Celibacy Should be Rethought

UPDATED: An anonymous commenter -the negative comments are always by "Anonymous" wimps afraid to put their names behind their comments - challenged me as to why I have any standing to question the Roman Catholic Church's internal affairs if I am no longer Catholic. My reply is that the Church still owes a debt to me for the spiritual poison it inflicted on me. for many years. Secondly, it is the Church's bizarre obsession with all things sexual - with celibacy being but one manifestaion of it - that helps fuel the Church's constant anti-gay agenda and its efforts to deprive me and other LGBT Americans of equality under the CIVIL laws. When the Church stops trying to restrict my rights under the civil laws, then I will stop pointing out the dishonesty and dirty laundry of the Church.

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As a former Catholic for roughly 49 years of my life I am well acquainted with the idiocy of many aspects of Catholicism, priestly celibacy being but one of them. In my view, because of the rule of mandatory celibacy, the priesthood became a haven for the sexually/emotionally dysfunctional - and by this I do NOT mean gays - and led to a priesthood utterly devoid of common sense knowledge of real world life: pressures of marriage, child rearing, managing a family budget - the list goes on and on. Since joining the ELCA, I have seen first hand the difference it makes having married clergy who have practical experience on which to base their counseling. Thus, I believe even more firmly that Catholics are done a disservice when forced to deal with celibate priests for family guidance. But then, celibacy became the rule a millennium ago for monetary reasons, not spiritual reasons. Rev. Donald Cozzens, writer in residence and adjunct professor of theology at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, has an opinion piece on CNN that looks at why celibacy needs to be rethought and also the fact that for nearly 1,000 years priests and even Popes married and had families. Here are some highlights:

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It's an issue that simply won't go away. In spite of signals from the Vatican discouraging even discussions of obligatory celibacy for Catholic priests, the almost 1,000-year-old rule is under the microscope. And it will be for decades to come.

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Public opinion surveys indicate that most Catholics, priests included, believe the discipline of celibacy needs a serious review. Recently the retired archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan, observed that obligatory celibacy is open for discussion. It is not, Egan noted, a matter of dogma. For decades now, bishops from Asia, Europe and the Americas have asked Vatican officials to consider optional celibacy for priests. The church's official response is consistent and succinct: As a precious gift from God, the discipline of celibacy for priests will remain in place.

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More and more Catholics today are coming to understand that celibacy as a universal law for priests had its origins in the 12th century and that during the church's first millennium, priests and bishops -- and at least thirty-nine popes -- were married. Still, most well-read cradle Catholics are surprised to learn that St. Anastasius, pope from 399 to 401, was succeeded by his son, Pope St. Innocent I, and that a century later Pope St. Hormisdas' son, St. Silverius, also was elected to the papacy.

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For some years now I've been teaching in the religious studies department at John Carroll University in Cleveland. I've asked dozens of serious, healthy young students if they have given any thought to being a priest. They seem flattered by the question. With only one exception, each has answered, "Yes, I've thought about being a priest, but I want a family." There are, of course, other factors, urgent and pressing, that will keep the celibacy issue alive.

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Parish staffing challenges alone will press for a review of the celibacy rule. Catholic bishops simply do not have enough priests to meet the pastoral and sacramental needs of the Catholic faithful. Closing and merging parishes may offer some temporary relief for overworked priests, but the shortfall of priests will continue to challenge the vitality of Catholic parishes and the health of Catholic clergy for decades to come.

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don't know Father Alberto Cutie. He appears to have touched the lives of many and preached the gospel with power and conviction. I suspect he feels called by God to be a priest, but not a celibate priest. Surely he knows that Easter Rite Catholic priests are allowed to marry and that the church welcomes into the priesthood married convert ministers from other Christian denominations. Surely he knows that in many parts of the Catholic world, clerical celibacy is openly flouted, and church authorities choose not to notice.

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Certainly, a married priesthood will have burdens of its own and, sadly, scandals of its own -- infidelity and abuse among others. But it should be left to the individual priest and seminarian to determine whether or not he is blessed with the gift of celibacy. A mandated "gift," after all, is really no gift at all.

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Mandatory celibacy in my view is yet another example of the rampant hypocrisy within the Church hierarchy. It is a non-theologically imposed requirement which is shown to be artificial by the fact that Eastern Rite Catholic clergy have been allowed through out the last 1,000 years. As is all to typical, the Vatican isn't even honest as to why one rule applies to the western rite Church and an entirely different rule applies to the eastern rite Church. To be merely intellectually honest, it has to be one rule or the other, not both. But then, intellectual honest - or even basic honesty for that matter - are not the Vatican's strong suit.