Clerical Celibacy

Rorate Caeli has a beautiful post on the encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI, Sacerdotalis Cælibatus, which upheld and expounded upon the discipline of priestly celibacy in the Roman rite.
According to Pope Paul:


It is said that in the world of our time the observance of celibacy has come to be difficult or even impossible. This state of affairs is troubling consciences, perplexing some priests and young aspirants to the priesthood; it is a cause for alarm in many of the faithful and constrains Us to fulfill the promise We made to the Council Fathers. We told them that it was Our intention to give new luster and strength to priestly celibacy in the world of today.


I find the words of the Sovereign Pontiff to be especially compelling in the light of some other articles I have come across in the past few days, about a particular situation that seems to be well-known and generally accepted in the Catholic blogosphere. From the little I know, the couple in question appear to be lovely people, but the questions that arise from such scenarios have little to do with the overall "niceness" of "nice people" and everything to do with the meaning vows and commitments.

I think that just about every Catholic now knows of at least one priest who has left the active ministry to get married. We had such an episode in our own parish a few years ago. When people expressed feelings of shock and bewilderment over a seemingly very orthodox priest's defection in order to find true love (of course, it was all the bishop's fault), they were accused of gossiping and being judgmental. People should not be blamed for being shaken when they see how easy it is to dispense with certain commitments that were thought to be lifelong. Yes, the Church, being a Mother, can fix things by declaring the past to be null and void. But, especially in the light of the priest shortage, a Latin rite priest leaving the active ministry to get married should never be a cause for celebration.

I have a devout friend who has struggled for years and years in a difficult marriage and sometimes I wonder why she keeps struggling. It would be so easy to throw in the towel, get an annulment, marry someone else and still be considered a saint. At first even priests were telling her to look into an annulment, but lately they are telling her to persevere, because marriage is a vocation. It is a way of carrying the Cross with Jesus. We all know that clerical celibacy is a Cross (that is fairly obvious.) Marriage can be a form of martyrdom, too. Each Cross is a ladder to Paradise and a prelude to Easter joy. And perseverance wins the crown.

Let us all pray for each other, and for our young people, that they will not be too confused by so many annulments and clerical defections. And that lifelong commitments will continue to mean something in their eyes.
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