A Leaven In The World . . . Struggle Over Celibacy Is About Church’s Identity

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

The latest dust-up in the Vatican over clerical celibacy is just more evidence that two forces are at work in the Church today: One seeks to more and more accommodate the world while the other prioritizes getting to Heaven.
The post-synodal exhortation for the Synod on the Amazon is soon to be released. There was much talk during the synod of relaxing some of the customs and traditions in the Church that are suspected by some of discouraging the practice of the faith. One of these is thought by those who have the Pope’s ear to be clerical celibacy.
Someone allegedly made a comment during the synod that the people of the Amazon “don’t understand celibacy so they should not have it,” or something to that effect. With that kind of logic, soon folks will be saying we shouldn’t have God either because we don’t understand Him.
That is a sure sign of accommodation to the world: impatience with supernatural values such as celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom in imitation of Christ. Some commentators maintain that there is an embarrassment on the part of some leaders in the Church with Magisterial teaching on marriage and sexuality. The disparagement of celibacy in the priesthood is seen as part of this desire to accommodate bourgeois or Protestant morality in the hope that more will be accepting of the faith.
In the exhortation on the Amazon Synod, reportedly to be promulgated late this month or early next month, Pope Francis is expected by some to push for a change to the practice of admitting only celibate men to the priesthood.
News came also this month of a new book — From the Depths of Our Hearts — to be published collaboratively by Robert Cardinal Sarah and Pope Emeritus Benedict supporting the longstanding custom of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite. When the book was announced with pictures of the cover showing the photo and name of Benedict emblazoned thereon together with Cardinal Sarah, Pope Francis, it is alleged in a recent report from Antonio Socci, angrily summoned Archbishop Ganswein and ordered that Benedict’s name and photo be removed. Ganswein obediently ordered Sarah to make the changes, saying the reason was that Benedict did not agree with the proposed format naming him a co-author.
Sarah did as asked, but not without suffering a hail of abuse, including accusations that he manipulated Benedict. He produced documents to prove that Benedict approved of the project in detail, protesting the calumny.
Meanwhile the French publisher says the book has already been printed and will be sold as is until current supplies are exhausted. Ignatius, the American publisher, has refused to back down and will keep the photos and names of both prelates on the cover. Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, at Ignatius, is backing Cardinal Sarah and standing up to Vatican bullying. Good for him. At least there is one hero in this scenario.
In an interview with Eric Metaxas, Catholic author John Zmirak claims all this is evidence that Benedict is more imprisoned than anything else, with this attempt to mute him as evidence he is being held against his will. That may be a bit exaggerated, but we can certainly see that he is not entirely free to speak his mind. So much for all the talk of parrhesia.
As I write, word comes that Archbishop Carlo Viganò has released a statement accusing Ganswein of “abusive and systematic control” of Pope Benedict. It’s up to the longstanding secretary, thought to be a friend and trusted confidant of Benedict, to prove the opposite at this point, given that he is alleged to have had knowledge of the book and to have supported the project until the sudden reversal of late.
Again, the disagreements over the apostolic tradition of clerical celibacy are one more indication of larger forces at work. These seek to jettison anything from the Church which can be removed to accommodate worldliness and the softening of disciplines always thought necessary for the spiritual life.
The struggle over mandatory clerical celibacy is emblematic of this rift in the Church between those who trust the tradition of the Church to see us through the crises afflicting vocations and those who don’t. There is no faith without fidelity to the Word of God, however. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches, “Unless you take up your cross and follow me you cannot be my disciple.” Christianity is not supposed to be soft. Our founder and leader as our Savior surrendered His divine power to remain dying in excruciating pain on the cross until He breathed His last. It is Him we must follow in every aspect of the Father’s will.
In the struggle over celibacy, thought by some to be too demanding for the human person, we see a struggle over the identity of the Church herself.
Should not men who share the priesthood of Jesus Christ imitate His detachment from the world for the sake of the Kingdom? Celibacy is a jewel of the Latin Rite and enables the priest of Christ to imitate Him in a most wonderful and fruitful way. The priest is married to the Church, as is Jesus Christ her Lord. The love of availability for tending the flock is the fruit of this sacrifice.
Benedict’s words in the new book illuminate in a beautiful way the gift of celibacy in the Church:
“Nowadays, it is too easily asserted that celibacy would only be the consequence of a contempt for corporeality and sexuality: Such a judgment is wrong.”
“Without renouncing material goods, there can be no priesthood. The call to follow Jesus is not possible without this sign of freedom and without renouncing all compromises. Celibacy has a great significance as renouncing an earthly family life.”
“Priestly celibacy rightly understood is a liberation, although at times it is a trial. It allows the priest to establish himself in all coherence in his identity as bridegroom of the Church.”
“The ordination of married men, even if they were permanent deacons, is not an exception, but a breach, a wound in the coherence of the priesthood. To speak of an exception would be an abuse of language or a lie.”
“It is urgent and necessary, that all — bishops, priests, and laity — no longer allow themselves to be impressed by bad arguments, staged theatre, diabolical lies, and fashionable errors that want to devalue priestly celibacy.”
“The possibility of ordaining married men would represent a pastoral catastrophe, an ecclesiological confusion and an obscuring of the understanding of the priesthood.”
Pope Francis is also quoted as saying celibacy is a “gift.” And he, of course, is a celibate priest himself. We will have to wait and see if he recommends his own example of thus following Jesus Christ closely in imitation of the Lord in the forthcoming document on the Amazon Synod.
Thank you for reading, and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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