Why should priests be celibate?

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Aside from the practical issues of integrating married priests back into a culture/ tradition that has had single, celibate priests for hundreds of years at this point - which would also mean we’d have to deal with priests who get divorced, priests whose wives or kids are “problematic”, and the cost of supporting the families of priests while the priest has less time for his parishioners due to needing to spend more time with family…

I have reservations about ordaining any guy as a priest who’s not able to make the sacrifice of having a wife and having sexual relations. Plenty of guys have managed to make this sacrifice, successfully, for hundreds of years, and it didn’t kill them and many of them had fulfilling lives and careers. We also now have the clergy position of deacon for men who wish to serve but also wish to be married. And the biggest growth in vocations is coming from the traditional young men who do not WANT to be married priests. It sounds like the return to tradition is actually what’s going to get us more and better priests, not relaxing the discipline of celibacy to let priests have wives with all the attendant issues that will come along with that.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
We also now have the clergy position of deacon for men who wish to serve but also wish to be married. And the biggest growth in vocations is coming from the traditional young men who do not WANT to be married priests.
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Hi Bear…on this point I’d actually say the biggest growth in Catholic vocations (or Catholic clergy) is coming from married men. In depends on how one defines vocations of course. There were ~2,700 Deacons in 1975 and there are ~45,600 Deacons in 2017 40% of which are in the US. There would certainly be desire among married men to play an even bigger clerical role…i.e. a priest. I agree there are many details to work out such as how to handle divorce, salary, and problematic children. These issues can be worked out though.

 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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And the biggest growth in vocations is coming from the traditional young men who do not WANT to be married priests. It sounds like the return to tradition
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Celibate priesthood is a tradition, not the whole of it. (or more accurately, it is a discipline)
 
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Nor did I say they do. Catholic homosexuals are called to life long chastity, of course, so living with a man as a gay Catholic certainly has not historically brought family and community approval.

Being a priest among other gay priests enabled such men to openly have live-in gay relationships while sidestepping such disapproval.

As another poster pointed out, gay men are more likely today to just be out about their sexuality. Most just leave the church now. Unfortunate, but there hasn’t been the best example on the whole made by predatory gay clergy. And no, I am not claiming gay people are all predators…just way too many gay men in the priesthood.

For me, as a woman, I hear the practical arguments against permitting marriage and they are ridiculous. For example, the argument that people get divorced. Well, a whole lot of people don’t. People also leave vocations for lasting marriages. What’s the point? Celibacy fails for half those in it and so does marriage.

Or the “what if he has to attend to an emergency?” argument. Women aren’t children who cannot be left alone. Many other aspects of being married to clergy fortify a marriage, not the least of which is the connection and focus of man and family on the Church. Should we discount that?

Or the “married men abuse, too”. True, and they are often caught and reported by their wives. They aren’t able to hide the behaviour by living alone or among fellow predators, so are less likely to serially molest many, many victims. Has the church determined women are not a protective, nurturing influence over children?

At least part of the clinging to required celibacy, I believe, is that current priests had to accept this vow to answer the call to the priesthood and it may feel unfair to excuse new priests from this very difficult requirement.

Sadly, some want to preserve the gay society they have created in their own community of priests. Of course, not all priests are gay, but an awful lot are. It has less to do with spiritual or practical reasons and more to do with keep straight married men and women out of the gay priest club.

How is it evil and abhorrent for a man in priesthood to have a normal, healthy sexual relationship within context of Catholic marriage, but we will just live with gay relationships and illicit sexual behaviors, straight and gay, including predation, among priests.? It is quite the insult to good Catholic women.

The highest divorce rate is among architects. Should we ask them to be celibate?
 
I meant vocations to the priesthood. I’m not convinced that every man who wants to be a deacon would be rushing to be a priest if the option was available. For one thing, the priesthood is a full-time job. The deacons I know all have a main career and for many of them it is secular and well-paying. Not sure how many guys would want to switch from being an engineer to a priest with the accompanying salary drop. Not sure how many wives would be on board with that either, especially if children were involved.

For another thing, at least some of the deacons I’ve known specifically felt called to serve as deacons, and saw that role as being different from that of a priest. They spend more time counseling people and preaching, and less time administering the parish and administering the sacraments.
 
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goout said:
Celibate priesthood is a tradition, not the whole of it. (or more accurately, it is a discipline)
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Yes, I’m aware there was a tradition in the early church that priests could be married, for several hundred years.
It’s pretty clear that I’m referring to “tradition” in the sense of Cardinal Sarah (see the other thread on his new book) and every other current “traditionalist” priest out there who thinks married priesthood is not a good idea.
This is coming from them. It’s not coming from me personally. I’ll be the first one to state that I have absolutely zero control over this.
 
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pete_bowes said:
Jesus picked Simon known as Peter … and cured his mother-in-law of fever.
St Mark 1 29-39
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For clarity

Priestly celibacy is a discipline (NOT dogma, NOT doctrine) a discipline, in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church… following the example of Jesus being celibate.

