Value of celibacy is an issue which must be looked at in context

THE news that Clonfert priest Fr Mossie Dillane fathered a child has “reignited the debate over celibacy” according to one of last weekend’s newspapers.

Now that is news to me. I wasn't aware we ever had such a debate. We've had phone polls, yes. Criticism of the Church's refusal to allow married priests, yes. Spurious links between priestly celibacy and child sexual abuse certainly.

But a debate? An actual exchange of views, in which all sides of the argument are heard? Not a chance.

Ask your average punter why the Church keeps the priesthood celibate and you'll get a range of answers.

Because Christ himself didn't marry. Or because the Church wants its priests to be more available to the community. Or the tradition has all got to do with money the Church didn't want the expense a wife and family would involve, or it was worried property would be lost in disputes with priests' families.

All of the above reasons are partly correct, or may have been at some time.

But none of them reveals a deep understanding of the value of celibacy.

And so, over the past few days, many a person has been voicing the opinion that if we allowed married priests, Mossie Dillane stories wouldn't happen. That's probably not so.

Yet even as the media seized on the Mossie Dillane affair to rehash a few questions about celibacy, no Church leader I know of took the initiative to put the whole thing into context.

What looked like another negative news story was, in fact, a good opportunity to explain the Church's teaching and tradition not only about celibacy, but about self-sacrifice, betrayal and forgiveness. That opportunity was allowed to pass.

The idea that priests should be celibate is not some unchangeable teaching of the Church, a matter of faith or morals. Celibacy is better described as a cherished tradition which stretches far back into the early Church, and is believed to have considerable value in the present day.

There are married priests in the Catholic Church today.

Candidates for holy orders in the eastern Catholic Churches may marry before becoming deacons and they obviously continue in marriage after that.

Here in the western Church, in what we know as the Latin rite, there are married priests too. In recent years, quite a few priests of the Anglican Church, who were already married, converted to Catholicism. Those converts remain married although they are now Catholic priests.

Although it is debatable whether married priests were ever common, we know some of the apostles were married and that, during the early Church, there were no laws on celibacy.

The first important Church declaration in favour of celibacy dates to the Council of Elvira in the year 305. And at the Council of Nicaea in 325, it was decided to accept the prohibition of marriage after ordination. This is the tradition that is followed in the eastern Catholic Church and in the orthodox Churches today.

It was not until the Synod of Sutri convened by Pope Gregory VII in 1074 that celibacy was universally recognised in the west.

Henceforth, priests were not allowed to marry and married men were declared ineligible for ordination. It is interesting that, ever since, the Church has resisted pressure, both from secular forces and from the leaders of the Reformation, to change this rule.

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) reaffirmed mandatory celibacy, as did the Second Vatican Council in our own time.

But why? Perhaps Pope John Paul II put it most bluntly in his exhortation, "Pastores dabo vobis (I will give you shepherds): The Church, as the spouse of Jesus Christ, wishes to be loved by the priest in the total and exclusive manner in which Jesus Christ her head and spouse loved her."

The late Pope went on to talk about priestly celibacy as a "gift of self" which expresses the priest's service to the Church "in and with the Lord".

PUT this way, it sounds like a rather generous way to live your life. And a good model for how to do so would be John Paul himself. Karol A Man Who Became Pope is a compelling dramatisation of the early life of John Paul II, starring Polish actor Piotr Adamczyk.

The film covers the 40 years from the invasion of Poland in 1939 to the announcement of the first Polish Pope at the conclave of 1978. It's the story of a priest, a "man for others" to use a well-loved phrase, who managed to devote his life to God without ever becoming remote from the joys and sorrows of other people's lives.

"For an adequate priestly spiritual life, John Paul says "celibacy ought not to be considered and lived as an isolated or purely negative element, but as one aspect of the positive, specific and characteristic approach to being a priest"."

But the criticisms of celibacy which we hear so often may stem from the fact that celibacy is not always lived well.

A priest might allow himself to become too remote from people's everyday experience. This remoteness may affect his ability to give advice when needed or even to act with foresight when fundamental issues affecting people's welfare are at stake.

The other extreme is to be too gregarious. An approach to celibacy that sees sex and marriage as "the only thing you have to give up" may lead to the high life. Such a priest might relate well to people, but the real depth that people need from their priests in times of crisis and suffering may be missing when they go looking for it.

The existence of such extremes does not prove that celibacy is a bad thing. And the argument that a married priest can relate better to people's everyday problems ignores the fact that a caring and attentive celibate might have an objectivity that the married man doesn't.

As for the Mossie Dillanes of this world, it is good that people have been compassionate and slow to judge when the story broke. Had we the right to judge, there would be grounds to both criticise and excuse.

On the negative side, there is the age gap, the deception of friends and family, and the breaking of faith with the Church. On the other hand, many older priests may have embraced celibacy and the priesthood without necessarily understanding whether they were suited for it.

Some were even told in seminary that the celibacy rule would change and they would be allowed to marry some day. And there is plain old human weakness, which never fails to show up.

However we look at the story, no one can present it as an argument against mandatory celibacy. You might as well claim that a man having an affair after years of happy marriage is an argument against keeping your marriage vows.

Not everyone should choose priesthood and not everybody will live celibately in the proper spirit. But when it is lived well, a celibate life typifies the kind of selflessness an individualistic society badly needs.