The Eastern churches and the Western church agree that there is an affinity between celibacy and the priesthood. The episcopal office is the fullness of the priesthood, and in all Eastern churches only celibates can be consecrated bishops.
The question is whether only celibates should be ordained to the priesthood. The Western church makes an exception and ordains some married men (former Anglican priests and Protestant ministers).
The call to celibacy is distinct from the call to orders. Newman, even when he was an Anglican, felt called to celibacy. The theory is that men are called to celibacy and the church chooses some of them to be priests. The reality is different: men feel called to the priesthood, and accept celibacy more or less willingly as part of the bargain.
A celibate priesthood creates problems; so does a married priesthood. The trials of ministers’ families are well known in the United States. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a priest and have several rebellious teenagers to supervise? Paul said that a bishop should be a man who can govern his own household well; Paul was celibate.
There is also the difficulty in combining a married and celibate priesthood in the same church. My understanding is that in the Orthodox churches celibates who are not monks are not assigned to parish duties. They live in the bishop’s household so that they have a community to support them.
From a biblical perspective, the best thing you can say about the Catholic tradition of linking celibacy to the priesthood is that you can almost just barely justify it — with great effort. You would never get the idea from Scripture alone.
But you nailed it here — “The reality is different: men feel called to the priesthood, and accept celibacy more or less willingly as part of the bargain.”
Right, and several questions flow from that.
1. Is the church wise to put such a barrier in the way of men who are called to the priesthood?
2. Does the church have the right to put such a barrier in the way of men who are called to the priesthood?
3. What is the status of a man’s sense of “call” to the priesthood, and how does it stack up against the claims that the church has in supporting its rules?
IOW, the man has (rightly or wrongly who can say?) an immediate (un-mediated) sense that God Himself is calling him to the priesthood. The church is an obstacle. Why should the man allow the church to get in his way?
If I, as a married man, felt (1) a call to the priesthood and (2) a desire to be Roman Catholic, I would seek ordination elsewhere (maybe in the Episcopal church) and then convert.
If the church is going to play silly games, people should have the courage to play them.
Very, very well put, Crowhill. Your clear logic breaks through a lot of the muddled and sentimental thinking on the subject. However, I don’t think any church would allow you to join them to be ordained, just so you could convert to another faith.
Crowhill: “You would never get the idea from Scripture alone.” Really? The Blessed Mother was a celibate. St Joseph (by tradition) was a celibate. Christ was a celibate. John the Baptist was a celibate. John the evangelist was a celibate. Paul was a celibate, and Paul himself taught that celibacy was a great calling. ALL religious priests are celibate.
A priestly vocation is not something one decides for oneself. Just as a woman has to accept a man who wants to marry her, the Church has to accept the man who wants to be ordained, and this is confirmation of God’s call.
Joseph D’Hippolito: Crowhill’s logic only makes sense if you are a Cartesian or a Protestant and believe that the call to the priesthood is SELF-validating; to wit: “I think, therefore I am.” However, there is the additional premise, which is that Christ gave to the Church the power to determine the conditions for priesthood. Thus the logic should be: “I think AND the Church concurs, therefore, I am.” The Church has long taught that there is Baptism of desire, but it has NEVER taught or suggested that there is a vocation of desire, simply speaking. Nor does the Church play a silly game when it seeks to determine the conditions under which there is a ministry to the Common Good the Church. The priest is not a private person, he is a public minister. Crowhill’s criticism should have been pointed at Henry VIII or Cramner.
St. Joseph was celibate according to one stream of tradition. According to another stream he was widowed and had four sons and two daughters. The second tradition is more widely accepted in the east.
I believe that Our Lady was ever virgen, but you might have a bit of a time convincing a Proestant of this using scripture alone. The belief is part of the Church’s ancient tradition.
Rick, what Crowhill said was that you cannot get the “tradition of linking celibacy to the priesthood” from scripture alone, and I think he is absolutely right.
Paul lays out the scriptural requirements for Christian clergy in his letters to Timothy and Titus; there he says that priests and bishops under the New Covenant should be “the husband of one wife” and must manage their own households well; children are specifically mentioned. How do you get from there to a requirement that priests be celibate? I don’t think it can be done.
As for the examples you give, few if any of them are relevant.
Mary may have been celibate, but she was not a priest–nor, in the very nature of things, could she have been (at least if JP2 and Benedict are right about women’s ordination), so her example has nothing whatever to do with the issue.
Joseph was presumably celibate during his marriage to Mary; but the tradition that he was a lifetime celibate is countered by another tradition, at least as ancient and arguably more reliable, that he was a widower and that at least some of Jesus’ “brothers” were Joseph’s children by that previous marriage. And in any case Joseph was not a priest–he was ineligible for priesthood under the Old Covenant because he was of the house of David, and he was ineligible for priesthood under the New Covenant because he died before that priesthood was even inaugurated.
John the Baptist was indeed a priest and *may* have been celibate (as far as I know we have no reliable information on this point). But his priesthood was in the line of Aaron, not Melchizedek, and in general the Aaronide priesthood did not practice celibacy–so if the Jewish priesthood is to be counted as evidence at all, it counts against clerical celibacy, not for it.
