By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 5
One thing Martin Luther did in his revolution against the Church of Jesus Christ was to abolish priestly celibacy. Of course: For a defrocked monk who lived with a runaway nun, it does make sense. But what he ignored — or chose to ignore — was that the celibacy of the clergy takes its origin from the example and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Church He founded, the Catholic Church, His Virgin Bride and His pure Mystical Body, is fittingly served by a celibate priesthood. The prophet who announced the coming of the Messias, the man whom Jesus called the greatest saint on Earth, His forerunner, St. John the Baptist, was celibate, leading monastic life in the desert all his life.
Most of His apostles were celibate (the New Testament speaks of St. Peter’s mother-in-law, but never of his wife or children, which led many fathers of the Church to conclude he was a childless widower); Sacred Tradition speaks of the daughters of St. Philip; all the other apostles were celibates, according to both Scripture and Tradition. The members of the Holy Family — Jesus, Mary, and Joseph — were all celibates!
The great Prophet Elias, who appeared standing beside Jesus on the Day of the glorious Transfiguration, was a celibate, leading a monastic life in the desert all his life. Hence Jesus said that St. John the Baptist had come in the spirit of Elias.
When David was escaping from the wrath of Saul, he and his friends stopped by the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and asked for food. The priests in charge replied that all they had were the breads of the proposition which could not be eaten by anyone but the priests. David asked for that bread for him and his companions, the priests agreed, but under one condition: The priests asked if they had been chaste. As David affirmed that they had been, they were allowed to eat the breads of the proposition.
Another hint of God to His people, regarding the relationship between those who eat the bread of the proposition and conjugal continence.
When Moses led the people to Mount Sinai to receive the Law, Moses told them to stay by the foot of the mountain, and imposed three conditions on them to receive the priesthood:
First, they could not touch the mountain under penalty of death;
Second, they had to wash their vestments;
Third, they had to stay away from their wives from three days.
There you have, once again, conjugal continence for those who were going to receive the priesthood.
The Hebrews did not fulfill the conditions, especially the third one, and instead did spiritual fornication with an idol. Moses excluded all males from all eleven tribes from the priesthood forever: Only the men of the tribe of Levi were allowed to serve in the Temple, and only the men who were descendants of Aaron were allowed to officiate as priests.
God takes very seriously our lack of seriousness!
Among the Jews in the Old Testament, the priesthood was hereditary; they had to be descendants of Moses’ brother, Aaron. And yet, conjugal continence was prescribed to the married priests during their time of service in the Temple. That is, a priest serving in the Temple of Jerusalem had to live apart from his wife during his whole time of service. That was another one of God’s indications of the kind of priesthood the New Testament was going to have.
Of course, history records the fact that in the early Church, many, if not all clerics — whether celibate, married, or widowed — observed conjugal continence after Ordination. This is not very well-known among Protestants and the so-called liberal Catholics because they disagree with the concept of priestly celibacy. Naturally, the married man who was ordained a priest had already previously obtained his wife’s consent before he entered Holy Orders.
If the wife did not give her consent, he could not be ordained a priest in the Latin Rite.
It is another undisputed historical fact that after Ordination there could be no marriage for widowed or celibate clerics — a regulation which seems only to make sense if conjugal abstinence was demanded even of married clerics. St. Paul declares that a deacon, presbyter, or bishop must be a “husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6). He did not mean that the man being ordained deacon, priest, or bishop could not have more than one wife, but simply that if his wife died, he could not marry again.
In the Eastern churches, however, the practice spread of allowing married men who were ordained to the priesthood to remain with their wives. But not bishops. From the seventh century on, in both West and East, only monks or single clerics were elevated to the episcopate. By the 13th century, the Western Church had ceased ordaining married men.
The Latin Church, to which most of us in the West belong, requires celibacy of her candidates for the priesthood for a variety of good reasons.
The first one: The state of virginity, being the imitation of Jesus, who was and is virgin and celibate, is holier than that of marriage, as the Church has defined, and is, therefore, more desirable in those who minister at the altar. They are going to act in Persona Christi, in the person of Christ, the virgin celibate Son of the Virgin Mary. This is testified by the lives of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, and by the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. 7:32-34; cf. Matt. 19:12; Apoc. 14:4.
Second, celibate clergy have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and so can serve God with an undivided heart. They are not distracted from their work by family affections and cares, and are free to work wherever they are needed.
Third, celibacy in the priest is a sign and stimulus of charity, and a singular source of spiritual fruitfulness in the world. The celibate priest is a sign of the mystical marriage of the Church to Christ and is better fitted for a broader acceptance of fatherhood in Christ.
Fourth, the priest’s vow of chastity wins for him the respect of his people. It disposes them to listen to his instructions, and to approach him with confidence in the confessional.
Next article: Celibacy in the Letters of St. Paul.
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(Raymond de Souza, KM, is a Knight of the Sovereign and Military Order of Malta; a delegate for International Missions for Human Life International [HLI]; and an EWTN program host. Website: www. RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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