Priestly celibacy.

Today priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church is once more under pressure. During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI withdrew it from the general debate on the priesthood, reserving consideration of this matter to himself. Two years later, on June 24, 1967, he issued the encyclical On Priestly Celibacy (Sacerdotalis coelibatus), upholding the traditional discipline. The debate, nevertheless, continued, first as part of an ongoing exodus from the priesthood and religious life and, today, as part of a debate on the threatening shortage of priests in North America and Europe. Part I (C.I., March, 1997) surveyed celibacy as an issue in Canada during the last 30 years.

Introduction

The Catholic Church has both unmarried and married priests, the latter chiefly among the clergy of her Eastern rites. In the Eastern Churches candidates for the priesthood may marry before ordination, but not after. Its bishops are chosen from among the unmarried. In the Western or Latinrite Church, married priests are rare exceptions, usually clergymen converts from other faith communities who were already married before being ordained in the Catholic Church. The established tradition is celibacy.

Celibacy and continence 

It is best to mention at once two sources of confusion. First, many people today use the term celibacy only as the equivalent of `not being married.' But the use of the term "celibacy" prior to the sixteenth century chiefly referred to "continence." What did this mean?

All priests, including the married ones, were supposed to be "celibate," that is, all were required to practise continence. For the unmarried priests it was simply a necessary virtue. For married priests it meant abstaining from the use of marriage contracted earlier. (1) This also meant that no married man could be ordained without the explicit consent of his wife and that the wife, in turn, could expect a just maintenance from the church and a settlement that excluded the danger of incontinence. Furthermore, while the Church ordained men who were married, she did not allow marriage after ordination, be it for the unmarried or for widowers.

It is not until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that the term "celibacy" acquired the narrow sense of popular usage today, namely `not being married.' The Council called for the creation of seminaries for the diocesan clergy, writes Cardinal Stickler, in order to provide

"better education and spirituality for candidates to the priesthood. This meant the gradual provision of a clergy (in the Latin-rite church) which was, in practice, exclusively unmarried, so that the conferring of sacred orders on married men became a rare exception."

For this reason it is only since then that celibacy has been identified exclusively with the obligation to be unmarried. "Prior to that time it is better to speak of the obligation to continence or to celibacy in the wide sense." (2) Even the modern usage of celibacy as not being married, however, still carries the connotation of not being married for the sake of the kingdom, distinct, therefore, from being just `single' or a bachelor. As for today's married clergy, the Church's current discipline allows for dispensation from `celibacy,' permitting marital relations.

A second source of confusion is the failure to distinguish between the obligation of celibacy in the wide sense of the term and the sanctions called for in the 12th century to declare null and void marriages contracted contrary to this obligation. This leads some people to say mistakenly that celibacy was introduced only in the 12th century.

History

The full realization of the early ideal of continence took centuries of efforts, with progress, needless to say, not always linear or constant, especially at those times when the call to asceticism seemed submerged during periods of great political, military and social upheavals. Thus history records a constant tension between absolute continence (abstaining from marriage), periodic continence (based on the principle of ritual purity before participation in worship), and incontinence. These battled one another--so to speak--for dominance in the practice of the Church.

Jesus is model and source

Celibacy or freely chosen virginity as a witness to the Kingdom of God has Jesus as its model and source of strength. Who was this Jesus? First, he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh. As the author of Hebrews puts it, he was "a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained . . ." (Heb. 7:26); as St. Alphonsus (1696-1787) states, this means that "he was holiness itself, innocence itself, purity itself" (Christmas novena 4).

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (Africa, 468-533) extols Christ in these beautiful terms:

"He is the one who possessed in himself all that was needed to bring about our redemption, that is, he himself was the priest and the victim; he himself was God and the temple--the priest by whose actions we are reconciled; the sacrifice which brings about our reconciliation; the temple wherein we are reconciled; the God with whom we have been reconciled. Therefore, be absolutely certain of this and do not doubt it for a moment; the only-begotten God himself, the Word made flesh, offered himself to God on our behalf in an odour of sweetness as sacrifice and victim." (3)

In the course of achieving this total gift of self for the spiritual benefit of mankind, Jesus chose virginity as his state of life and detachment from all the passing things of this world, no matter how beautiful or loving they might be, including marriage. Ever since, men and women have imitated their Lord: "anyone who loses his life for my sake, shall find it" (Mt 16:25) and "there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can" (Mt. 19:12).

