world youth day
17 Jul 2008
Not all Mass and Singing
Catherine James recounts her experiences on Day Two of World Youth Day
What glorious sunshine Sydney is getting these winter days.
It would be even better if I wasn't in the same pair of jeans I've been wearing since Sunday. How completely feral.
After the feedback from yesterday's piece, I'm starting to wonder if admitting to dirty clothes is less feral and more forgivable than owning up to finding intellectual clarity in the Catholic Church.
Yes, intellectual clarity. Save me. I must be a lost soul.
I arrived in Sydney for WYD on Monday morning and am getting used to daily life as a pilgrim. Wednesday morning started very early, after a very late night. You need to get up early to beat the peak hour traffic in the bathrooms. Waiting for a cold shower is a bleary experience I'd like to be done with as quickly as possible. The hot water doesn't get even a minute to gather its strength.
I'm pretty lucky though. I met a group from Texas who were sharing three showers between 150 people. Where I'm staying the ratio of showers to humans is a little higher. So if Sydney seems to stink at the moment, I hope this explains part of it.
Breakfast is the usual fare - fruit and cereal. There's toast, if you can be stuffed waiting for it again. At least at breakfast you're only competing with 400 other people, not 40,000 like the other meals.
The more formal part of the day kicks off with Catechesis. This is essentially an opportunity to hear from a bishop about a particular doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church. It is a chance to "listen, reflect and ask questions". Catechesis is followed by a simple Mass and lunch.
We leave the accommodation site where all this takes place and it's off to the festival events. Some are crazy fun, some are a bit more sombre. Just to challenge myself a bit I go for sombre.
My first event involved listening to a frustrated nun give a talk entitled "Woman and Church". This isn't the forum to explore such a complex theological issue. What I will say is that I am still undecided on the question of women being apparently underrepresented in the Catholic Church. I've made a mental note to self to stop sitting on the proverbial fence and start doing some serious study on what the different arguments are.
The next session I attended was even more provocative — but being less theological in nature, it was easier to grapple with. "Pro-woman, pro-life". Yep. I'm sure, esteemed reader, I don't need to spell out what this was about. But before you eat your shorts in rage, it was not a "fire and brimstone" take on abortion. It was — in a nutshell — telling us Catholics to wake up to the distress of women when they have an abortion and to do something about it.
Sure, there are women who are totally satisfied with ending a pregnancy, and for them, life goes on. But there are plenty of others who are totally crushed by the experience. While the Catholic Church is clear that it cannot support ending a growing life, it also recognises that life of the woman who is still alive after her pregnancy ends. She is often left to grieve alone or unsupported for the loss of a child she may have borne in other circumstances. We cannot stand by and pretend there is nothing we can do about her grief nor that she should be happy she got rid of an unwanted pregnancy.
The session also explored the even less talked about question of the impact of abortion on men. The abortion debate has been understandably skewed towards a woman's choice. Just because a woman ends a pregnancy, however, doesn't necessarily mean the father wants to do so.
I went to two more sessions and was home — finally — by 11pm. One session was on the question of creation and evolution, the other on the question of sex and love. The latter session has a follow up this evening, so I'll elaborate on it in my next update.
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Prevention is better than cure & the church teaching on contraception demands serious reconsideration.
Women in the church is not a complex issue it is simple a matter of equality.I realize this is problematic in an absolute papacy, but Catherine the rules have been written by a bunch of blokes and even the pope has only been infallible for about170years(must have nice for him tohave discovered that), surely it is time for women to get a fair go.
Hope you enjoyed your evening session
Intellectual clarity and the catholic church? a joke yes? As a youngster I was confronted with the intellectual clarity of anti abortion because "Thou shalt no kill" while at the same time being condemed because I was a draft resister who didnt wish to kill "godless communists" in vietnam. I also saw my mother completely destroy her health (leading to her early death) because she followed the anti contraception teachings of her church. The very same intellectually clear teachings which condemn millions of catholics to death by aids in third world countries. Go an write for the Australian along with Pell and the other leaders of this organisation. Deny global warming and blame the victims of abuse as wingers. To try to pretend the church is otherwise is to ignore the fundamental tenant of infallability and obedience. To argue that these rulings eg on contraception arent real or somehow dont apply is in fact simple intellectual dishonesty. So if you cathrine are really Catholic look forward to tour 7, 8 or more children and if by chance your orientation is otherwise welcome to a life of enforced celibacy because anyother choice is in fact against the tenants of your religion.
