When the news broke that the Vatican has agreed to “discuss”
the issue of celibacy among priests of the Catholic Church, ‘enemies’ of
the Church literally went into the orgy of celebration, thinking that
their prayer has finally been answered.
But what if all Catholic – Roman, Eastern etc – priests are allowed to marry, enjoy sex and keep a family?
Those who are angling for the ‘liberalisation’ of sexual intercourse –
to extend to Roman Catholic priests – argue that doing so will reduce
the incidence of illicit sex among priests.
For the uninitiated, not all Catholic priests are celibates. The
Coptic Catholic priests do marry. This means that celibacy is only
exclusive to some sections of the Catholic Church.
At ordination, Catholic priests take oaths of obedience, poverty and celibacy.
Recently, the Pope’s new number two said that the practice of
celibacy by priests in the Roman Catholic Church is open for discussion.
Archbishop Pietro Parolin said in response to an interview question with Venezuelan newspaper,
El Universal,
that “celibacy is not an institution; but look, it is also true that
you can discuss (it) because as you say, this is not a dogma, a dogma of
the Church”.
Parolin also noted that though the Church is not a democratic
institution, it must “reflect the democratic spirit of the times and
adopt a collegial way of governing”.
According to the
National Catholic Reporter, Parolin’s
comments “are raising eyebrows today, with some wondering if they herald
looming changes in Catholic teaching and practice”.
It’s not clear exactly when celibacy became mandatory for priests, the
Huffington Post
explains, but “the first written mandate for chastity dates back to 304
C.E., when Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all ‘bishops,
presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics’ should ‘abstain
completely from their wives and not to have children.’ A definitive
ruling was handed down at the Second Lateran Council of 1139, which
ruled that priests were forbidden to marry.”
“In truth,” the
National Catholic Reporter writes, “Parolin’s
comments represent what might be termed the standard moderate Catholic
line – priestly celibacy is a discipline, not a dogma, and can therefore
be revised, but it nonetheless has value, and the Church is not a
democracy, but it can and should be more collegial.”
In a 2012 interview, Pope Francis – then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio –
said celibacy “is a matter of discipline, not of faith; it can change.”
Pope Francis went on to say “I am in favour of maintaining celibacy,
with all its pros and cons, because we have 10 centuries of good
experiences rather than failures.”
What is celibacy?
According the best answer in
Yahoo! Answers, celibacy means someone who abstains from sex; it doesn’t really matter if the person has had sex before.
For
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, “Celibacy (from Latin,
cælibatus)
is a state of being unmarried and sexually abstinent, usually in
association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its
narrow sense, the term is applied only to those for whom the unmarried
state is the result of a sacred vow, act of renunciation, or religious
conviction. Celibacy has existed in one form or another throughout
history and in virtually all the major religions of the world. Celibacy
is distinct from the lack of interest in sex, which may be due to a
number of reasons, such as asexuality.”
Celibacy within marriage
Some people even believe in celibacy within marriage, where one can
marry for the purpose of spiritual companionship, mutual spiritual
encouragement, restricting oneself to a relationship within married life
only for freedom from karma as well as for the procreation and raising
of God-conscious children, not for the purpose of having sex like
pigeons and pigs. That is celibacy within marriage.
For those who hold the belief, husband and wife should encourage and
support each other in preserving the vital energy for procreating and
raising God-conscious children with spiritual values, and more
importantly for using it in the service of God together for improving
the afterlife, not just wasting it away by excessively lusty indulgence.
Pros of celibacy
Though the only disadvantage of celibacy is that some priests – who
probably were not ‘called’ in the first instance or are demonic agents
sent to destroy the Church – break their vows when the temptation seems
so much, there are so many advantages of ‘keeping’ oneself.
Some people believe that Apostle Paul was once married, but was not
married when he wrote the letter to the Corinthians. Let’s face it: Paul
wrote the letter when he was, may be, in his 30s or 40s – the same age
bracket most priests found themselves. So if Paul could abstain at that
age, that means it is possible to abstain.
There is the belief in some quarters that the loss of semen is the
unhealthiest act we can ever commit just for some momentary pleasure.
Even the most health-conscious people don’t know that all their
health-maintaining efforts lose much value due to their regular loss of
semen. In Ayurveda, conserving semen is the most vital aid to increase
the efficacy of the Ayurvedic herbs and medicines.
Loss of focus, enthusiasm and determination, paralysis or numbness of
nerves, irritation, easy anger, suppressed vocal abilities etc. may
occur due to the loss of semen.
You can lose your semen for some momentary pleasure and feel dull and dreary for many days.
Celibacy helps fasting: Fasting is a very vital
spiritual exercise that cuts across religions. Though it is believed
that through fasting, one can obtain rare spiritual levels, many people –
yours truly inclusive – see the exercise an uphill task. Remember, the
40 days of fasting Jesus Christ embarked upon filled him with
extraordinary power to make mincemeat of the devil, in the wilderness.