Christ was indeed celibate, but he could also walk on water, multiply loaves and fishes, and raise the dead–so I’m not sure that his example in this regard can be taken as a behavioral norm for anyone else.
John the Evangelist probably was a priest of the New Covenant (depending on which of the Fathers you believe on this point, and whether you take him to be the same person as John the Apostle–an assumption which many modern biblical scholars would seriously question). But as far as I can tell, scripture simply gives us no information on his marital status one way or the other.
With Paul you may actually have a case–but then Paul is the one who laid down the “husband of one wife” rule for priests and bishops, so he’s not much help either.
As for “all religious priests” being celibate, the distinction between “religious priests” and “secular priests” is completely unknown to the scriptures, whether Old Testament or New, so I don’t see how that’s relevant to the discussion at all.
Rick, St. Peter was married.
In the OT, none of the priests was encouraged to remain celibate.
People can play games concerning who was and wasn’t celibate in Scripture. The people whom you mention chose to become celibate; it was not forced upon them by any higher institutional authority (and, no, Rick, God is not an “institutional” anything). Crowhill’s questions still stand: Is any church wise, and does any church have the right, to force celibacy upon those who discern a calling to be priests?
Sardath et al. The notable feature of the Church in biblical times is the number of celibates or virgins who had such a prominent position, in the context of the Jewish culture where celibacy was extremely rare. Celibacy was not a distinguishing feature between Jew and Christian and it certainly was not a feature of the Jewish priesthood, but it is notable for its prominence among the Christians. This prominence certainly influenced the desert fathers–all celibates– who, as is widely recognized, set the foundation for the evolution of monastic life and the religious celibate. As to the fact that Christ could perform miracles, so does the priest every time he consecrates the species at Mass. As an instrument of the Lord, the priest has a grace of office that makes things possible for him that are not possible to those who do not exercise the office. My point on St Joseph stands as stated–he is universally believed (except perhaps by contemporary biblical scholars) to have been a celibate once he was betrothed to Mary. The Roman Church is an institution instituted (there’s that word again) by Christ. It forces celibacy on no one. The man is free to choose between celibacy as a priest, and non-celibacy as a layman. The Church sets forth a condition for priesthood, that is all.
Rick — there is no question that the New Testament promotes celibacy. It would be silly to deny that.
However, it’s also quite clear that priests were to be “family men” — “husband of one wife, having children who believe,” etc.
So what you can’t get from Scripture is the idea that celibacy and ministerial office should be joined together.
Crowhill: I agree that the historical link between celibacy and the priesthood is not forthcoming in the Gospels. However, there is an inescapable logical link between celibacy and priestly function in the person of Christ, who is the ultimate high priest. Further, the missionary character of Christianity provides a practical framework in support of priestly celibacy as a discipline. However, the missionary feature of Christianity—a feature not belonging to the Jews—suggests a recommendation against the anchoring feature of marriage, the stability of tribe and profession, and those things that were foremost in Jewish life. The celibate Christ “did not have a place to rest his head” who left his village, only rarely to return, and “who was not accepted as a prophet in his own town”, and who left his family to spread the Gospel. The fact that Christ himself ordained mostly married men at the Last Supper, reaffirms the historical connection between priesthood and marriage, but the linkage from a logical perspective seems accidental. And the fact that so many of the Church Fathers were celibates, further accentuates the logical connection between missionary, priest, and celibate.
Rick, the reality is that most diocesan pastors can look forward to spending several years (6 is the norm) in a given parish, and when moved will not have to travel more than a hundred miles. In times past, many if not most pastors spent 10 to 20 years (or longer) in a parish. Only priest members of certain religious orders travel about in the missionary manner. I see the link betwen priesthood and celibacy (though it’s not essential to the priesthood) and embrace it. I do not, as a diocesan parish priest, see your connection of priesthood and celibacy with the missionary element. There would be no essential difficulty for a married man to do my job. I have been in my present parish for several years, have a nice house, great staff and supportive community. There’s a grade school attached to the church and a Catholic secondary school not far away. The whole set-up would be ideal for a married man and his family. There are two eastern rite parishes in the area and both the pastors are married. I would not presume to thin k that because I’m celibate I’m somehow a better priest than they.
Rick, I understand all the hints and suggestions and winks and nods about clerical celibacy. But set against all that are some very clear passages.
“Husband of one wife”
“Having children who believe”
“Do we not have a right to bring along a believing wife like the other apostles”
“Managing his household well”
So it stacks up like this. We have clear, forthright, plain language that supports a married priesthood. We also have winks and hints and nods and assumptions and analogies and ephemeral arguments for a celibate priesthood.
That’s the problem. The Catholic Church is more interested in the winks and nods than it is in the plain, simple, obvious meaning.