No women priests is one reason the RC church is in decline. Where were the blokes when Christ was on the cross and taken down? Chickening out and left it to the women. Today where would the RC and Anglican churches be without the support of lay women? If both had to rely on blokes they would be further down the drain.
I find it hard to understand how any self-respecting woman can belong to an organisation that so disrespects her. What a contorted and contradictory view of over half of humanity. It has a virgin mother as one of its idols! And that is the least of its pathological weirdness about women and sexuality.
350,000 fans were given the body of Christ on a biscuit at Randwick Racecourse during the Mass. If Christ had 350,000 representatives there that other RC invention the Devil must also have been present. Now the race between the Christs and the Devil to capture souls must have given the handicappers hell to work out.
Well, I was a devout Catholic from a devout family until my twenties, a long time ago now.
I gave it away because I found a belief in a God untenable. So I guess I must be an atheist.
But I know who I would prefer to spend time with and that is with Catherine James whose sensitivity and empathy are clear from the way she writes. There is something quite ugly about the protestations of the `rationalists’ with which I would not wish to identify. The Catholic Church has certainly made grave mistakes from time to time, if there is no God and it is merely an artifact of being human, what more could one expect? But it has also been the agent for enormous good throughout the world and the foundation of Western civilisation - one only needs to walk through Europe and even now, recognise the signs at almost every corner. This may not be true for everybody - my own wife, a `tinted person’, converted from Bhudism to Catholicism a decade or more ago (because she admired my devout and generous mother) does not see the signs I see in Europe. She lacks the cultural background.
Being `rational’ is just using a methodolgy or tools to come to a conclusion consistent with the premises one started with. Nothing special about that. Catholic thinkers have and do make highly rational contributions in every field of endeavour.
As for humanism, Catholics in general are all taught from the earliest age, to value every human being on the planet, not just whites, not just Catholics, not just Christians. It has been one of its distinguishing features in those parts of Asia with which I am familiar.
Catholics in Australia were once an underclass (e.g. until the 1960s, policy at The Age was not to employ Catholics although some slipped through). They bootstrapped themselves into upward mobility by developing the Catholic school system and taking advantage of the unbiased examination system for entering the Public Service. So even as a lapsed Catholic, I was impressed and pleased with the enthusiasm and even triumphalism of the WYD. It validated my own experience and that of many fellow Australians. It is churlish of the nay-sayers to deny their fellow citizens that.
Three comments. One this is the same pope when as the top Vatican cardinal ordered, repeat ordered all RC bishops to stop referring to the Anglican church as a sister church because there was only one Christian church and that was the one in the Vatican. In Australia now he is asking all Christian churches to band together, which makes him a hypocrite.Secondly RC’s states the truth will set you free, but their mouth pieces deny this pope was in Hitler Youth and have to be dragged into admitting he spent the war on an anti aircraft battery protecting the Mercedes factory who by the way were making cars for Hitler, Rommel and the SS to drive around in. Thirdly this rock concert (read Youth Day-which ran for nearly a week—had as its lead the pope who only sang hymns a bit off key and had no guitar and mod songs. So many of the kids were bored and planning the next gig they would attend
Just did a preview, and this is really really long, but here is a follow-up comment on the priest stuff.
I don’t think ordaining women is a panacea to a shortage of priests, although it appeals to us as an obvious and easy solution. Personally, I reckon if the institution of Catholicism ever goes under, it won’t be because women were not ordained priests. Given the Catholic Church has lasted 2000 years without it, I think the reasons for female ordination should go a bit deeper than that.
So while I do think female priests are not a necessary part of the Church, I don’t intend to dismiss the question. I’ve asked a few people about this and here is something of what I’ve heard so far. Just a warning though – if you don’t believe in God, let alone believe that Jesus Christ was God, you’re going to find the following points a bit hard to swallow.
For starters, one thing bothering me about the brouhaha over female ordination is best articulated in a question I asked the nun mentioned in the article above. The question was something like: "The picture you’ve just painted is of a church that is more like a democracy - everyone has a say, everyone can be a priest, whatever gender, married or not, etc. Fine. But if you really believe the Catholic Church is not merely a human institution but rather that God is guiding it, then does it really matter who or what gender is the humanly visible leader?"