It has been discovered that hunger decreases due to celibacy
nourishment. Common experience of loss of semen is an increased feeling
of hunger thereafter. Preserving the vital energy makes one stronger and
the feeling of hunger decreases. After a particular time period of
let’s say two weeks of preservation, the need for food supply decreases
and one can be satisfied with eating only two times per day. Otherwise
one has to eat at least three times a day and a kind of slight feeling
of hunger is practically felt throughout the whole day. Thus a great
amount of food is required in order to reproduce the semen after
ejaculation.
The energy lost by the loss of the vital energy cannot be fully
replenished even by eating good food for many days because it takes a
lot of time for the body to process and convert the food through all the
above seven stages. That is why the hunger increases.
Advanced souls conquer over-eating by conquering the urge to lose their semen.
Is celibacy the problem?
But the Vatican has denied that its celibacy requirement for priests
was the cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the Church in
Europe.
Suggestions that the celibacy rule was in part responsible for the
“deviant behaviour” of sexually-abusive priests have swirled in recent
days, with opinion pieces in German newspapers blaming it for fuelling
abuse and even Italian commentators questioning the rule.
Much of the furore was spurred by comments from one of the Pope’s
closest advisers, Vienna archbishop, Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn, who
called for an honest examination of issues like celibacy and priestly
education to root out the origins of sex abuse.
“Part of it is the question of celibacy, as well as the subject of
character development. And part of it is a large portion of honesty in
the Church but also in society,” he wrote in the online edition of his
diocesan newsletter.
His office quickly stressed that Schoenborn wasn’t calling into
question priestly celibacy, which Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed as an
“expression of the gift of oneself to God and others”.
But Schoenborn had in the past shown himself receptive to arguments
that a celibate priesthood is increasingly problematic for the Church,
primarily because it limits the number of men who seek ordination.
Schoenborn personally presented the Vatican with a lay initiative
signed by prominent Austrian Catholics calling for the celibacy rule to
be abolished and for married men to be allowed to become priests.
In the days following Schoenborn’s editorial, several prominent
prelates in Germany and at the Vatican shot down any suggestion that the
celibacy rule had anything to do with the scandal, a point echoed by
the Vatican newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano.
A report endorsed in 2004 by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference,
however, argued that an understanding of the problem of clerical sex
abuse isn’t possible without reference to both celibacy and
homosexuality, since the vast majority of U.S. abuse cases were of a
homosexual nature.
While stressing neither celibacy nor homosexuality causes abuse, the
report said: “The church did an inadequate job both of screening out
those individuals who were destined to fail in meeting the demands of
the priesthood, and of forming others to meet those demands, including
the rigours of a celibate life.”
Though there are reports that some Catholic priests are advancing the
cause for the abolition of celibacy, some Lagos Catholic priests who
were approached on the issue did not see how the abolition of celibacy
will help the Church. For them, the solution to sexual abuse by pervert
priests is self-discipline.
A Theology scholar and Dominican, a religious congregation, Rev. Fr. Christopher Nnamani (O.P.), told
Innocuous Scribbles that allowing every priest to marry will not solve any problem of sex abuse.
According to him, priests like him who hear confessions would confirm
that even married men engage in sexual abuse and infidelity.
Fr. Nnamani confirmed that there are already married priests in the Church, wondering why the fuss this time around.
He added that even if priests are to be allowed to marry, it will be only for diocesan priests, not the religious.
Sex is not the ultimate end of marriage. If it is, there would not
have been infidelity in marriage. So asking the priests to marry may not
even quench their
konji.
If celibacy is the cause of sexual abuse, why do we still have sexual
abuse among Pentecostal pastors and married priests of other churches?
Have we considered the problems associated with marriage? A couple
that wedded in July, after four weeks, approached the officiating priest
to return their wedding rings, because they were not “compatible”.
Rev. Fr. Vin-Mario Chinedu Udoye of the Sons of Mary, another
religious congregation, also said allowing priests to have sex is not a
solution to the problem.
“If you allow a priest to marry, you would have succeeded in adding
more burden – that of how to satisfy his family – to that of priesthood,
which, in itself, is heavy,” he said.
He added that even if the “discussion” will change the
status quo,
it may come with some not-too-pleasant clauses, to discourage those who
are not called, and those that would see the priesthood as a last
resort for survival.
“Even if priests are to be allowed to marry, they may be asked to
bear their family burdens; they may not live in mission house and may be
required to work in order not to over-burden the Church. But if there
is no clause, some people who are not called to the priesthood may abuse
it.”
Another problem, according to him, is that if a priest has domestic
appendages, he will find it difficult making sacrifices and taking some
spiritual risks, which a celibate priest will easily do.
In summary, Fr. “Edu Jesu”, as he is fondly called, sees the
development as an attack on the priesthood by enemies of the Church.
“Their target is the Church; so they have started with the priesthood.”
