Monday, September 06, 2010

A Married Priesthood: Why Not?

By George Buddleighton

One of the more enduring aspects of the secular media and dinner-party dogmaticians is an inability to understand that there is a coherent reason for Catholic teachings. To a large extent this ignorance cannot be regarded as culpable, as Church authorities seem reluctant to explain the rationale behind authoritative teachings. One such teaching concerns the celibate priesthood and how it relates to the current vocations crisis. The need for such an explanation has become ever more acute in light of Pope Benedict XVI's generous new apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which has provisions to allow already married Anglican clergymen to be ordained as Catholic priests.

The basis for the celibate priesthood is not doctrinal but concerns the difficulty of fulfilling the duties of three intermingled disciplines — that of the married state, that of the priestly vocation, and finally that of the individual priest. Let's examine these three aspects separately.

The concession permitted to groups such as doctors and clergymen that exempted them from jury service in Ireland was for most of the past century extended to married women, as it was felt that the rearing of a family was too important a task to be compromised by jury duty. In latter years, a group of human-rights activists identified this exemption as demeaning to women, completely misreading the intention of the legislators in an earlier — and, dare I say, more gracious — age. The same tendency is seen when the celibate priesthood is derided as demeaning of the married state. In reality the celibacy requirement is a recognition that the duties of marriage should not be compromised by the competing demands of the priesthood.

The Church has always taught that marriage is a noble vocation and that a married man's primary duty is to his wife and family, and that this discipline must not be in competition with others. It is significant that the Greek Orthodox Church recently expressed concern about the fact that its priests cannot find wives, as marriage to a priest is not regarded as a good prospect!

On the discipline of the priestly vocation, one can only say that marriage would expose the priest to an extra burden in that his duty to family could only compromise his vow of obedience. Essentially, this is the difficulty of serving two masters. Moving to a new post on the orders of his superior would be immensely complicated if the interests of a family had to be considered, and the faithful would have the extra burden of contributing to the support of the family as well as of the priest himself.

Another consideration — one that I have rarely heard mentioned — is the fact that every individual priest becomes a priest in answer to God's call. If we had a married priesthood, a priestly caste would develop, with young men following their fathers into the clergy.

Finally, there is the discipline of the individual person of the priest, a man who has made himself "a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Again, difficulty understanding this concept reflects the shallowness of modern society, which cannot comprehend the concepts of commitment or vocation, and therefore cannot understand the traditional status given to the paterfamilias — that to be a father is to be a man. If a proper status is given to fatherhood, there is a certain degree of awe accorded to one who voluntarily rejects this status for the sake of something as important as the priesthood. Despite his faults, the priest, be he pope or the humblest curate, has given up a status and a comfort in life — his right by his masculinity — for the sake of his calling.

Advocates of a married priesthood often argue that such an innovation would eliminate cases of clerical pedophilia and also the perceived shortage of vocations. Both these problems they regard as caused by celibacy, and some have suggested that Pope Benedict's recent welcome to Anglicans is an attempt at an end-run around these problems. But, in fact, they are more a consequence of modern society than something intrinsic to the Catholic Church.

With regard to the evil of pedophilia, the idea that marriage would cure it is bizarre, to say the least. This notion stems from the theories of Alfred Kinsey, who stated that "man is naturally pan-sexual and thus will attempt to indulge in sexual activity with whatever is available, regardless of age, sex or species." This is relativism in extremis, defining a range of activities from conjugal love to bestiality and ephebophilia as a spectrum of "natural" behavior! It is not surprising that those who subscribe to this distortion would believe that marriage could be an alternative to such depravities.

If we examine the reported cases of clerical child abuse, we note that the majority are examples of ephebophilia — that is, predatory assaults on peri-pubertal boys — essentially an expression of power and violence, and hatred of the normal. The use of the term "clerical pedophilia" is really a cynical attempt to hide the frankly homosexual origin of this depravity. Popular culture accepts the "gay" lobby's portrayal of sodomites as a gentle, persecuted minority, disguising how common it is for active homosexuals to seek out youngsters with the object of seducing them.

The modern distortion of defining homosexuality as a charming personality quirk has influenced some vocations directors and seminary rectors who, out of a misplaced compassion for those with homosexual tendencies, have been less than vigilant in following Vatican instructions to prevent the ordination of such candidates to the priesthood. The practice of homosexuality among God's anointed is truly demonic, and it must be rooted out of seminaries and the priesthood.

Further consideration of the shortage of vocations reveals that, as well as the uncomfortable character of sexual orientation in some seminaries due to pronounced homosexual subcultures of the recent past, we are dealing with a further phenomenon, confined to the domain of Western liberalism. While historically there are more seminarians than ever worldwide, the Western world has simply lost the concept of vocation. In Ireland this trend can also be seen in the difficulty of getting teachers and doctors for isolated or deprived areas.

It is ironic that we have calls for clergy to adopt a second vocation — that of marriage — in societies that have completely undermined marriage itself; societies in which marriage vows have less legal veracity than standard employment contracts!