True, the answer to this question could go either way. You could answer, "Exactly. It doesn’t matter whether a man or woman is ordained, is Pope, etc - God is leading the Church."
But the nun answered that the Church needs to be SEEN to uphold the standards it asks of civil society, ie, equal opportunity. This reply didn’t satisfy me. But nor would the “Exactly” response, because if you seriously think God established the church then you need to ask God what he has planned and not only consult what we think about leadership today.
So how do you know work out what God planned? Well, Catholics believe Jesus Christ was God. So they have to look to him and how he established the Church.
If you go back to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, he undeniably never made a woman one of his Apostles. Christians agree the Apostles were no ordinary disciples. They were the first priests who passed on ordination to others as the number of Jesus’ followers grew.
Now Jesus was not a respecter of social norms. He broke almost every social rule - especially in regards to women - and he wasn’t afraid of pointing out where people were wrong. He was a revolutionary, a radical in his time. He wasn’t one for caring what others thought, or what he should be SEEN to be doing. So, dang it, why didn’t he make a woman one of his Apostles?
Furthermore, there is no denying that if there was ever a woman - or human being for that matter - more worthy of being a priest, it was Jesus’ own mother. Christians believe she was without fault. And yet, it’s pretty clear she was not an Apostle (in the capital ‘A’ sense of the word). Nor was she present at the Last Supper where Christ completed his teaching on the Eucharist – a central tenant of Catholic belief – and handed on his “power” to his Apostles.
Besides, it is not so hard to believe that God might have different plans for different genders when it comes to the supernatural stuff when he clearly has different jobs cut out for us in the natural realm.
Men can’t bear children (biologically speaking). Does it make the male a lesser being? Is it fair that only a woman’s body can provide the environment to bring a new human being into the world? That only she can best nurture a newborn? Why can’t we choose who gets that job? Did God commit a big, fat, equal opportunity blunder?
You might argue that the Catholic Church has a choice in who gets what "job". But does it? Going back to the idea that the Church is only trying to practice what Jesus established, you can see why it isn’t so clear-cut.
Perhaps these points clarify nothing. I know it must sound like a load of caca to a non-believer. Anyway, it’s not meant to be an all-encompassing explanation. But I hope it serves to show that the question of the Catholic priesthood is not merely a social question of equality but is more so a theological question the Church does not and has not ignored.
Funny that God is guidng the Roman repeat Roman Catholic Church but not the Anglican. Using your argument women ordained as priests in the Anglican church are heretics. I had an example once of a man an RC who married an Anglican in the Anglican Church after going with his wife to be through the usual half a dozen lessons with an Anglican (male) priest. Twelve years later he took the wife and three children over to the RC church because he became convinced by a RC firend that he was not married in the eyes of the RC church. His father in law realised at that stage that those grandchildren were considered bastards. by this Christian church. Now really who do you RC gurus think you are. Don’t you think that with Islam rampart you better pull your heads in and stop the pretence of being an exclusive club. The worst part of this is that when Islam stamps you out the Anglicans and the Protestant churches will go down with you. And don’t give me the old myth that Anglican is a Protestant church, remeber Defender of the Faith on the coins?
Catherine, I don’t know why Jesus is not recorded in the Gospels as having women apostles. But there are a lot of things Jesus didn’t do that the Catholic Church now regards as essential, so I’m not sure why you single out this issue. For instance, Jesus didn’t insist on priestly celibacy (this was something the Pope dreamed up 1000 years later) and I don’t recall Jesus saying anything against birth control, let alone against condom use for disease prevention. Come to think of it, I don’t think Jesus actually declared the Pope infallible, or even described such an institution as the papacy. And that’s just for starters.
To base 21st century religious beliefs on the customs of a Middle Eastern country 2000 years ago, followed by the structures and politics emerging from the Roman Empire without even taking a critical look at their relevance today, does not make sense to me. For instance back in Jesus’ day there wasn’t exactly equal value or opportunity for women in society. But it was something he was quite keen on promoting, as I recall.
I do not see any logical connection between a woman’s ability to bear children and her restriction to powerless (let’s not dodge the issue) roles in the church. Since celibacy is demanded of (male) priests, then logically that would extend to women priests as well. Problem solved. No, the issue in the Church is far more profound, irrational, and misogynistic than that.
