Cardinal Sarah On Celibacy Controversy . . . “Enough Chatter: Let Us Read This Book”
By DIANE MONTAGNA
ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Seeking to return public attention to the actual topic of his new book co-authored with Benedict XVI, Robert Cardinal Sarah has made a new intervention insisting upon the inextricable link between continence and the priesthood.
In an interview published on January 25 by the Italian daily Il Foglio, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments states: “We cannot create a priesthood for married men without damaging the priesthood of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church.”
“Why deprive Christians in the Amazon of contact with priests who live fully their priesthood and their total gift [of self] to God and to Him alone? Is it because they are poor?” the cardinal asks.
The forthcoming volume, titled From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church, was announced on January 12 and “provoked the anger of Hell.”
Referring to the storm of controversy that has surrounded the work since its appearance, and has inspired some prelates to deny Benedict XVI’s authorship, Cardinal Sarah states: “There has been a lot of talk about completely ridiculous side issues. Absurd controversies, vulgar lies, and horrible humiliations have been leveled against Benedict XVI and me.”
One notable example came at the height of the Benedict XVI-Cardinal Sarah book controversy, when Pope Francis’ preferred biographer, 95-year-old Italian atheist Eugenio Scalfari, portrayed the new book as an opposition campaign launched by the African cardinal.
In the new interview, Cardinal Sarah reiterates that the work was offered “respectfully and in a filial way to Pope Francis, but also to bishops, priests and the Christian faithful all over the world, to support and encourage them to deepen their reflection” on priestly celibacy.
“What breaks my heart and hurts me deeply is the brutality, irreverence, lack of consideration and indecency with which Benedict XVI was treated,” he says.
“The priesthood does not belong to us. We cannot do what we want with it,” Cardinal Sarah insists. “Enough chatter. Let us read this book. Let us discuss it in peace and charity.”
Here below is an English translation of the full interview with Robert Cardinal Sarah.
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Q. There was considerable controversy [regarding the book], Your Eminence.
A. Without animosity, without attacking anyone, we have offered our reflections with clarity, rigor and fidelity to the truth on an essential issue: The Catholic priesthood and celibacy. Then why say that wished to show opposition to Pope Francis? Why? Is there perhaps a single phrase, a single word, a single attitude in the text that expresses such opposition? Why is slander and humiliation constantly heaped upon me? Someone has reached the point of delirium in speaking of a “fake-book.” The Fayard publishing house will provide a suitable response to such defamation.
Benedict XVI has personally confirmed to me that he welcomes this book and is happy with its publication. The entire text therefore remains unchanged, except for the introduction and conclusion, as the [Italian] publisher Cantagalli explained. Now I ask that this sterile controversy end. We out to take an interest in what the Pope Emeritus has written. This is essential. Continuing to talk about the rest is a diversion. My invitation is to read the book instead of talking about it.
Q. What is the essential message of the book?
A. I will sum it up in one sentence: priestly celibacy is not a simple canonical discipline. If the law of celibacy is weakened, even for a single region, it will open a breach, a wound in the mystery of the Church. There is an ontological-sacramental link between the priesthood and celibacy. This link reminds us that the Church is a mystery, a gift from God that does not belong to us. We cannot create a priesthood for married men without damaging the priesthood of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church.
Q. Why can’t married men be ordained? What is the obstacle?
A. A priest is charged with sacramentally perpetuating the presence of Christ. He is not only an “Alter Christus,” another Christ, but “Ipse Christus,” Christ Himself. Priests are truly an extension of Jesus Christ. “The Sacrament of Orders configures them to Christ the Priest to enable them to act in the name of Christ, Head of the Church” (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis, n. 2).
This is an excellent lesson from Vatican II. The priest is therefore the exclusive spouse of the Church. He cannot be shared. When he comes home, he is not on holiday. He remains a consecrated person. His whole life belongs to the Church because his whole being is dedicated to Christ. I think the faithful know this by intuition. Would they go to Confession to a married priest? If a priest gives himself entirely to the Church, what place will remain for a wife and children? What will we do when we have to deal with a priest’s divorce? Because we should expect such cases.
Q. One of the great points of discussion concerns the fact that this ecclesiastical discipline is in reality not ancient, but recent. It is not true then?
A. Not at all! From a historical point of view, things are very clear: Since the year 305 the Council of Elvira recalls the law, “received from the apostles,” on the continence of priests. The Church at that time was coming out of the era of the martyrs, [and] one of its first concerns was to affirm that priests should abstain from sex with their wives.
In fact, the council states that “we have decreed a general prohibition for bishops, priests and deacons, i.e., all clerics constituted in the mystery: They must not be together with their wives and must not beget children. Whoever is responsible for this will be expelled from the ecclesiastical ranks” (canon 33). If this provision had been a novelty, it would not have failed to provoke a vast protest among priests. Instead, it was accepted peacefully.
Christians were already aware that a priest celebrating Mass, that is, the renewal of Christ’s sacrifice for the world, must offer himself with all his body and soul. He no longer belongs to himself. It was only much later, because of the corruption of the texts, that the East would evolve in its discipline, without ever giving up the link between priesthood and abstinence. We are victims of profound historical ignorance on this subject. The Church was familiar with married priests in the early centuries. But after Ordination they had to abstain from sexual relations with their wives.
