I don’t have a horse in this race, because I belong to a religious order. Even if married men could become priests, they cannot become religious and I’m a religious. I think I can speak about this without having an agenda of my own.
Celibacy has always been a prized posession of the Church, both in the east and the west. Let’s not assume that every Eastern Catholic or Orthodox is married. Many are not. And they are not religious. They are secular priests who live celibate lives. They do not belong to any religious order. Even the Eastern Churches and the Eastern Fathers have praised the value of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. Celibacy dates back to the time of the apostles. We know for a fact that Paul, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist were celibate. Pual and John the Evangelist were not religious. John the Baptist was a hermit, probably a member of the group that later evolved into the Carmelites. But we’re not sure. But he lived a consecrated life. That’s my point.
Paul did push celibacy in the early Church. John doesn’t mention it. But Paul also pushes marriage for those who can’t contain themselves as celibate men or women. The discipline of celibacy, as we can see from John the Baptist and is followers, predates Jesus Christ. Celibacy was handed down to us by our Jewish forefathers. It has always been part of salvation history. We see Mary and Joseph living within a celibate marriage. If we’re looking for the importance to celibacy, it lies in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was always highly preferred as a sign of complete surrender to the work of God. In religious orders it takes on a new character. Not only is it a sign of a surrender to the work of God, but as Paul speaks, it is a consecration of one’s life, regardless of what work one does. There is the difference in celibacy between a secular man or woman and celibacy in a religious man or woman. The religious person’s life is consecrated to Christ. Therefore, he or she espouses Christ. So that celibacy is really the absence of a human spouse, because the human spouse is replaced by the Divine spouse, for both male and female relgious: brothers and sisters. Priests who belong to religious communities that make a vow of chastity are really religious brothers who happen to be ordained. Women religious cannot be ordained for obvious reasons.
As to secular priests, the Church in the west took its cue from the ancient tradtion. By the time that celibacy is fully integrated into the law of the Church for secular men who want to be priests, it was already in practice by many secular men. What the western Church did was to make a discipline out of what was already in practice. She made this discipline applicable to all members of the western secular clergy. Remember, she was only speaking to seculars, not to religious. They already had solemn vows of chastity.
In other words, the Church took an existing tradition that had been handed down to us from Judaism, through Mary, through Christ, and throug the apostles and made it law. The Church believed that this was a way to achieve salvation, not for the community, but for the priest and bishop. The reason that it became a discipline in the Roman Church was as a means to help priests secure their salvation just as those who came before them had done.
This does not cast any shadows on the married priests in the Eastern Churches, because the Eastern Churches also promote celibacy as a means to achieve salvation. The difference is that they do not mandate it. One can raise the question, should the Western Churches continue to mandate it? But it is important to know where it came from and what the Church’s goal was before one begins to throw stones.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
He is aware of my Irish banter but i guess he can see the priest that i strive to be and the human person i am. I only run a dept in the seminary but I must be careful especially when their is conclaves or is it converts around. Kind Regards Fr Anthony
We’re starting “Why Catholic?” tomorrow night in our home.
I guess I should have read before writing. If you gave me an opportunity to argue about the sky being blue are purple I’d probably jump on the green side. And I do believe I got bent over something like my father would. He was very Traditional Catholic. I have tendencies to be so myself. So anything out of the norm gets me bent. My wife would abandon this faith if these kinds of things happened, so part of me is trying to hold this world together for her. She loves the celibate priesthood which is very new to her. She argues against my thoughts and feeling about a married priesthood, which I am not largely for but would like to see more - but maybe for the wrong reasons. I prefer celibate religious like our pastor. To me a priest that doesn’t make a real sacrifice is not making much of a sacrifice. I knew priests that were very wealthy.