Celibacy of the priesthood is a church strength, not a liability

Star Tribune
April 3, 2002
Katherine Kersten

In the wake of the sex abuse scandal among Catholic priests, some Americans are calling for an end to the celibate priesthood. They regard celibacy as self-evidently the source of the problem.
This is not surprising. In our sex-drenched culture, celibacy is a deeply alien notion. But the church has viewed celibacy as important to priesthood for at least 1,000 years. In the current rush to judgment, few have paused to ask why.

To understand the answer, we must try -- for a moment -- to suspend the cultural assumptions of our post-Freudian, therapeutic age. We must consider three ideas that lie at the heart of the celibacy requirement. These are the church's understandings of the nature of priesthood, of sex and of love.

The Catholic Church's understanding of priesthood is unique, and has ancient roots. For Catholics, the priest is not an ecclesiastical functionary, who is chosen -- for example -- because he preaches well. Instead, his role is to bring Jesus Christ into the presence of the community in his own person. The priest is to follow Christ's example in every aspect of his life, making a total gift of his life and love to all around him.

The church's understanding of sex is equally countercultural. The church regards human sexuality as a gift, created by God to foster true human intimacy and to generate new life. Our culture encourages us to view our sexuality as a means of self-gratification, and portrays it as a dominant feature of our identity. But the church teaches that we must master our sexuality, so that we can integrate it into a larger Christian life.

As a result, the church holds that all human beings are called to some form of chastity. Married couples should be faithful to each other, and single people should refrain from sex. In this respect, the church asks no more of priests than it does of every single person.

Ultimately, the church's teachings about both priesthood and sex spring from its understanding of love. Christians are commanded to love God and one another. The Catholic Church believes that two complementary vocations, or callings, help us live out that commandment. The first is marriage; the second is the celibate religious life. Each vocation facilitates a different way of loving. Neither is livable without a commitment to love so deep as to cause one to want to give up whatever competes with it.

The vocation of marriage is a sign to the community of the depth of God's love. Marriage is an exclusive commitment, in which couples promise to dedicate themselves to one another through all of life's trials. The priesthood, on the other hand, is a sign to all of the breadth of God's love. Lacking an exclusive commitment to another human being, the priest is capable of undivided love in the service of humanity. Celibacy makes total self-giving possible, as the lives of individuals like Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa so powerfully demonstrate.

In our society, the health of the institutions of marriage and the priesthood are closely linked. Today, both institutions are in deep trouble. Why? In large part, because contemporary culture is hostile to the view of life -- and what it means to be human -- on which they are based.

The root of the crisis is the way that modern culture understands freedom, and thus how it understands love. The church teaches that we must "die to self" to be truly free. That is, we must liberate ourselves from self-absorption, and from slavery to our desires, in order to live as we ought.

Contemporary culture spurns this idea. It proclaims that freedom is the ability to live exactly as we choose, in short, to "be ourselves." Social norms and rules are repressive, and so are the institutions that reinforce them. Marriage isn't an institutional cornerstone of social order and well-being, but a strictly personal choice. Death do us part? We stay together as long as we feel "fulfilled."

We Americans want to redefine love and sex to suit our own desires. But our efforts to change the rules entail a huge cost. Today, many institutions -- marriage, the nuclear family, the celibate priesthood -- are foundering. Our affluent, pleasure-obsessed culture hungers for close, loving relationships. We break all the rules, and then wonder why happiness is so elusive.

We can't solve the problems of infidelity and divorce by abolishing marriage, and we can't solve the problem of priestly sexual abuse by abolishing celibacy. If we wish to reverse the crisis in the priesthood, we must address its cultural roots.

The problem is this: In the 1960s, the sexual revolution and related cultural tumult threw Catholic seminaries into confusion. As seminaries struggled with the meaning of priesthood, they attracted a number of immature men who had questions about their own identity -- sexual and otherwise. The fact that nearly all the victims of priestly sexual abuse have been adolescent males suggests that homosexual behavior became a particular problem.

To regain its integrity, the church must zealously recommit itself to its time-honored vision of priesthood. In addition, it must provide seminarians with models of manly chastity and deportment -- something in short supply in too many seminaries. Celibacy is a heroic sacrifice for a greater good, and the church must do a much better job of explaining this to young men. One seminary rector has put it succinctly: "A man will give his life for a mystery, but not for a question mark."

-Katherine Kersten is a senior fellow of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis.