Celibacy and The Pan- Amazon Synod

There are numerous Church fathers who affirm that the demand of perpetual continence for those in holy orders goes back to the Apostles themselves. The first papal decree on the subject is from 385 AD. Later councils and popes passed similar edicts,

and celibacy in the sense of not marrying at all became the preferred option for ensuring clerical chastity in the West. The decree of the Second Lateran Council in 1139 AD is the most well-known legislation for Latin rite priests, however it should be clear that this was not something novel but simply the reaffirmation and formalisation of a long-standing and well attested tradition.

 

 

These are the facts of the matter, but what are the spiritual motives for clerical celibacy? We know from the Gospels that St. Peter was married—he had a mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14–15)—yet his later exchange with The Lord indicates that the twelve no longer lived married lives after following him (Matthew 19:27) (3). Our Lord himself spoke of those who “make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God” (Mathew 19:1-12).

 

Jesus, who, of course, was and is celibate himself, told us that nobody marries in heaven (Matthew 22:30). Celibacy is, therefore, a prophetic sign of the heavenly life. As such, it is also a sign of contradiction, challenging the confusion over the meaning of love and sex in our fallen world. Edward Holloway, co-founder of Faith movement, thought that we should

not concentrate on this ‘eschatological’ value of celibacy but on priests participating in Jesus’ all inclusive and all-consuming love for God’s people in this world.

 

“Chastity is … a sign that sex is not love, nor an essential within love… However, it is not as a sign that Christ recommends it to us, but as a fact of life, a fact of the highest ‘natural’ perfection of human loving. Jesus Christ never knew the use of sex, but Christ is the perfection of all human love, as He is of human nature, and no love was ever more human or natural than the love of Christ. Indeed, as Son of Man, Christ is the norm of all human love, according to its vocation. In the language of older scholastic theology, sex as erotic function is ‘accidental’ to human loving. I would call it a ‘modality’ in human love, it defines one particular vocation of love. A priest, and even more a bishop, if he will be perfect, is called by Christ to live out Christ’s perfect human love, in Christ’s perfect modality of love, through the perfection of human consecration in love.” (Holloway) (4)

 

 

St. Paul, with his deep sense of evangelical urgency, encouraged celibacy as a Christian way of life, because those who stay unmarried are “concerned about the Lord’s affairs”, whereas in marriage our “interests are divided”(1Corinthians 7:32). Yet he was also clear that this is not because marriage or sexual union is somehow sinful (1Corinthians 7:28). In fact, it is from St. Paul too that we have the highest view of marriage as a sacramental imaging of the union between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:30-32).

 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313 – 386 AD) linked celibacy directly to the identity and mission of Jesus. As God made flesh, he is neither the product of sexual union nor a generator of new lives through bodily marriage. He belongs to all flesh as Spouse and Life-giver. St Cyril says specifically that “he who well fulfils the office of a priest of Jesus abstains from a wife” (5) because priesthood shares directly in the celibate ministry of Christ the Bridegroom of the Church. This same thought lies behind the traditional perception that a bishop, who is deemed to possess the fullness of holy order, is ‘married’ to his diocese.

 

 

Edward Holloway again weaves together practical and mystical themes in his typically existential and pastoral theology.

 

“[Celibacy] is the perfect consecration of our lives and energies to Christ and his Church. It is more than celibacy as utility, because it is the love which follows Christ with undivided mind and heart … It is impossible to be at all times and seasons at the beck and call of Christ in his People, unless you make Him and them the total object of your worrying your work, and your loving … You cannot have the people of God, and especially the young people coming to you at all times and seasons, with the perfect freedom of Christ, unless you are bound by a different sacramental bond to others … We belong only to God and his People.

 

“The vow of celibacy does not call us to emasculation, but to emancipation … it cannot be tied … to the demands of any one person, even within chastity … our loving is always tied to the demands and promptings of Christ, even when vocation calls for separation … This is chastity as consecration to Mission, to the Church as ‘Bride’, and it redounds into our earlier concept of total consecration - ‘he who can take it, let him take it’ (Mt 19:12).” (6)

 

 

Although history never exactly repeats itself, popular objections to celibacy are broadly speaking the same in every era—moral failures among the clergy would be avoided by ending celibacy; it would attract more candidates and resolve problems due to lack of priests; celibacy leaves priests out of touch with family life and relationships; it is simply ‘unfair’ or even ‘unnatural’ for a man to have to stay unmarried.

 

These misperceptions can all be countered. (7) Celibacy is not the cause of sexual scandals and abolishing it would not end them, as the Church of England, for example, is finding to its own cost. Neither is there evidence that it is celibacy that discourages vocations. General loss of faith and lack of solid Christian formation are the real root of the crisis and there is good evidence that where these defects are reversed vocations increase significantly. And the idea of celibacy being unnatural is answered by the insights discussed above. Is Jesus out of touch, frustrated in his humanity, and unable to love?

 

Synod

 

Nevertheless, there is renewed and increasing pressure in some quarters to make celibacy optional. There have always been exceptions to the norm in the Latin Rite and there are some today, such as with convert Anglicans and in the new Ordinariates. But in these cases, as also with the permanent diaconate, the ancient rule still applies: no marriage or re-marriage after ordination. Exceptions are precisely exceptions. The 1992 Synod of Bishops, having considered the issue, concluded:

 

“This synod strongly reaffirms what the Latin Church and some Oriental rites require, that is that the priesthood be conferred only on those men who have received from God the gift of the vocation to celibate chastity (without prejudice to the tradition of some Oriental churches and particular cases of married clergy who convert to Catholicism, which are admitted as exceptions in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on priestly celibacy, no. 42). The synod does not wish to leave any doubts in the mind of anyone regarding the Church’s firm will to maintain the law that demands perpetual and freely chosen celibacy for present and future candidates for priestly ordination in the Latin rite”. (8)

 

 

Citing this clear commitment in his Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, St. John Paul II added the key theological insight already mentioned, that ordination “configures the priest to Jesus Christ the Head and Spouse of the Church … The Church, as the Spouse of Jesus Christ, wishes to be loved by the priest in the total and exclusive manner in which Jesus Christ her Head and Spouse loved her”. (9) While acknowledging that celibacy “is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood” (10), John Paul II nonetheless taught that that it “enters, so to speak, into the logic of [priestly] consecration.” (11)

 

Despite this, the subject was brought up again at the eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2005. (12) Lack of priests in some areas, they argued, could be solved by ordaining “viri probati” (13), by which they meant married men from the local community. This was rejected by Pope Benedict XVI. Yet now the possibility of ordaining such viri probati has been put on the agenda of a forthcoming synod of South American bishops to be held in Brazil in October 2019.