In short, the demand for a married clergy is a manifestation of the modernistic approach as applied to the Church, while the shortage of vocations and the sexual perversions of some clerics are further manifestations of the same modernistic tendencies as practiced in the Church. While some have hinted that Anglicanorum Coe­tibus has cracked open the door to consideration of a married Catholic priesthood, it will likely have the limited effect of a pastoral exception rather than revolutionizing the celibate nature of Catholic holy orders.

As for a more appropriate response to the "vocations crisis," we were long ago given the formula for adequate numbers of suitable priests: Pray to the Lord of the harvest.

[George Buddleighton is a family doctor in Ireland. This column originally appeared in somewhat different form under the title, "Of Gall Wasps, Priestesses, and Eunuchs for the Kingdom," in the November 2005 issue of the Irish Brandsma Review, and was reprinted by permission in New Oxford Review (July-August 2010). It is reproduced here by kind permission of New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706.]

17 comments:

anon said...

For the most part... I agree with the entire article, and I will side with Mother Church in whatever way the discipline is directed.

I think the point on the difficulties of "Moving to a new post on the orders of his superior" is incomplete. If a man were to be married, and then become a priest, why would it be necessary for him to be a diocesan priest? Why would it be necessary for him to assigned to a parish?

"A married man's primary duty is to his wife and family" for sure... but his primary duty towards them is to lead them to God. The husband and father is a type of "priest" in the role he should serve for his family.

On the topic of "serving two masters" ... this could certainly be a possibility, but keep in mind that even as a husband who has a duty to wife and children... he still must put God above all.

"Priestly caste" ... it almost seems to me that the the author has confused vocation with a job or technical trade. While it is certainly possible that a sons would follow into their father's footsteps... I do not understand how this would lead to a caste of married priests.

Keep in mind that some of the Eastern Rites have made allowance for married men to be priests.
I believe that if Mother Church ever does call married men to be priests that there will be wisdom behind it.

I agree with the author that having an allowance for married priests to combat ephebophilia and pedophilia is a ridiculous idea. We all know *that* problem primarily stems from homosexuality.

I also agree with the author that allowing for married priest would not solve the vocation crisis.

Louis said...

As a communicant in the Anglican Use, I have had the opportunity to ask several married ex-Anglican priests their views on sacerdotal celibacy. Although all of them are in happy, holy, and fruitful marriages, to a man they strongly advise that the discipline of celibacy be maintained, echoing the reasons Dr Buddleighton mentions. Their witness cannot be dismissed.

JM said...

Quite a bit here. I will agree with this statement: "The practice of homosexuality among God's anointed is truly demonic, and it must be rooted out of seminaries and the priesthood." So much so that I think a married clergy may be the necessary antibody to a priesthood grown somewhat effeminate. These days I take it as a given that there is a 50 percent chance a priest is gay, or his parish will have a gay affirming ministy. So the marriage card loses some of its alarm in comparison.

As for a married clergy being unable to fulfill a competing vow to orders, I simply have never encountered such. Married clergy have seemed every bit as present as single clergy. And single clergy can spend needless extended time attempting to fulfill relational needs that could be met more concretely, completely, and compactly in a marriage.

Bottom line is I'd far prefer a married hetero priest to a sexually confused or worst homo priest. Given the Church's poor vigilance to date policing the honor of the priest corps, the finer practical reasons for non-married priests just seem to lose their punch.

Anonymous said...

The priest at my former parish is an abuser and assaulted my wife. If I thought you would post this comment with his name I would give it. He is divorced and an alcoholic also, all before he was ordained. Now we are going to accept a married Anglican Priest in the Catholic Church. We already have priests so young they don't have as much wisdom as a stump. It's a good thing we don't accept married men to be priests or things would really be screwed up.

Unknown said...

Orthodox are having as much trouble finding priests as well, as your author notes. The real issue is that the priesthood has become a profession unto itself, and when respectability is taken away from it, who wants to do it? Maybe the solution is to have some martyrdom in the West. That'll bring in the numbers!

Galen said...

I do agree that it would be hard to be both spouse and priest, but I personally don't think it should be mandatory celibacy. I mean, in 1 Corinthians 9:5 points out, some, if not most, of the 12 disciples were married. At least that's the vibe I get from it.

1 Corinthians 9:5 "Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?"

JM said...

" ... having an allowance for married priests to combat ephebophilia and pedophilia is a ridiculous idea. We all know *that* problem primarily stems from homosexuality."

But married priests WOULD discourage homosexuality in the priesthood, which is the entire point.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Galen, your point about the Apostles is true, as Tradition (both in and outside of Scripture) shows. If Scripture were your only authority, as in the Protestant's notion of sola Scriptura, then that might be the expected conclusion. The Catholic view on the matter, however, is that priestly celibacy is a matter of discipline, not doctrine, and therefore like the stipulations sent by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 to the Christians in Antioch about the kind of meat they could or could not eat, it's a matter of the Church's prudence and judgment to decide. Further, the Catholic view entails a view of ecclesiastical authority to determine such matters in a binding manner that you wouldn't find in non-Catholic circles. Moreover, as Christian Cochini's Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy (1990) demonstrates, the practice was accepted as normative for men ordained to the priesthood from the beginning. While no Catholic is required to become a priest, if he is called to the priesthood, it is his duty to submit to the Church's discipline on this matter, which stems from NT times. Married men were permitted to become priests (though not bishops) under limited conditions, but never permitted to marry after ordination, and in many cases required to live as celibate even when they had wives. But the animating logic was practical, to allow the priest to be unbound from temporal concerns, even as St. Paul suggests in 1 Cor.7:34.