However

The Eastern rites of the Catholic Church don’t have that discipline. Their priests can marry.

All rites in the Catholic Church are 100% Catholic.

And should the question come up

the Latin rite is the biggest rite in the Catholic Church. ~98% of the total number of Catholics Eastern Catholic Churches | Catholics & Cultures in the world are Latin rite
 
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I suggest this video from Catholic Faith Network (which is from the Diocese of Rockville Center - Long Island, NY). It’s hardly EWTN, but the bishop in this video does a good defense of the celibate priesthood starting at minute 14.
 
Based on my own experience, I have not found evidence celibacy is related to sex abuse.

Does it increase the percentage of gays in the priesthood, or the “networking” of gay priests or bishops? I think there may be a gay network but there may be stronger gay networks in other areas outside the Church, with no celibacy.

But there are some other, mildly strong reasons for reconsidering this discipline. Don’t make major changes in the middle of a crisis. But definitely consider.

What I feel ignorant about is experience of married clergy in their home countries. Here in the US, Eastern parishes (and Ordinariate) tend to measure in the dozens of families. How does the married clergy work out in Lebanon, Ukraine, other areas where they are the local, geographic diocese?

What are some ways their wives support them? I suspect there are hidden strengths here that I do not know about.
 
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Kindnessmatters said:
I do believe a lot of this nonsense would have been stopped short if a priest’s wife were at the rectory.
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Except it wouldn’t unless marriage was the new mandatory requrement otherwise they can still choose to be celibate and make things favorable to their plans.
 
Kindnessmatters said:
I do believe a lot of this nonsense would have been stopped short if a priest’s wife were at the rectory.
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I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but Jerry Sandusky’s wife didn’t stop him, and neither did the wives of a lot of other married guys out there who were committing sexual abuse, sometimes on the couple’s very own children.

Very often the wives are in denial that their husband is doing anything wrong. Especially if reporting him will hurt his career and remove the family’s social standing or source of income.
 
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We are called to be common sense people.
We have a serious problem in clerical life. Does anyone dispute this…

When you have a problem, you take steps to solve it. That’s the Christian way. All legitimate options need to be considered. If you are not considering all legitimate options, you get second best solutions to problems.

The problems we have in clerical life are a stew of factors. One of those factors is celibacy. Power is a factor. Power in itself is a good thing, or at least neutral. Celibacy in itself is a good thing. Taken as part of a stew it can be part of a stew that leads to abuse.

I don’t think it’s our Christian call to sit on our traditional bias at the expense of getting the best solution to problems. Is allowing married clergy a panacea? No. But I think we are irresponsible fools to reflexively dismiss it.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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Kindnessmatters:
I do believe a lot of this nonsense would have been stopped short if a priest’s wife were at the rectory.
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I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but Jerry Sandusky’s wife didn’t stop him, and neither did the wives of a lot of other married guys out there who were committing sexual abuse, sometimes on the couple’s very own children.

Very often the wives are in denial that their husband is doing anything wrong. Especially if reporting him will hurt his career and remove the family’s social standing or source of income.
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This is true. The denial is usually for psychological reasons. Predators find the kind of wife who will deny. Men who have sexual issues bring disaster into marriages. The marriage is not a protection factor for abuse of children or adults.

Jerry Sandusky and his wife likely lived near, and worked alongside many Husbands and wives, in workplace, neighborhood, extended family, church, etc. Some married women knew them quite well.
 
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Many would be married, many would not. Let’s not be silly.
 
Exceptions are not the rule. A great many predators are turned in by wives and girlfriends. Ask any divorce attorney.
 
commenter said:
But there are some other, mildly strong reasons for reconsidering this discipline. Don’t make major changes in the middle of a crisis. But definitely consider.
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If it were just the abuse crisis that were motivating change to the clerical celibacy requirement, I’d say you’d be correct. Don’t make a change. I agree that the relationship between clerical abuse and celibacy is indirect at best. Because of the great need for celibate priests, there were not the appropriate psychological checks needed years ago perhaps. Perhaps a priest having a relationship with another adult was less likely to report abuse for fear of retaliation. Maybe…?

This stuff isn’t the reason to change clerical celibacy though. The reason to change clerical celibacy is the long slow decline of priests per Catholics worldwide and in specific regions. This isn’t a crisis in the normal sense.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
But you could also argue, no celibacy → more people become priests → workload of priests spread over more shoulders → less pressure on individual priests → priests have more time off and are thus able to filfill matrimonial and family duties.
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Two thoughts here.
One, the Roman Rite is the only rite with mandatory celibacy. How are the other rites doing for vocations? I don’t think they’re any better off than we are.
Two, if you lower the standard then you get less qualified applicants. When you start to attract less qualified applicants then the more qualified won’t apply.
 
I have to question the motives behind the sudden interest in ending the celibacy requirement. Perhaps in a very few places in the world it might make a difference in vocations, but not many. Places that have turned the corner on vocations (ours have been ticking up for a while) seem to have done so by a return to more traditional Catholicism. I
There is no evidence it would solve the abuse problem.

Why now?
 
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