As far as I am concerned it is the spirit, not the letter of the law that Jesus was on about. That is just the opposite of what we see in the Catholic Church (and many other religious institutions) today.
Hey rowena, it’s true a lot of things the Catholic Church stands for today were not spelled out by Jesus Christ. That’s because it’s actually applying the spirit, not the letter of the law, to issues as they arise. Some things were not made a "dogma" until a truth Catholics had accepted was challenged and created confusion. I could add to yoru list of dogmas that the Church only declared a truth less than 1000 years ago. Big deal. Our civil society does something similar every time it makes a new law. It’s not inventing laws, it’s not inventing morals: it’s simply trying to clarify situations that previously hadn’t arisen.
I could explain the history of the Church’s position on each of the things you point out here, but I got to get back to work. Maybe another day.
Hey Harry, I was totally confused by your post, but I will say that I reckon God is guiding more than just the Catholic Church. I don’t really know what his plan is but I don’t think God is only interested in shoring up the future of Catholicism. If I sound like I’m contradicting myself it’s only because I’m not as black and white as so many people presume Catholics to be.
And no I don’t think Anglicanism is a protestant church in the pure meaning of the term. It was founded by a Catholic who couldn’t accept the Church’s teaching on the insolubility of marriage. It wasn’t the consequence of Luther, Calvin, or any of the other protestant "reformers". But really, what’s the difference?
Catholicism has never wanted to be exclusive. But it won’t water down truth for the sake of some who say it’s too difficult. It’s the other churches who broke away to make their own club - to the exclusion of Catholicism.
Catherine, it seems to me your whole position is that something is right only if the Church declares it so. If that’s the case, what is the point of trying to support any dogma in terms of what Jesus may or may not have said or done, such as his not having female apostles? It follows from your position that referring to apostles or the lack of them does nothing to advance your argument that women should not be priests, any more than it rebuts mine that they should. Or is it only when the evidence suits the Church’s dogma that you claim it leads to the mind of God? Some would call such an approach cherry-picking, but I would call it fruitless.
If it was only Henry 8 and his desire to get another wife why didn’t the Brits revert to the RC church later. Because they could not accept the rubbish of buying their way out of the nonsense of Purgatory and they may have even woke up about the married early popes who were making their offspring popes and getting moree perks and power. The reason RC’s wanted all priests to be unmarried was because it cost too much to keep a wife and kids, so don’t give me the Christ bit who allegedly had only men preaching. Really your claim the Catholiicism (read the Vatican) has never wanted to be exclusive is nonsense. I repeat the present pope when top cardinal got the last pope to order all his bishops not to call the Anglican Church a sister church. Get real. You don’t have to explain anything about the RC church to me madame I have studied its history for years, particularly how it censored US newspaper articles from people like Ernest Hemingway reporting from the Spanish Civil War and later asking business people in its flock not to advertise in newspapers which ever voiced any criticism of the RC church. Can you remember when RC priests urged their flock from the pulpits not to vote for the Godless ALP during the Labor Split and vote for the DLP instead. Of course both in the US and here the church is quiet now following the scandal of priests sexually abusing congregation members. but the past is still the past. And thanks for calling other churches who broke away as a club. That shows what you really think and your wrong. Prior to Anglican priests giving ouit the Eucharist ( your Mass although sometimes you call it Eucharist) our priests invite any person who has been baptised and confirmed in any other church to come up to the altar for the Eucharist. No RC has ever come and no RC priest has ever uttered such an invitation from his pulpit. Now who is exclusive? Now you can be totally confused again by my post for the second time
Hey Rowena, you said to me "it seems to me your whole position is that something is right only if the Church declares it so". If you think about it, that’s actually your position in a roundabout way. You’re arguing that when the Church declares something as true, that’s when the Church believes it as true. Wrong.
What I was trying to say was that when the Church officially hands down a teaching as a dogma of the Church it does not make it true from that moment on. Rather, when the Church does this it is simply "officially", and I stress officially, making it clear for its members where it stands on a certain point because it happens to be a point in question at that time.
I’m sure if you looked back at the history books you’d find plenty of Catholic beliefs that were not affirmed for hundreds of years.