Pertinacious Papist said...

"... married priests WOULD discourage homosexuality in the priesthood, which is the entire point.

Yes, but this point overlooks another: the well-known fact that sexually active men (as married men tend to be) have a much greater problem with sexual continence than celibate men, as Philip Jenkins' Pedophiles and Priests (New York: Oxford University Press), shows, in its statistical revelation that incidents of pedophile clergy are actually higher among Protestant than Catholic clergy (pp. 50 and 81). See also the report, "SEXUAL ABUSE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT: CATHOLIC CLERGY AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS."

JM said...

OK. This point stopped me in my tracks. Amazing how such information is lost in the shuffle, is it not?

That said, I have an honest question, one others more familiar with church culture might be in a better position to answer...

What is a more pressing problem in the priesthood?

Pedophilia, or abuse, OR active homosexuality? I think that conditions the larger question. I have assumed abuse is still incidental or minor albeit sensational, whereas the gay culture is pervasive and needs curbing. Hence my willingness to unleash married "antibodies." Perhaps this is rash or naive. But in a culture rapidly embracing gay sex, I don't think it is jumping the shark. As the ECUSA demonstrates, the gay issue is really the current watershed for believing in revealed religion. Thoughts?

Pertinacious Papist said...

Of your three options, I'm going to leave "abuse" aside, since its semantic range of meaning is too broad for practical purposes. Between the other two -- pedophilia and homosexuality -- I would say the latter problem has dwarfed the former. The proximate cause of both problems, however, have been the gatekeepers of religious orders and diocesan seminaries who, back in the sixties and seventies, were not properly minding the gate but effectively opening the floodgates to candidates without sufficient attention or concern to issues of sexual purity and disposition. The result was a formation culture of sexual laxity that spawned the priestly sex scandals of the early 21st century. This problem has been increasingly remedied in diocesan seminaries, though there is still a problem with a number of religious orders.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but your missing the point. Abusive behavior, if sexual in nature or physical or verbal, is one of a person's attempts to control another for utilitarian purposes, which is not the kindly message of selfless love for the other. Don't you see the ROOT of the problem?

anon said...

JM said: "But married priests WOULD discourage homosexuality in the priesthood, which is the entire point."

Maybe this point has adequately been addressed in Pertinacious Papist's posts, but to be sure... let me ask a question. Why would allowing priests to marry have any influence on discouraging homosexuality? I think it is a false statement that celibacy leads to homosexuality.

JM said...

Of course celibacy does not lead to homosexuality, per se. But a culture of priesthood that has been deeply corrupted by homosexual men creates an environment that stifles true spirituality, and one more effeminate than is healthy. Given the extent of the influence, my sentiment is that an influx of heterosexual men would help in curbing/diluting the lavender tide and restore some needed masculinity to the priesthood. The discipline of celibacy is fine with me (as if my approval matters a wit), but to be effective it apparently requires a parallel prudence in whom is ordained. Since the latter has obviously been compromised, I don't think it is wholly outrageous to argue that the discipline be somehow relaxed. Benedict's admittance of married Anglicans, it occurs to me, may be an incidence of this very thing. I know I am shaky ground theoretically -- a case of one too many gay parish priests, I guess.

Pertinacious Papist said...

JM, I wouldn't want to underestimate the problem of homosexuality for even a moment. Even if the gatekeepers are screening applicants much more rigorously in diocesan seminaries now, the problem of the clergy "vested" in the lavender palaces remains.

Still, I do not think that married clergy would help this problem at all.
The fact that a man is married or heterosexual doesn't automatically grow him a manly spine. I know plenty of married Protestant clergy whose parishes are overrun by women, and effeminate, "therapeutic" visions of "ministry," just like in Catholic churches.

The problem, as you implicitly suggest, seems to be something deeper than homosexuals among the clergy, and I think it's something that comes close to what Leon Podles identifies as the problem in his book by the title, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of the Church. Unlike him, however, I see this as a problem that has arisen primarily in the aftermath of Vatican II. There have probably always been men with homosexual inclinations in the clergy, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to whether the periods were periods of degeneration or periods of reform and renewal.

A step in the right direction is a revisioning of parish life in such a way that it is de-clericalized and men are welcomed into positions of leadership. Right now, Catholic parishes are like Novus Ordo altar servers -- overrun with girls, such than no "real boy" wants much of anything to do with hanging out at the altar. By contrast, visit any urban High Mass in the usus antiquior.

JM said...

PP, Given your insight from life at a Seminary, I defer to your judgment on this one!

meg said...

Is there less of a problem with homosexuality/pedophilia in traditional seminaries? I am currently encouraging my young sons to be altar servers at our FSSP parish. I'm very cautious because of the problems but don't want to stand in their way either; they love serving. What to do?