Mary

It has been traditional Catholic belief and teaching that Mary, the Mother of the Lord, also was "ever-virgin" (reaffirmed at the Second Council of Constantinople, 553-554 A.D.). Mary was free from both original sin and "was also preserved from all actual sin." This initial holiness was granted to her in order to fill her entire life. (4) Thus she lived her whole life as a virgin.

Like Mary, Joseph, the Lord's foster father, also lived a life of celibacy.

It was only natural that the apostles were among the first to adopt celibacy as a sign of the Kingdom to come, as did the apostles John and Paul. The others, though some were married like Peter, adopted a new way of life according to the Lord's saying: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mk. 8:34). They took to heart in a more literal way the general injunction of St. Paul to all Christians that "from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none" (1 Cor. 7:29). As St. Peter said to Jesus:

"We have left everything and followed you." Whereupon the Lord answered "I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not be repaid a hundred times over . . ." (Mk 10:29-30)

The choice of voluntary priestly celibacy, therefore, dates from the very beginning of the Church. But in the beginning, this same Church also ordained bishops and priests from among married men, as witnessed by St. Paul when he mentions that presiding elders and deacons "must not have been married more than once" (1 Tim 3:2, 3:12; Titus 1:6).

The fourth century Council of Elvira (305) confirms past practice

A brief survey should touch upon three specific centuries as guide-posts: the fourth, the twelfth and the sixteenth. Let us look at the fourth. The clear and explicit testimony of what may be called the first written law on celibacy in the wide sense of the word occurs at the beginning of the fourth century with the Council of Elvira in Spain in 305. This Council called for the continence of all priests. Canon 33 states expressly that all ecclesiastics in the sacred ministry (bishops, priests and deacons) must abstain from the use of marriage contracted before being ordained. The Council also recalls what it designates as the traditional obligation of continence, which included abstaining from marriage both before and after ordination. (5)

The fourth century provides many other testimonies to the tradition of celibacy understood as continence for all priests, the married and the unmarried. These came from Councils, popes and saints (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome). Many people mistakenly think that conciliar decrees initiate new practices which, therefore, they want to date from the year of that Council. In reality, Councils most often confirm what has existed in the past, or explain and make explicit what has been implicit all along without stating this. In the case of celibacy, the second Council of Carthage at the end of the fourth century made this clear when it declared: "What the Apostles taught and the early Church preserved, let us too, observe." (6)

By this time, the high regard for virginity among men and women had been joined to new ways of living in the world and yet not being of the world, forms later known as monasticism. These had been foreshadowed in the Old Testament by certain prophets and ascetic communities and, at the time of Jesus, by John the Baptist. From then on the tradition spread, especially in Syria and Egypt.

Later on, the desert fathers (St. Anthony of Egypt, died 356) and the hermits living alone (anchorites) gave way to hermits living together (coenobitic communities), especially those inspired by St. Pachomius (d. 346). These in turn were superseded by monastic communities both of men and women based on the rules of St. Basil (d. 379) in the East, or of St. Benedict (d. 546) in the West. We are not speaking here of a few isolated centres but of hundreds and hundreds of monasteries. Pachomius alone in Southern Egypt is said to have had 10,000 followers in six monasteries for men and two for women.

Women

The grouping of widows that began with those who followed Christ continued from then on. Both St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107 AD) and St. Polycarp (d. 155) indicate that the term "widows" had become a technical one, including those who had never married. They represented those who had committed themselves to serve Christ as virgins. By the end of the second century, they were clearly distinguishable groups, some devoted to the active life, others to asceticism and contemplation. They spread in all directions, including southern Egypt, as noted above.

Already by the early fourth century, "nuns" had established a monastery north of the Alps near Salzburg, Austria. This has been continuously occupied from that date till now, regardless of poverty or prosperity, war or peace. All these monasteries, whether of men or women became havens of order, harmony and tranquility, and centres of civilization, culture and charity for the poor.