Hey Harry, wasn’t too confused by your last post. It was clear enough. I don’t know about a few of the things you mentioned, like the so-called censorship of Hemingway, or the preaching from pulpits stuff about voting for a certain political party. I’d be surprised if such a move was promulgated from Rome itself. And there’s the rub. All too often people judge Catholicism on what a certain priests or Catholics did or said. By the by, I hope you’re not taking my words as Catholic dogma because they’re not. They’re just reiterations of what I understand to be dogma. The point is if you’re going to get your knickers in a knot over the Church, you’ve got to do it properly. You’ve got to go back to the basics of what the Catholic Church teaches - ie the official documents - to fairly evaluate its validity.
I could give you reams of examples of what idiotic stuff all manner of religious - and non-religious people - have done, sometimes in the name of religion or in the name of irreligion, or in the name of nothing but a whim. So what? Really and truly, so what? I’m sure both of us have parents who gave us certain principles to live by but didn’t necessarily live up to them 100 per cent of the time? Does that undo everything they’ve taught us?
And the Catholic Church is not exclusive. I’m sure in another breath for a different argument you’d accuse the Church of wanting to convert everyone…mmmm…go figure.
As for the restricting who receives the Eucharist, well, if you believed what Catholics believe about the Eucharist I bet you would want to make sure only prepared believers received it as well. No apologies for that.
Hello Catherline, First I respect you greatly for your willingness to engage in a debate instead of ignoring any criiticism. Secondly your last paragraph surely infers that Anglicans seeking the Eucharist are not fully prepared believers. As a devout RC you must know that this is the official attitude of the Vatican. I know, repeat know, that RC priests and bishops do give Anglicans who come forward in RC churches to take the Eucharist the sacrament. I have discussed that with an RC bishop who visited Anglican Canterbury Cathedral but could not go to the altar rail for the Sacrament. On the other hand RC clergy recognize Anglicans as they put up their hands unlike the tongue and give them the Sacrament. As an Anglican priest explained that to me the RC clergy allow that as it implies the Anglicans are accepting the RC church. Yet never the reverse happens when RC’s visit an Anglica Church, to my mind that makes thr RC church exclusive. And re the Hemingway and DLP bit surely you are not suggesting RC clergy in a case like that would defy the wishes of the Vatican? Unlike abuse of lay persons which the pope finally admitted happened. In one of your recent posts you said the non RC churches broke away and became a club on their own. Was the word club a Freudian slip to avoid saying church?
Hey Harry. In the last paragraph I was not inferring Anglicans are not “fully prepared believers”. I was making the point that Catholics believe the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, and if they seriously believe that it would be a total contradiction to hand it out to anyone who just wanted some wafer bread, or who mocked it as “Christ on a biscuit”. I think it’s fair that the Catholic Church tries to protect what it sees as sacred. I wouldn’t open my family album to someone who wouldn’t care about it, let alone to someone who’d ridicule or mock it – and that’s just photos, not even the actual people.
Regarding your concern of how Anglican/RC laypersons are received by RC/Anglican pastors in church…To be honest I have no personal experience of this. I’ve never tried to receive the Eucharist in an Anglican church and I’m wondering how often you’ve tried to receive the Eucharist in a Catholic one. Most Catholics I know receive the Eucharist in their hands; where you got this idea that Anglicans receive it by hand and Catholics by tongue, I don’t know.
As for Hemingway, DLP, and any other regrettable thing a priest or bishop has done in the name of his belief: Yes, I am suggesting the RC clergy may and do defy the wishes of the Church. Are you surprised at that? I’ll let you in on a little secret, Harry. Catholics are not robots – they are actually human with all the self-will of any other human being, and like other humans, sometimes they get it terribly, pathetically wrong regardless of what beliefs they adhere to. Shhhhh.
Oh, and the choice of the word “club”? Take it as you like. I’ll strive to avoid using such loaded words, and be more dictionary-minded when I write. It was simply a throwaway word that sounded good at the time. But if it matters to you: I do see the Anglican Church as a Church.
Catherine, how "convenient". If I read you correctly, finally the Church asserted that priestliness required celibacy, but actually believed it all along. It just didn’t become a crucial issue for over a millenium, therefore no need to rock the boat. So were all those pre-declaration married priests living in sin, or just in ignorance? Or doesn’t it count? Pul-eez.
It seems to me one can justify almost anything post hoc, by reference to "eternal truths" ie with the benefit of hindsight and convenient re-interpretation. But to deny a fundamental role for social and intellectual changes on the life of the Church seems to me to demand ludicrous mental contortions, fearful rigidity and wilful blindness to the evidence before one’s eyes.
