Optional celibacy

The archbishop’s statement about the need to look at making diocesan priestly celibacy optional found resonance with many priests overseas too. The English Catholic magazine, The Tablet, on January 24 carried a letter signed by six Roman Catholic priests from Portsmouth who made their own petition about the situation in England.

“The present policy of closing parish communities because of the shortage of priests and gathering them into larger conglomerations destroys those communities, with an inevitable loss of members, and is based not on the need of the faithful…,” they wrote.

There is place for both celibate and married priests and both can be great pastors. Photo: Shutterstock.com

This is happening all over the world.

The few, mostly elderly, priests left to minister to the faithful often suffer from exhaustion and burnout trying to bring the Eucharist and other sacraments to communities scattered miles around. Priests are human beings too with limited human resources like the rest of us.

The letter mentioned above also states: “Our people are well used to married priests now...” Definitely, they are. I lived in one such parish in England and when the priest in the parish left to get married, a married ex-Anglican priest with wife and three sons and who had become a Roman Catholic became our parish priest 18 months later.

A Roman Catholic priest told me over 10 years ago that, in the diocese of Westminster, some 52 per cent of priests are married. When I asked why he answered: “… this is not about celibacy or the faithful… this is about elitism, power and money”.

On February 7, the National Catholic Reporter had an editorial titled ‘For the good of the Church, begin a real discussion of celibacy’. 

It’s not always about solving the problem of the shortish of priests but about the call to ministry itself.

Jesus chose Peter, a married man and asked him to “feed my lambs, feed my sheep”. He chose Paul, the celibate, too. There is place for both celibate and married priests and, in my personal experience, both can be great pastors and both too can be a great obstacle to the faithful. 

The late Jesuit theologian Edward Yarnold once specifically referred to women religious. They are there, are celibate, some are highly qualified and will be less expensive.

I guess the Persona Christi argument will be raise the resurrected Christ is neither male nor female.

Joyce Shepherd-Thorn – Xemxija