Always Faithful

There is no doubt that the question I hear most from people is: Why won’t you get married? Young people, ladies, taxi drivers, gum vendors, waitresses, boys, girls, and even some little grandmother have asked me.

Their curiosity is stirred, and they want to know what is wrong with us priests that we have no wife.

Everyone knows that we Catholic priests do not marry, but few know why. Some are surprised, others are amazed, and there are still others, the evangelicals above all, who are frightened.

Evangelical Protestants attack many traditions of the Church because they do not understand them. And how they hurl stones at the celibacy of Catholic priests! (Celibacy is the commitment not to marry.) Let us see what they say and how we can answer them. Is it a law of God?

The Guadalajara megasect La Luz del Mundo hands out a pamphlet that disparages celibacy. The first thing it says is: the celibacy of priests—is it a divine law or a law of men? With this question they want to make us think that, if it is not a law of God, it is wrong.

The curious thing is that the Catholic Church has never believed or taught that celibacy was a divine law! It is a simple disciplinary norm.

In other words, my Church asks me not to marry so that I may devote myself full-time to the souls I must serve as a priest. Since I do not have the worry of a family of my own, I can be 100% for and at the service of the faithful.

It was not always so. We know that St. Peter was married because he had a mother-in-law. We know that some of the first popes, bishops, and priests of the Church that Christ founded were also married. But little by little we came to realize that all of them could serve God and their brethren better if they were celibate. And so, in the year A.D. 303, at the Council of Elvira, in Spain, the norm of celibacy was established, although the tradition already existed throughout the Church.

But can the Church impose a norm like celibacy? Why not? Every human institution has its rules. The army requires its members to cut their hair in the manner set by regulation. Who questions the legitimacy of that rule? Whether I like it or not is another matter…but it is clear that the army can demand whatever it considers necessary or beneficial for its members.

The argument that celibacy goes against man’s nature springs from a poor concept of man. Only someone who holds that man is no better than an animal, wholly ruled by its instincts, could think that celibacy is something inhuman.

So many men who have lived celibacy happily and faithfully are witnesses that the sexuality of the human person can be trained and raised up for the sake of a greater self-giving. What does the Bible say?

Evangelicals claim that celibacy is forbidden by the Bible. But marriage has never been obligatory, and the Bible proves it: Jesus never married, nor did John the Baptist, nor most of the Apostles, nor St. Paul. The phrase from Genesis, “Increase and multiply,” is a general precept for humanity, not a divine command to each individual. Otherwise, anyone who reached the age to marry and did not do so would fall into sin.

Jesus recommended the celibate state for those who wished to follow him more closely: “For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother’s womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it.” (Mt 19:11-12) (eunuch in this context means a person who lives without sexual relations)

Christ also said: “Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.” (Mt 19:29; Mk 10:28; Lk 18:28)

St. Paul cheers us on!

The same St. Paul, the Protestants’ favorite apostle, wrote: “I would that all men were even as myself…to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they so continue, even as I; but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry.” (1 Cor 7:8-9) And, further on: “Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife….I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided…Therefore, both he that giveth his virgin in marriage doth well, and he that giveth her not doth better.” (1 Cor 7:27,32-33,38)

The fact that Paul orders Timothy that a bishop have but one wife (as in 1 Tim 3:2) does not mean that he is forced to marry. The full sense of what Paul says is that the bishop be an exemplary man in every aspect of his life. If he is married, let it be to one wife only and not to several. It is the same message Paul conveys a little further on when he says: “…one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all chastity; for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” (1 Tim 3:4-5)

But not even the popes kept it!

The La Luz del Mundo pamphlet that attacks celibacy gives a few examples of popes who were unable to live according to that norm of the Church. The truth is that this sect has never worried much about the truth of things or the context of the facts.

But let us imagine for a moment that some or all of the accusations made in the pamphlet against the various popes were true. What do they prove? That celibacy is not a legitimate norm for the Catholic priest? That celibacy is nothing but a scheme of the popes to subject priests to their will? That Christ did not found the Church?

No. It only shows us that man, however high and sacred his responsibility may be, remains a man.

We know, in fact, from history that there have been popes who gave themselves over to immorality and indecent ways in eras when being Bishop of Rome was a political privilege. Attracted by material power, the rich and unscrupulous families of old Italy did all they could to place one of their members in the Vatican. Of course, uprightness and temperance were not among the qualities required of the candidate.

To say that the norm of celibacy is worthless because some men do not know how to keep it would be like removing all the traffic lights from the streets of Mexico because some people do not respect them.

But isn’t the pope infallible? Infallible, yes, when he teaches officially in matters of faith and morals. But sinless, no. Never.

And of the 264 popes there have been in history since Jesus Christ placed Peter as the visible head of his Church, how is it that La Luz del Mundo remembers only the few who scandalized believers and unbelievers alike by their way of life? The vast majority of Peter’s successors have been worthy of the office and have set an example of moral integrity for the whole world. One need only review the list of popes of the last 200 years to see this.

May we Catholic faithful know how to thank the Lord for that gift of the Spirit he has given us: that thousands upon thousands of Catholic men and women have made the sacrifice of not having a family of their own in order to be our fathers.

Source: Churchforum.org