Married priests already exist in the Eastern Catholic churches as well as in the Anglican ordinariates first established by Benedict XVI. Because of this, many Catholics have seen a golden occasion in the recent Synod of Amazonia for Pope Francis to provide access to the priesthood to married men, opening the door after thousand years of prohibition in the Latin rite.
This potentially drastic change in Church policy has not come to pass, however. Pope Francis has decided to maintain a long and wonderful tradition that respects celibacy for ordained priests as a special gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and to humanity, even if it means a reduction in the number of priests.
What does celibacy offer to the Catholic Church and to humanity that has compelled all the recent popes to protect it so forcefully? Why has Benedict XVI, who remained silent on church matters after his renunciation, decided to speak now in defense of celibacy together with Cardinal Robert Sarah?
In my opinion, the most profound and sharp response to this issue was given by a holy religious woman, when she said to me— undoubtedly speaking from her own experience—that a celibate person does not marry, because that person considers all other persons his or her brothers and sisters, and therefore any sexual activity could be considered somewhat incestuous by definition.
The celibate person does not disrespect marriage but values it, although it is transcended. To be single is premarital, but celibacy is transmarital. Celibacy uplifts marriage and highlights its divine component. That is why the highest matrimony was that virginal matrimony between the Virgin Mary and St. There is no celibacy without the marriage institution to stand in contrast, and without celibacy, marriage can be trivialized.
Sixteenth Century Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage. Eighteenth Century American Declaration of Independence. Nineteenth Century Napoleon. Peter, Apostle St. Felix III 2 children St. Hormidas 1 son St. History sources: Oxford Dictionary of Popes; H.
Foy Ed. Jewtt The Ordination of Women ; A. DeRosa Vicars of Christ Myth: All priests take a vow of celibacy. Fact: Most priests do not take a vow.
It is a promise made before the bishop. Myth: Celibacy is not the reason for the vocation shortage. Fact: A survey of Protestant churches shows a surplus of clergy; the Catholic church alone has a shortage. Myth: Clerical celibacy has been the norm since the Second Lateran Council in Fact: Priests and even popes still continued to marry and have children for several hundred years after that date. In fact, the Eastern Catholic Church still has married priests.
Within Protestant congregations and the Eastern Orthodox church, the ordination of married men has long been accepted. But for the best part of a millennium, celibacy has been required of priests in the Roman Catholic tradition. Any decision to ordain married men to the priesthood would be a highly visible and controversial break with the disciplines and traditions of the church.
The Amazon synod opened the door to high-profile discussions of the place of celibacy in the modern Roman Catholic priesthood. So far, the ordination of married men has been presented as a solution to an acute shortage of priests in the Amazon region. But any precedent established in the Amazon will raise further questions about the future of the compulsory celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy in other parts of the world.
The final document made clear that many participants of the synod were in favour of broadening the scope of its recommendations to the rest of the Roman Catholic church. The universal requirement to celibacy was imposed upon the clergy with force in and again in But those decrees reflected a much longer tradition in the Church in which the self-imposed discipline of asceticism — including sexual continence, poverty and abstinence — became the defining characteristics of piety, and of the priesthood.
0コメント