Another development from the circle of women around Christ was that of deaconesses, women engaged in a consecrated way of life, but not ordained, as some people think today. Present for some centuries in both the Greek and Latin church, they remained in existence as long as adult baptism by immersion was the norm. (7)

Motives

What were the motives for adopting celibacy in these early centuries? This, too, is often under dispute. A detailed documentation may be found in (Cardinal) Stickler's La Continenza Dei Diaconi (1964, Salesianum, Vol. XXVI, pp. 294 ff.), summarized by the author himself in the Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1972. According to the author, the main motives apply to all sacred ministers without any distinction; that is, for bishops, priests and deacons. He summarizes these as follows:

a) "The ministry of the altar and the sacraments call for holiness and perfect purity of body and soul. Perfect continence guarantees this purity. Our model in this is Jesus, the High Priest, and the sacred ministry of the Old Testament itself, in that it forbade priests and Levites the use of marriage during service at the temple."

b) "Since the sacred minister of the New Testament is and must be always engaged in the ministry, his continence must be continuous. For this reason sacred ministers are `chosen;' that is, they are removed from the people and constitute a state of their own."

c) "As sacred ministers, furthermore, they must be completely free from any other occupation or stable commitment, especially that of a family of their own, in order to be able to dedicate themselves completely to the sacred ministry in its various exigencies and obligations. To serve the People of God it is necessary to belong exclusively to God and be free from any tie that might compromise not only consecration to God, but also exclusive service of God in favour of His people and which might involve the danger of serving two masters."

d) "Temperance, furthermore, which implies full mastery of the flesh and of the whole self, is necessary for the sacred minister to the full extent (perfect continence), because it gives him and guarantees that strength of character and generosity of spirit that is indispensable for him in his difficult, demanding ministry. It should also be pointed out that this perfect purity of sacred ministers confers spiritual efficacy before God and before men, both as regards their prayer of petition and expiation, and their example in support of the ministerial word."

The author also observes that even in these early texts, it is explicitly stated more than once that celibacy does not imply contempt or condemnation of marriage. The modern accusation that celibacy is based on a faulty understanding of married love, therefore, is as ancient as celibacy itself.

The aim of celibacy was and is to give glory to God by dedicating one's life to His service. As Saint Irenaeus (130-c. 200) put it, "This is the glory of man: to persevere and remain in the service of God. (8)

Gregorian reform

A second important stage in the history of celibacy comes with what is called the Gregorian Reform. It is named after Pope Gregory VII, pope from 1073-1085, but encompasses a drive for reform both before and after him which involved the freedom of the Church, the supremacy of the Pope over kings and emperors in spiritual affairs, and clerical celibacy. An integral and preliminary part of this drive was the search throughout the archives in Italy for ancient papal and council (conciliar) documents bearing upon these issues. This brought a mass of material to light which had been forgotten or ignored during the long centuries of Barbarian invasions, Viking pillaging and Moslem and Saracen assaults following the collapse of the Roman Empire. This had brought with it the break-up of Europe into many isolated fiefdoms and kingdoms where local customs replaced universal laws, including a religious life where not only priests but also many bishops flouted the celibacy-continence laws of the Church, as well as other laws.

The investiture struggle

Already prior to Gregory, Pope Benedict VIII, working with a reform-minded Emperor, Henry II, had succeeded in getting a council at Pavia in 1022 to reaffirm the celibacy of the clergy and even extending it against incontinence of all clerks. But nothing further could be done until the reform movement had taken hold of the Papacy itself in a more permanent manner. This happened with the arrival of Cardinal Hildebrand of Tuscany as Gregory VII, who brought with him other reformers whom he made cardinals and delegates.

The evils were, in the language of the time, `simony' and `nicolaism,' writes Father David Knowles, o.s.b; the remedy was disciplinary action on the part of a free and powerful papacy: "In the course of this campaign there emerged in the West, for the first time, an organized class, the clergy or great body of clerks, tightly bound together to the bishop of Rome, with a law and interest that separated them from the laity. . ." (9)

Simony was named after Simon the Magician who in the Acts of the Apostles confused God's grace given to St. Paul with his own magic tricks and offered Paul money for a share in his sacred power. This attempt to purchase supernatural gifts or spiritual offices and benefits was condemned by the Church as a sin and a heresy and extended to all services or fees given to priests and bishops. But by the eleventh century, many princes had become used to appointing (investing) bishops, abbots and priests to clerical benefices. Thus they robbed and enslaved the Church, with moral degradation as a consequence.

Nicolaism, the second evil, is part of this degradation. It is a name of uncertain origin which came to stand for clerical incontinence. (10) Priests, and even bishops, were frequently living in concubinage or even attempted a public marriage. Naturally they wanted to pass on Church property or benefices to their kindred.

Thus it was to the interests of both prince and (married) priests to keep Rome at bay and far away.

In the face of everything and everyone, the reformers under Pope Saint Gregory VII battled, sometimes with military warfare, those princes, barons and feudal lords who had been dealing in bishoprics and abbacies as long as anyone could remember. They also reaffirmed the necessity of continence for all sacred ministers including those married before ordination, as well as the prohibition of marriage after ordination.

Emperor Henry IV was excommunicated and his subjects were freed from their oath of loyalty to him. Thereupon Henry and his clergy declared the Pope "deposed." It ended with a repentant Henry standing in the snow outside the castle door of Canossa seeking a settlement with the Pope, then turning around and deposing the Pope once more and driving him into exile. Both men remained unrepentant until the end.

In the long run, reform won out. As for celibacy, in 1123 the first Lateran Council once again forbade priests to marry while those who had wives were told to leave them. At the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the question was clarified further: clergy marriages were not only unlawful (illicit) but also invalid. Thereafter, the practice of celibacy among parish priests revived.

Sixteenth century

A third period of contestation came in the early sixteenth century with a challenge from the German priest and monk Martin Luther (1483-1546), who rebelled against the Church in the midst of widespread episcopal and clerical spiritual degeneration and concubinage. (11) Convinced of the overwhelming power of evil, Luther came to deny man's ability to contribute to his own salvation, attributing it from then on to God's mercy only. Thereupon he found himself challenging most aspects of a visible Church in the world: hierarchy, monasteries, clergy, liturgy, sacraments, good works. All of these, in his opinion, were tainted by a false theology of (earning) merit. (12)

Ecclesiastical celibacy, too, became a point at dispute. Indeed, its abolition became a major target of the `protesters' early on. (13) Luther attacked it in his tracts On the Monastic Vows and The Abolition of Private Masses (1521-1522), with the main arguments flowing from his anti-merit theology, reinforced, however, with sociological data provided by the seeming failure of the Church to prevent scandals. This, in turn, resulted in an obvious shortage of good priests.

In brief, Luther argued that Scripture's universal call to holiness was contradicted by the Church's distinction between, on the one hand, precepts or commands to be observed by all and, on the other, counsels such as celibacy which may be pursued by the few. He also argued that vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, which are irrevocable, destroy true Christian freedom. In addition, he said, they are an expression of contempt for God's goodness in creation.

Celibacy, Luther thought, had a Manichaean flavour of hostility towards sexuality. It implied that the Church esteemed the married state less. Moreover, the general condition of German society made it appear that the pursuit of celibacy was a failure. Its abolition, therefore, he thought, would be a giant step towards solving the problem of the many priests and bishops who had concubines--secretly or publicly. (14) It would solve the shortage of good priests at the same time, he thought.

Learned bishops and theologians such as the Spaniard Dominic Soto analyzed the theology of Luther's arguments and found it wanting. At the end of 1563, the Council of Trent re-endorsed celibacy as a discipline worthy of universal support. (15) It also declared that it was a matter of Church legislation, not divine law (Session XXIV, Canon 9).

Exclusive norm

Contrary to the expectations of Luther and his followers, during and following the hundred or more years of religious wars in Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries unleashed by the struggle to overthrow the Catholic Church, clerical celibacy came to be the exclusive norm in the Latin Church. The spiritual standards of the clergy were raised and the shortage of priests resolved. Meanwhile, Protestantism led to sectarianism, then to secularism.