Rick, Post-Exilic Jews did prosyletise, taking their direction from Zachariah 14:9. Jesus refers to missionary efforts in Matthew 23:15. The Idumeans were forced to convert to Judaism in 112 BC after conquest by John Hyrcanus. The Emperor Hadrian forbade Jewish conversions. Finally, someone sometime circa the seventh to the ninth centuries AD converted the royal house and the aristocracy of the Khazar Kingdom northeast of the Black Sea. I am sure that the Khazar King did not say “I want the religion of that quiet little group over there.” Well, maybe he did. Eventually, of course, they stop when they were placed into ghettos and persecuted.
Jeremiah, Elijah, and Elisha are thought to be celibates. IMO, if God wants you to be celibate, you do not have to tell Him you are going to do it. All churches have some celibate people and some churches allow them to function well by letting them organize themselves in monasteries, convents, sketes, motherhouses, etc.
Crowhill: I find your allusion to winks and nods in the context of this discussion obtuse. You seem unwilling to acknowledge that celibacy has been a significant element of the priesthood from the earliest days. I mention this fact not to diminish in any way the clear scriptural evidence that there was a substantial married clergy. That is all. And I also find your perspective curious, because you also seem completely unmoved by the historical fact that celibacy quickly became a dominant feature of the earliest monastic traditions—as if the desert fathers were a bizarre and detached sect from the mainstream of Christianity. My view is that the hermetic-monastic priests were an ORGANIC development of the priestly calling.
Janice: Were the Jews a missionary people as a rule?
All religions eventually get divided into denominations and sectarian groups over just such issues as missionary activity. At the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the ruling authorities taught that it was impossible to convert to Judaism. In rebuttal to that, the Book of Ruth was written.
It is obvious from the admonition of Jesus in Matthew 23:15 that the Pharisees were engaging in such activity, exactly how much they were doing only a scholar of Jewish History would be able to tell us. Obviously, Jesus thought His Own Message to be the Truth and the Pharisaic message, whatever it was, to be false.
I think that the Pharisees are considered the forefathers of Rabbinic Judaism which is the dominant form of Judaism in the world today. If anyone sees anything wrong with this statement, I will happily stand corrected.
The Christian Church began as a messianic sect of Judaism with a mission to preach to the four corners of the earth, and various people and groups have been doing that for two thousand years. I would say that the Church took over that function from the Jews and made it impossible for the Jews to continue to do it.
Christianity is now a separate religion. But, as Pius XI said, “We are all spiritually semites.”
At the present time there are Jewish programs to help people learn to be more observant. They do accept converts who ask to be converted after such converts take a lot of instruction.
Were the Jews of the Ancient World a missionary people as a rule? I think only a scholar who knows all the sectarian groups could give us a good answer to that question. If the Jews were not successful at converting people in the Roman Empire, would Hadrian have had to have forbidden conversions?
Now, back to celibacy. I do not know if St. Jerome was considered a desert father, but I do know that he once promoted virginity to the point where he said that the only good of marriage was that it produced more virgins. Frankly, I consider that to be bizarre.
However, the award for bizarreness in the early church has to go to the Pillar Saints. These athletes for God lived on top of pillars where they would be the first to see the return of Christ. They were fed and watered by others and spent their time praying and doing exercises. A Byzantine Emperor even went on a pilgrimage to ask one of them for advice. Now, that is funny.
Rick, if my history is correct, celibacy as a monastic tradition arose as the desert fathers’ direct rejection of the “worldiness” that began to penetrate Christianity. Besides, it’s one thing to live a monastic lifestyle; it’s quite another to live as a secular priest, even as a celibate. Also, if my history is correct, the Church eventually mandated celibacy to avoid Church property from falling into familial hands…which, given the laws of primogeniture at the time, was a very legitimate consideration.
As far as the Jews being a missionary people, God’s planned them to be His oracle to the rest of the world. One of the purposes of the Mosaic Law was to reveal God’s standards for societal justice and harmony to civilization as a whole. That might not have made the Jews “missionary,” at least in the way Christians define that term. But it certainly didn’t negate any responsibility they had for displaying God’s standards.
Sardath, They’re not babies. They have to be 24 years of age before ordination. Anyone over 21 who does not realize he does not have a gift of celibacy cannot blame others for his own decision and its consequent negative fallout. I agree with you that this does not diminish the blame that belongs to Bishops, rectors, formators, and spiritual directors, for not rejecting candidates before they are allowed to proceed. But, blaming others is like the divorced couple: the other one is always wrong. It takes two to tango.
One more thing, Rick. It’s one thing for a desert father to *choose* to be celibate as a protest against worldliness. It’s quite another to create a theological system that *demands* celibacy for all who seek a clerical calling. This is not to say that one is better than the other; it *does* say, however, that the dynamics involved are fundamentally different.
Truth lover. Yes, a lot of them ARE babies! The lack of maturity in today’s 20 somethings has been commented on by many social researchers and is a complaint of any number of university professors and employers. Indeed, many researchers believe that young men in todays society remain emotionally adolescent into their 29’s or even beyond. One of my prof’s in Rome felt that a large number of marriages in the western world today are invalid because the spouses are so emotionally immature. So yeah, get out the diapers, a lot of these guys are NOT mature enough to discern
1 Cor. 7:7