The Great Scandal of Priestly Celibacy
by Fr. Roger Landry - July 2, 2010
Recently the importance of priestly celibacy in the Church has been questioned from different quarters. Some, influenced by implicit Freudian premises, have suggested that priestly celibacy is a contributing factor to the clergy sexual abuse crisis, although such critics always fail to explain how the marriage of a priest to an adult woman will resolve the issue of priests acting out on perverted attractions to teenage boys (in 4 out of 5 abuse cases) or to pre-pubescent children (in one out of ten). Others have raised doubts about the prudence of maintaining the discipline of priestly celibacy when there is a shortage, in many parts of the world, of men responding to God's call to commit their lives to him and his Church as priests. Even a highly influential European cardinal, responding, it seems, to repeated calls in his country for optional sacerdotal celibacy, said that the subject should be examined anew.
As the Year for Priests was coming to a close, Pope Benedict responded to these questions coming from different segments of the Catholic world. His response took place within a June 10 nighttime question-and-answer session with priests in St. Peter's Square. A Slovakian priest, a missionary in Russia who said he was "disoriented in reading the many worldly criticisms of this gift" of priestly celibacy, asked the Pope "to enlighten us about the profundity and the authentic meaning of ecclesiastical celibacy." Pope Benedict gladly took up the challenge. In doing so, he stressed how and why priestly celibacy is needed now more than ever. His thoughts about the beauty, meaning, purpose and importance of priestly celibacy in the Church and world today should be pondered by every Catholic.
Speaking spontaneously, the Pope began with a brief introduction about the priesthood, inaugurated by Christ and strengthened by the Eucharist, which he called the "permanent and vital foundation" of celibacy. To say that the priest celebrates the Eucharist in persona Christi ("in the person of Christ"), Benedict said, means that priests "speak in the 'I' of Christ. Christ 'pulls us into himself' and permits us to unite ourselves with his 'I.' In this way he really is always the one priest, and nonetheless very much present in the world, because he 'pulls' us into himself, and so makes present his priestly mission. This unification of his 'I' with our own implies that we are also 'pulled' into his reality as the Risen One, we advance toward the full life of the resurrection in which we are already beyond marriage" (cf. Mt. 22:23—32).
This is the ground of priestly celibacy, the pope said. It is an "anticipation" of heaven in which "we transcend this time and go forward, and so we 'pull' ourselves and our time toward the world of the resurrection, toward the newness of Christ, toward the new and true life. Celibacy is an anticipation made possible by the grace of the Lord who 'pulls' us to himself, toward the world of the resurrection; he invites us always anew to transcend ourselves, this present, toward the true present of the future, which becomes present today."
It has long been said in the Church that one of the aspects of priestly celibacy and the vowed celibate chastity of those in religious life that it is an "eschatological sign," something that points to the next life. Pope Benedict is saying that it's more than a sign, but an eschatological reality, an resurrected life, in the midst of the world. In priestly celibacy, the choice for heaven, for God, becomes concretized and stands as a challenge to those who choose to set their horizons solely on worldly aims. This, the Holy Father says, is a "very important point," because priestly celibacy challenges one of the most fundamental postulates of secularist modernity.
"One big problem of Christianity in today's world," the pope clarified, "is that God's future is no longer considered, and the now of this world alone seems sufficient. We want to have only this world, to live only in this world. So we close the doors to the true greatness of our existence. The meaning of celibacy as an anticipation of the future is precisely to open these doors, to make the world bigger, to show the reality of the future that must be lived by us as already present, to live, therefore, in a testimony of faith: we really believe that God exists, that God is part of my life, that I can base my life on Christ, on the future life."
He said that such testimony provokes "worldly criticisms." For the "agnostic world, the world in which God has no place," he said, "celibacy is a great scandal because it shows precisely that God is considered and lived as a reality. With the eschatological life of celibacy, the future world of God enters into the realities of our time." Celibacy is a "great scandal" precisely because it challenges the dominant cultural mentality — which exists even among many in the Church — that rejects the Christian premise that God must be the "pearl of great price," the "one thing necessary," the "chosen portion," "cup" and "inheritance" of human beings (Mt 13:46; Lk 10:42; Ps 16:5).
The Holy Father was expanding here on a point he first expressed in a 2006 pre-Christmas address to the members of the Roman Curia, when he said that celibacy "can only be understood and lived" if it is based on this total option for loving union with Christ as the defining reality of one's existence. "The true foundation of celibacy can be contained in the phrase: 'Dominus pars' — You are my portion. It can only be theocentric. It cannot mean being deprived of love, but must mean letting oneself be consumed by passion for God and subsequently, thanks to a more intimate way of being with him, to serve men and women, too." He continued in that 2006 address, "Our world, which has become totally positivistic, in which God appears at best as a hypothesis but not as a concrete reality, needs to rest on God in the most concrete and radical way possible. It needs a witness to God that lies in the decision to welcome God as a land where one finds one's own existence." That witness is priestly celibacy and consecrated virginity for the sake of Christ in his kingdom — and that's why, he said, "celibacy is so important today."
Priestly celibacy is crucial today for another reason, the Pope added on June 10. Such a priestly commitment reinforces and undergirds the commitment of marriage. He noted that the "increasingly fashionable" option of so many in the world not to get married" is something "totally, fundamentally different from celibacy, because not getting married is based on the desire to live only for oneself, not to accept any definitive bond, to have life at every moment in full autonomy, to decide at every moment what to do, what to take from life; and therefore a 'no' to commitment, a 'no' to definitiveness, a having life only for oneself. Celibacy is precisely the opposite: it is a definitive 'yes,' it is allowing ourselves to be taken in hand by God, giving ourselves into the hands of the Lord, into his 'I,' and therefore it is an act of fidelity and trust, an act that the fidelity of marriage also supposes. It is the exact opposite of this 'no,' of this autonomy that does not want to be obligated, that does not want to enter into a bond. It is precisely the definitive 'yes' that supposes, that confirms the definitive 'yes' of marriage with its 'yes' to the future world."
Priestly celibacy, in sum, makes present "this scandal of a faith that bases all of existence upon God a great scandal, which the world does not want to see." It is a "great sign of faith, of the presence of God in the world." That's why, in the midst of the "scandals of our insufficiencies, of our sins," this "true and great scandal" of priestly celibacy is all the more important — and is here to stay.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