Additional lingering problems affecting the priesthood caused by private property, benefices, class preferment, ecclesiastical principalities, and such like, were dissolved when the French Revolution and its secular tidal wave swept over all of Europe during the years 1789-1812. This resulted in a society radically changed for the worse with respect to religion and social-economic customs, at once secular and anti-Catholic. Paradoxically, the Church was at once much freer and more spiritually vibrant than before 1789, though materially impoverished, having lost almost all her great institutions of learning and the religious orders who inspired them. The latter had to be rebuilt; the former were lost forever.

In May, Part III: Modern arguments.

Fr. de Valk is a priest and member of the Congregation of St. Basil (C.S.B.). He taught European and Church history at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon and St. Joseph's College in Edmonton. His one published book is Morality and Law in Canadian Politics: The Abortion Controversy, Montreal, 1974, pp. 183.

The Pope Paul VI encyclical On Priestly Celibacy (1967) is available from Catholic Insight @ $2.00 per copy including postage.

(1) . See Alfons Stickler, "Historical note on the Celibacy of Clerics in Sacred Orders," Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1972, pp. 9-10.

(2) . Stickler, op. cit.

(3) . De fide ad Petrum, 22, quoted in The Navarre Bible, The epistle to the Hebrews, Texts and commentaries, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 1991, p. 125.

(4) . John Paul II, "Mary was free from all personal sin," O.R., June 26, 1996. Also Council of Trent, DS #1573.

(5) . A. Stickler, op. cit. See also Daniel Callam, c.s.b., "Clerical continence in the fourth century: three papal decretals," Theological Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1, March 1980, pp. 3-50.

(6) . Quoted by Pope Pius XI, The Catholic Priesthood, 1935, footnote 80. A common error, therefore, is found in statements such as "this custom began to grow from the 4th century.." (as, for example, in Anthony Wilhelm's Christ Among Us, third revised edition, 1981, p. 374).

(7) . Some writers in comparing liturgical ceremonies have claimed that deaconesses had the status of ordained deacons. These interpretations have been shown to be incorrect. As Aime Martimort has demonstrated, in the Latin rite there never was any question of ordination, but only of a blessing. And in the few Eastern rites which speak of "ordination," such as the Chaldean rite, the liturgical rubrics themselves specifically state, "not as for an ordination but rather as for a benediction." Aime Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: An Historical Study, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1986, page 163. Martimort's overall conclusion in his exhaustive study is the same, namely that the deaconesses of Christian antiquity were never ordained.

(8) . From the Treatise against heresies, quoted in Breviary, Sat. after Ash Wednesday, p. 78.

(9) . See David Knowles-Dimitri Obolensky in The Middle Ages, volume two in The Christian Centuries, Chapters 11-14. Quote from p. 169.

(10) . Ibid, p. 170

(11) . For a description of this degeneration, see F. Sanchez-Arjona Halcon, "The dialogue between Soto and Luther on ecclesiastical celibacy," Part 1, O.R., January 13, 1972, pp. 9-10.

(12) . Sacraments are outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace. (Council of Trent, Session 7, March 3, 1547, Denzinger 8439-873). Grace is every gift of God allowing us to participate in the new (supernatural) life of Christ. The Church distinguishes seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, confession or reconciliation, eucharist (mass), marriage, ordination, anointing of the sick. Eventually, Protestants kept only baptism.

(13) . Luther (1483-1546) abandoned celibacy and his own religious vows by marrying Katherina Von Bora, a former nun, in 1525, setting an example adopted by his followers. `Protesters' became `Protestants', the term eventually used for all the various groups which separated from Rome. In England `Anglicans' kept the hierarchical structure but combined it with Protestant theology. The clergy obligation to celibacy was abolished in 1549.

(14) . Halcon, op. cit; see also part II, O.R. Jan. 20, and Part III, O.R., Jan. 27, 1972, "The Catholic Church did not surrender," pp. 9-10. A concubine is a woman who cohabits with a man, not being his wife.

(15) . Council of Trent, November 11, 1563, Denzinger, 979.