Celibacy at all costs?

A college chaplain asks why

Chris is a young man concerned about getting into a good medical school. Frankly, I don't think he has anything to worry about. He has had straight A's, even when he took physics, chemistry, and Latin in the same quarter. Jim, on the other hand, has already been accepted at several law schools, including Notre Dame. His first choice, however, would be to stay here at the University of Chicago.

I came upon the two of them discussing not law or medicine but what had been their original interest, the Catholic priesthood. Both had reluctantly put aside that calling since it would mean not having a wife or children. Why, they wondered, was celibacy still required when married Episcopalian clergy are being ordained as Catholic priests and, right here in Chicago, we already have married Ukrainian Catholic priests?

I am sorry to say that I did not have a good answer. And I suspect that many other university chaplains have talked with generous, devout, and highly intelligent young men who had seriously considered becoming priests but turned away for one major reason.

After forty years in the priesthood I am not unaware of the advantages of celibacy. There are difficult assignments which a man would hesitate to accept if his wife and children would suffer deprivation or be in danger. Priests' salaries would have to be doubled or tripled. And the Protestant experience shows that wives and children are often not happy with what is expected of the pastor's family. Sometimes it is the other way round: I know of a Methodist minister who was removed from his church, not because of his performance but because the congregation widely detested his wife. And of course there are divorces, some of them rather messy.

Also there is the argument of "sign value." Celibacy is a sign of the heavenly kingdom and the priest is witness to spiritual values that contradict the materialism of the world. It is difficult to know how many today find this to be cogent, but there is no doubt that it has historical and theological weight. Still, we know that validly ordained married priests are now serving in Roman Catholic parishes and chaplaincies in the United States, England, and Germany. And thousands of other validly ordained men have been doing so for centuries in Orthodox churches throughout the world. Their ministry is respected and appreciated by their people, who do not seem especially concerned about a lack of "sign value." These people are, however, deeply interested in having a pastor to baptize, preach the gospel, lift up the sinful, and celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

In a number of rural areas in the world, Catholics have not had such a person for some time. It is common in the American West for a pastor to put hundreds of miles on his car as he dashes through deserts and across mountains in an effort to offer Mass in four or five different parishes. The diocese of Dodge City, for example, sprawls across twenty-eight counties in southwest Kansas. The bishop has closed six parishes and will probably close ten more by 2005. By then there will be twenty-four priests serving 13,700 households in forty-one parishes.

But it is certainly not only rural America that is hurting. The diocese of Innsbruck, Austria, which includes the whole of Tyrol, ordained no one in 1996, and pastors over seventy-five are persuaded to stay on. Polish friends tell me that the numbers entering Polish seminaries have rapidly declined now that there are many new opportunities for bright, ambitious young men.

In other places, especially in the big cities, there is still a priest-pastor in most parishes. But as the older generation retires, becomes infirm, or dies, younger and younger men are assigned as pastors of huge parishes with thousands of families. They live alone in rectories built for four or five priests, shop for frozen TV dinners or cans of soup, and eat alone watching television news. While the average age of the clergy is now over sixty, the average age of pastors has declined. Men only a few years ordained are given heavy pastoral responsibilities. With little experience they face the financial and societal problems of inner-city parishes and, to no one's surprise, are frequently burnt-out after a few years of frustration, loneliness, and hyperactivity. When we were seminarians I remember our elderly Jesuit spiritual director warning us to beware of "Punch and Judy" (whiskey and women). I wonder if today the problems are rather a numbing weariness, a deadly loneliness, and a sense of pessimism and failure.

Older priests understandably look forward to retirement. They know they do not have the energy and health they once had and which are needed for a vigorous parish ministry. But they do not see anyone ready to take their places. We have, as someone said in an athletic metaphor, no "bench," no replacements, no one prepared to step in and carry on. Seminarians are already "rare birds," and priests themselves have started to feel like an endangered species.

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the number of priests in the United States has dropped 15 percent in the last thirty years. The number of new priests being ordained has also dropped, from 994 in 1965 to 522 in 1995. But even this dramatic decrease does not tell the full, sad story, for the number of American Catholics has risen by 33 percent!

One does not need a crystal ball to see the future. In spite of urgent prayers, in spite of eager young priests assigned as "vocational directors," in spite of full-color posters and special recruitment retreats for college students, the number of interested candidates is not sufficient. More parishes will be closed. Can some be kept open with nonordained pastors? Perhaps, but nuns have disappeared even faster than the clergy, and qualified lay people are still in short supply.

The Catholic church has the noble mission of "handing on" the gospel to successive generations. It is not allowed to dilute it or change it. It is an institution that venerates tradition. But the church also has the task of pastoral care, of ministry, and ministry, of necessity, must adapt to the conditions of those who are to be served. But must it also adapt, at least to some extent, to the felt needs of the ministers? Today many potential and actual ministers do not feel called to a celibate life. For them, celibacy does not "speak" in a convincing or even a healthy way.

Constitution 50 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) states that a change in discipline (statuta humana) may be called for by a change in "the times." Such an adjustment is indicated when there is urgent necessity or obvious usefulness (urgens necessitas vel evidens utilitas). Is that now the case with the discipline of celibacy? Is it time for one of the "appropriate emendations" Pope John XXIII spoke of when on October 11,1962, he opened the first session of Vatican II?

Many feel there will be no change. They say that the present pope has no interest in this subject. The bishops, both in Europe and in the Americas, seem timid and hesitate to provoke any Vatican unhappiness. Curial officials, rejoicing in their own celibacy, seem to see the priest and seminarian shortage as a passing problem caused by Western decadence and selfishness. So, we are told, nothing will change.

But I am not so sure. I still remember being certain I would never celebrate Mass in English facing the people. However, "never say never."

Reverend Willard F. Jabusch is the director of Calvert House, the Catholic Student Center at the University of Chicago.