This is a fact confirmed by the most recent historical research. It is not a question of rejecting sexuality, but of affirming that the priest is the exclusive spouse of the Church, body and soul. He is entirely handed over to her, like Christ.
The Gift Of Self
Q. What in your view is Pope Emeritus’ greatest contribution to the text?
A. Benedict XVI clearly shows that the link between sexual abstinence and priestly life was established from the [time of the] Old Testament. This link has nothing to do with a taboo or a rejection of the body. It is based on the total gift of self, soul and body, to God alone. I believe that all priests ought to read the moving passages in which he reveals how these pages of Scripture have guided his entire life and deeply shaped and structured him as a priest.
He dares to write: “At the root of the grave situation in which the priesthood finds itself today, there is a methodological defect in the reception of Scripture as the Word of God.” I believe that his text is a masterful lesson in biblical theology. It is also a profound spiritual meditation on the true meaning of the priesthood: to give one’s whole life in the footsteps of Christ. No priest can read what he writes without being deeply moved. The Pope Emeritus has made a wonderful gift to the whole Church and to all priests throughout the world. He has opened the deepest part of his heart to them.
Q. Why do you (and Benedict XVI) speak about a crisis in the priesthood?
A. Celibacy reminds us that priests are the fruit of a vocation, of a personal and intimate call from God. When God calls, He asks one to leave everything for Him, to renounce all earthly support and to give to Him the whole of one’s body, heart and capacity to love. Benedict XVI says this magnificently in his contribution. Priests are not public servants. They do not carry out a profession; they are consecrated to God.
I fear that we are being tempted to build a human church, according to the times and according to our own ideas. But the Church is not ours. We receive it from God, with its Creed and its sacraments. The priesthood does not belong to us. We cannot do what we want with it. When I sense that there is a desire to create women’s ministries, I wonder if we are seeking fidelity to God or if we are following the fashion. What role did God desire for women in the Church? St. John Paul II magnificently described the dignity and vocation of women in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem: Their place is central. It is a matter of reminding everyone of the need for holiness and of “helping humanity not to fall.”
Let us carefully observe the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy women who had followed Jesus from Galilee (Matt. 27: 55-56; Mark 15:46-47). Let us remember that, if the Pope lives in Rome today, it is thanks to the obstinacy of St. Catherine of Siena. She did not have a ministry and she did not want it. But she wasn’t afraid to speak!
Q. Returning to ecclesiastic celibacy, why shouldn’t exceptions be given for some regions of the world that suffer from a terrible lack of priests? The Amazon is the symbolic case.
A. But do we really believe that the ordination of married men would solve the crisis of vocation? The experience of the lack of pastors in Protestant communities who allow the marriage of religious ministers shows the opposite. The crisis of vocations is a crisis of faith! Where the Gospel is proclaimed and lived in all its rigor and demands, vocations abound. Why deprive Christians in the Amazon of contact with priests who live fully their priesthood and their total gift [of self] to God and to Him alone? Is it because they are poor? Moreover, as we have written:
“Who would be skillful enough to explain why the pastoral need of the faithful of the Pacific Islands cannot be shared by that of the faithful who live in a remote valley of the Apennines, or in the middle of a densely populated European city where priests have disappeared?”
I used my experience as a priest in Africa to demonstrate in this book that evangelization needs celibacy. People in the process of Christianization [becoming Christians] must meet priests who have given their whole lives to Christ. I myself have had this experience. Would I be a priest today if a married man from my village in Guinea had been ordained? I don’t believe so.
We need lay people who are, as Pope Francis says, “missionary disciples.” We need Christians who take Baptism seriously. The Church needs the radicality of the Gospel, not to align itself with the lukewarmness of the world.
Saintly Priests
Q. To sum up then: What is the overall meaning of the book?
A. I wish it were read, rather than summarizing it! I have tried to show in those pages how the opening of a breach in celibacy would create a serious crisis for the priesthood. I used the clearest theology of Vatican Council II, St. Paul VI, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI to demonstrate that a fully coherent priestly life requires celibacy, but also a certain poverty, obedience, and faithfulness to prayer. A priestly life nourished by the grace of the sacraments, by regular Confession, by the assiduous celebration of the Eucharist and by faithfulness to the divine office and prayer, as well as by the daily reading of the lives of the saints.
I believe that creating a wound in the law of celibacy, under the pretext of a priest shortage, would cause confusion about the nature of the role of the baptized and of priests.
I am convinced that we need priests who are saints more than ever. This is the reason why I offered this book respectfully and in a filial way to Pope Francis, but also to bishops, priests and the Christian faithful all over the world, to support and encourage them to deepen their reflection without being conditioned by the media campaign that surrounded the last synod and led to human solutions.
I did it after having talked for a long time before God. At the end of the book, I wanted to recall the saying of the patroness of Italy, Catherine of Siena, who rests here in Rome: “‘Be cursed because you have kept silent!’ Do not be silent anymore! Cry out with a hundred thousand voices! I see that, by dint of being silent, the world is in ruins” (Letter to a prelate).
Enough chatter. Let us read this book. Let us discuss it in peace and charity. Let us carry the Church into prayer and allow it shine with holiness in our life as priests and as Christian faithful, in the midst of an increasingly atheist world, heedless of the reality of God.
(Translation from the Italian by Diane Montagna of LifeSiteNews.)