It seems to me that various social changes brought the Church to the point where they felt the need to make such an "affirmation", in effect changing their policy to suit the changed circumstances. But such an interpretation is seen as a threat by the Church, perceived as a sort of relativism and challenge to authority that they will fight to the death to deny. So it might take them another 1000 years to concede that married priests are OK (but no change, mind you). An institution that took 360 years post-Galileo to publicly concede that the earth moves around the sun (and to "regret" how Galileo was handled - Pope John Paul 1992) does not, to my way of thinking, offer a credible system for guiding one’s life.
You know what’s really going to get your goat, Rowena? There are rites within the Catholic Church where priests can marry. I don’t know off the top of my head which ones, but for your info there’s a few other ritualistic traditions outside the Latin (Roman) one, such as Ambrosian rite, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, Chaldean rites. Now you can get really really mad. How unjust, how wrong, that in one part of the Church it’s allowed, and in another it’s not. I mean, it’s not like the men who choose to be priests have a choice, is it?
Catherine It seems unfair to remind you that Anglican priests with a heap of kids can desert— sorry nasty word—recognize that only the RC Church is the real Church and go over. They can get a parish with no questions asked and be housed and have a stipend to buy tucker and even perhaps have a bet on the nags. All supported by a long suffering congregation while in the next parish a celbate RC priest goes home to a lonely dwelling and eats bread and jam or opens a tin of sardines. A few of the lucky ones have a house keeper which I presume he has to pay from his own pocket plus of course if he hasn’t a house keeper some meals provided by the women in the congregation. One RC priest, a mate of mine cop that from a heretic Anglican, said he was not game to have a meal in an RC house as it annoyed the other RC women. He would come to our place out in the sticks and say’ G’day I’ve just ducked in for a quick cuppa and a yarn.’
Harry, I really don’t know what the point of your argument is. Are you now trying to get the Catholic Church to introduce married priests? Doesn’t the lack of married priests simply prove what a godforsaken institution the RC church is? I thought you’d want to keep the RC’s celibate and so have more ammo to bring it down.
Sorry to hear about your RC priest mate. Those RC women sound like idiots. Must be because they’re RC. But no seriously, loneliness is a terrible thing. I know a lot of lonely people - and they’re married.
What’s getting my goat Catherine, is not specifically whether priests can marry. That issue is just an example of yours and the Church’s inability to give a credible account of the reasoning either way. And now you are ducking and weaving, introducing Byzantine red herrings to the table, when silly me thought we were only talking about the Catholic Church all along.
And as for you Harry, ever heard of cooking classes? Can you only offer sardines to go with your red herrings?
Re my last comment, first paragraph, last sentence = Roman Catholic Church. The crux of the problem.
Rowena Get soap and wash your mouth. Tut tut a good RC woman talking about Reds. Those terrible Communists. Now the pope who got shot at and saved from death by turning his head in time because he saw a vision of Virgin Mary (not Virgin Blues) convinced Ronald Reagan who also had been shot that the same Lady had saved him and wanted them both to pretend US was launching a Star Wars project. Vatican scientists warned that it would cost a fortune and would not work. Well that cunning pair knew that but they convinced the USSR that they were doing it, which they were not. The Soviets fell for the trap and went broke trying. Old Gorby the Russian president admitted that the pope and Ronny had destroyed them, unlike Krushy who said he had umpteen battalions and the pope had none. The pity of it was that the Commo boasses who ran the country have now been replaced by the Russian version of the Italian Mafia.
I’m hardly ducking, rowena. And weaving? I thought I was shooting pretty straight; obviously, not straight enough.
Your argument that celibacy is not essential to the priesthood is correct. I supported that by pointing out that priests in other parts of the world do marry. (All the rites I listed are currently practised in the Catholic Church today with the Pope as the head – no Byzantine red herrings there.)
But you want reasons for why priests shouldn’t marry. Given the eloquence of your reasons for why priests should be able to marry, I totally understand you want to hear the other side. Happy to offer a few pointers that have helped me get my head around why the Catholic Church would instruct priests not to marry.
Here goes nothing.
