Des Wilson

CELIBACY OF CLERGY

If a priest wants to marry, the church cannot forbid him, it is a human right recognised  by the church. What it can do, and does, is forbid him to act as a priest if he marries. This could be challenged in ecclesiastical courts but  then in civil court because church courts if these exist for such a purpose would give an unfavourable judgement He could then go ahead and marry with whatever civil formality is available. The church’s own principle is that if any humanly made law can be obeyed  only at the cost of serious inconvenience or hardship it ceases to apply so a  priest  can marry civilly or with the help of sympathetic other priests. No church law has been broken. If objection is made that no cleric can proceed against church officials in civil courts without episcopal consent, this also is a humanly made law and should be governed by the same principle.

The real issue is one of unjust discrimination.

As the  Church laws now stand, if a priest marries he stands to lose his chosen way of life which has been recognised as a special vocation by the Church, he loses also social standing  and livelihood. 

Whatever about Irish courts, if  the case of a church forbidding priests to marry or forbidding priests to minister if they do marry were to go  to European courts  this could probably result in a declaration that such discrimination is against human rights. British people and the British Catholic Church may find this difficult  because  religious discrimination  is licensed at the highest level of government in Britain, affecting members of the British royal family who if they become Catholic  lose their positions. That is, treating  legally enforced clerical celibacy as a matter of discrimination and civil rights has political repercussions. On the other hand, it is hardly likely that Catholic Church authorities would be willing to risk creating such political problems and this might induce them to move towards changing  the enforced celibacy rule.

The issue of discrimination becomes  clearer in  England where some priests are deprived of ministry if they are married, others are not  if they have come via the Anglican priesthood. Two parishes side by side, one with a married priest, the other with a priest forbidden to marry is easily seen as not only unjust but illogical.

All this underlines the need for priests who wish to marry to act courageously, openly  - and carefully – having assessed the possible reaction of their parishioners etc , and the support or opposition to be expected from fellow  clergy. Open discussion then is  necessary and helpful. There is a precedent for it in discussions which happened in Holland for instance   while Vat 2 was in session ; these   even questioned whether the Church could annul marriages or create invalidating impediments- as far as such discussion is concerned, what has been done manifestly can be done!

Probably there was never  a time when  so many inducements to sexual intercourse were not just available but were imposed on people – through film, T.V., plays, books etc.,etc. St Paul wrote that if we wanted to avoid “evil” or temptation we should have to leave the world altogether and this is true now more than in his time. We  tried to avoid a lot of , not only sin, but sexual attractions by putting up a barrier, physical, intellectual or spiritual, between them and priests but that is becoming less and less possible.  Irrespective of whether such things  are right or wrong, moral or otherwise,  it means greater stress than ever on priests  who are bound to celibacy by law. This is not a compassionate situation; this  law was made in circumstances dramatically different from ours . So the original obligation imposed by this law is very different now from the obligation imposed in past times. The law is the same, but  present circumstances make keeping the  law quite different. Demanding a change in the law is then not only  logical but  even required in order to make law operate justly. We are in danger of imposing  morally impossible  burdens on priests which grow rather than diminish in time and this is expressly condemned by Jesus Christ.  The number of priests becoming smaller means that more and more priests are required to live lonely lives. We recognise  a  divine principle that it is not good for a person to be alone unless there is an overwhelming reason otherwise.  Priests  lonely  in an increasingly antagonistic or indifferent world are in a danger which grows with  time. Refuge in a priestly community or in any community does not solve the difficulties which are deeply spiritual and personal. It is easy to say such difficulties should be and can be sublimated – but   we have  not yet devised a real theology for “secular” priests, as our seminary programmes have shown, and we have to create a fresh theology of the vows of “poverty” and obedience” as well as that of “chastity”.

It is  difficult to defend the present discrimination as between RC and Anglican priests in English parishes.Clearly there is no  inability inherent in  the married state of priests, so it is absolutely and alone a matter of church law. And this church law allows one set of married men to minister as priests but not another who may be living in the adjoining parishes ! Every law should  be positively justified; unnecessary laws should not be passed or continued. They should not be passed for the sake of control but should deal with and reflect a serious threat to a community or a serious good to be achieved. It could be argued that neither of these  applies – if a great good can be achieved by celibacy that great good can be more greatly achieved by voluntary rather then imposed celibacy  in modern circumstances.   Can abstinence be imposed on people and keep its potency or worth?  Under law it becomes  a matter of obedience rather than of self-giving. And if law oppresses any of our people then it should be changed unless it serves some other very good purpose. Legally imposed celibacy is not necessary for priests, it is discriminatory and in modern circumstances dangerous. 

In some future time we shall have to face not only the effects of  changing   the celibacy law -  including  financing families,pensions etc. -  but also the effects of the law as it is at present.  For example at present we  refuse  to  allow priests to acknowledge women as their wives with whom they have a loving relationship. The church recognises its  duty to “regularise” sexual situations among  others , why should it have difficulty doing so for priests ?

But that is another day’s work.