Reason One: from Jesus Christ. "For there are eunuchs [read: celibates, eunuchs is a bit passé, don’t you reckon?] who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”
This is just one instance where Jesus is pretty clear celibacy was already practised in his own day. In some cases, it’s not by choice, but in the religious sense - for the kingdom of heaven - it is by choice. Jesus doesn’t say it’s for everyone. Nor does the Catholic Church say that.
The key point here, supported by other things he said, is celibacy is not a suppression of human love, but rather is an expression of love for something else – something just as significant, if you’re a believer.
Reason Two: the Apostle, Paul. He was not one of the “chosen” Twelve but someone who received the full Apostleship (or priesthood) only after Jesus had been crucified. Paul deliberately didn’t marry. It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had wanted to because there were other Apostles who were married. So why didn’t he? He explains it a couple of times, but read his first letter to the Christians at Corinth, chap 7, verses 6-9. He says he received a particular gift to be celibate. Yeah, celibacy, a gift – not a burden. (Is the guy off his rocker?) He also says, basically, if someone really needs a sexual relationship, it would be better to get married.
It’s not that Paul didn’t experience the pull of flesh – he talks about his efforts to keep a lid on it in some other letter. So should he have taken his own advice and married? Not necessarily. Even a married person has to make some effort to maintain the commitment to their “other half”. We all know commitment is not easy. But that crazy little thing called love will always require it, if it’s the fulfilling kind. Personal experience should suffice for you to understand this – or just listen to what most songs are sung for and you’ll get the picture.
So, rowena, if celibacy was not a requirement for priests until 1000 years ago, as you say, then why did one of the first priests practice it and recommend it 2000 years ago? Why did Jesus Christ talk about choosing to remain celibate for the kingdom of heaven?
Reason Three: apart from these two reasons which require a bit of ol’ bible-faith, I could run through just a few common sense arguments for priestly celibacy. For example, the time unmarried priests could give to the community and parishioners, and their availability to go wherever the Church needs them to go without having to uproot a family doesn’t require much imagination to understand. If you thought hard enough, I’m sure you can come up with some common sense reasons of your own.
Some argue the Church would “grow” if it allowed priests to marry, but how does that work if a married priest would probably be less available for ministry than an unmarried one?
The bottom line for me is celibacy is not an immoral injunction and men make the choice to be priests fully-informed and freely.
But just a final thing, in case you still think priests are relegated to some second-rate existence bereft of meaningful human love. It’s something a guy who lived about 1500 years ago wrote in an autobiographical account of his search for meaning in life.
Augustine had a Catholic mother and an atheist father. He followed his father’s lead most of his young adult life. He was a brilliant guy with a penchant for philosophy. I think he was a bit of a ladies man for a time, but he did commit himself to a relationship and had a son with a woman he loved and lived with. Anyway, he started to believe in God, then in Jesus Christ, eventually became a priest, and then the Bishop of Hippo (somewhere in Africa, I think). Sorry to drastically shorten the tale but you can read it in his book, “Confessions”.
I think he best summarises the whole question of where marriage fits into our existence: it’s a good thing, but it’s not an end in itself. Augustine wrote, after all his searching, that only the infinite creator could ultimately satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart - even the married human heart.
In his words:
“You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Harry Naughty medical detectives who delve into the past who questioned Nelson’s Kiss me Hardy and many other famous people suggested Paul was a latent homosexual and an epilectic. They suggested climatic happenings trigger fits and visions with epilectics. The naughty medical d’s did a time search and came up with a finding that a mild earthquake occured at the time Paul was hoofing it down that Damascus road. Don’t these spoil sports annoy us when we have our mind beliefs set in comfortable stone.
Catherine, you make it sound as if things like priestly celibacy, women priests and contraception (for example) are just little points of disagreement to be tossed around over a cuppa by friendly groups of Catholics on the road to paradise. But that is not a picture of the true situation as I see it. Some of these life-changing issues are not even countenanced for further discussion or consideration by the old bachelors in charge, and anyone who doesn’t shape up to the law as laid down, can ship out (without pension). As I said: in practice draconian, authoritarian, misogynist and out of touch. In you they seem to have recruited a lively, tap-dancing acrobat as advocate, who thinks she has found her spiritual life in the Church. We value things differently, and will never agree.
I’m sorry to hear we will never agree, rowena, really I am. No tap-dancing sarcasm attached. Perhaps over a cuppa our discussion would have been different.
Keep an open mind, and I will try to do so as well. Question everything. Wish you well.