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Celibacy: A Gift of Self for Others, Conclusion, and Sources

 

By: Werner Lottering

 

Our Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew 19:12 that there are “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”. These words from Jesus just follow His prohibition for divorce and remarriage from this divorced state in the New Covenant – something his disciples were astonished by (see verses 8-9 and also St. Paul’s allusion to Christ’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11). In the time of the Old Testament and New Testament, there
was a particular understanding of eunuchs but a fuller understanding of our Lord’s words in Matthew indicates that Jesus was saying that those who voluntarily embrace celibacy (that is, refraining from marriage and subsequent sexual relations and children) for the sake of His Kingdom, which finds it fulfilment in the Catholic Church, is a higher calling since He Himself was celibate and gave Himself to serving people in that way [14]. St. Paul elaborates on this in his first
letter to the 1 Corinthians 7:32-33, 35: “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the aNairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly aNairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.” In the New Covenant, Jesus calls all of His people to live, through His grace and the power of the Spirit, lives of holiness and to live out the gifts His Spirit entrusts to us (Matt
19:11). This includes lives of consecrated celibacy and marriage. The Council of Trent (Sess. 24, can. 10) teaches, in line with the Holy Scriptures, that the state of celibacy is higher than the state of marriage although both vocations are crucial for the Church’s life and sustenance (1 Cor 7:1- 8, 32-35; Rev 14:4; CCC 1618-20) [15] I mean marriage is sacrament in the Catholic Church and no institution in the history of the world have promoted and protected the glorious gift of marriage and the openness to children that is substantially linked to it such as the Catholic Church! Just
go and read the Church document Humanae Vitae, and you will see what I mean! 

 

Before going into some of the other theological reasons for priestly celibacy, let me just give a summarised historical overview of this crucial discipline in the life of the Church. 

 

One of the most interesting things on this topic is the fact that this notion of celibacy or consecrated virginity has been a fundamental, and still is, part of the Church’s mission of the proclamation and life of the Gospel. 

 

First, we need to understand that the Church, as I have explained in the beginning, is by nature hierarchical. Jesus designed His Church to function in a particular way for our good and the consistent workings of the Church to fulfil her mission. So, when I refer to Church documents, we need to grasp that in the early Church up to today, the Church through her leaders, the Bishops who are the successors of the Apostles, received authority to teach and guide the faithful, and this includes how the Bishops and the other clergy such as the priests and deacons ought to live
out their duties and responsibilities to those entrusted to them. 

 

Secondly, and this is very important to grasp, from the time of the Apostles going into the rest of the 1st century and onwards into the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s AD, and up to today, for people to be in right standing with the Church and to experience the fullness of truth, you have to be under the Bishops of the Catholic (Universal) Church since this is how Jesus designed it to be and this is how people living after the time of the Apostles understood it as well. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the unanimous teaching and understanding of the earliest Christians – the whole of the New Testament teaches this since if you operated, so to speak, outside the teachings and leadership of the Apostles and their successors, you were doing so without the given authority. We can see this at play, for example, at the Ecumenical Council (a gathering of all the Bishops in the world) of Nicaea in Turkey in 325 AD and the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD where it was infallibly declared by the leaders (Bishops) of the Church that Jesus Christ is fully Divine and fully Human and that we worship God in Trinity, One Essence, co-existing in Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you were a person at that time and even up to today and believed things contrary to this, you were not a Christian and were outside the Church. There were also other things taught at those and subsequent Ecumenical (General) Councils up to the last one convened, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which was from 1962 to 1965, that bind the conscience of the faithful. The Church also have local Church councils where the regional Bishops can make certain decisions on what the faithful in that region ought to do or believe, but nothing contrary to the things that the Church has declared for belief and obedience at a General Council. But things that have always been accepted from the beginning among the faithful in the Church under her leaders also carry a lot of authority, even if it is something taught at a local council. This is called the Sensus Fidei, or ‘Sense of the Faithful’. 

 

A last point on this. The Church, from the beginning, had things that were written down and also traditions that were passed down orally as per St. Paul writing in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.” It is therefore important to take note of things that the Church from the beginning held to, especially if her God-ordained leaders almost unanimously claim something to be of Apostolic origin, as with priestly celibacy and continence [16].

With some explanation of Church-governance essentials out of the way, it is important to note the following: “While many, if not most priests (and deacons and bishops) in the early Church were married, they were required to commit to continence, that is, not to have sexual relations with their wives. This was never an innovation but the constant tradition from the time of the Apostles.” [17] and, “All documentary evidence [from Church documents and writings] support
this and there is no contrary evidence. There is, of course, evidence of human weakness and infidelity to this law of continence and celibacy” [18]

 

 Both the Western (Latin) and the Eastern (Eastern Catholics in Communion with Rome and Orthodox) Churches have held to this discipline of either celibacy or continence for all of their existences. The Latin Church had developed a stricter observance, namely of celibacy, which more clearly reflects the New Covenant priesthood following in the steps of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus. The Eastern Churches allow for married priests, and there is an apostolic prerogative for this, but there are also some historical issues (for the sake of time and space, I will
leave that for now) on how it was eventually accepted as the general practice contra the Western Church. The Western Church seems to embody a fuller apostolic and original meaning in its practice [19]. 

 

The New Testament priesthood is the fulfilment of the Old Testament priesthood. The Levitical priests were obliged to practice continence when they were serving in the Tabernacle or Temple (see Lev 15:16-18; Ex 19:15; 1 Sam 21:4-5). One of the reasons for this was in order for the priests to be as pure as they could be, since they were “working” with sacrificial oherings. In the New Testament, priests are “working” with the Body and Blood of Jesus, who is God in the flesh! The priest is supposed to identify himself as fully as he can with the priesthood of his Lord Jesus [20]. St. Paul wrote so beautifully when he said in 1 Corinthians 4:1, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” The priests of the Old Testament were limited to the specific time required for them to work in the Temple, while the priests of the New Testament are in a continuous ministry (daily) in which through their hands, the grace of baptism is given, and the Body and Blood of Christ is ohered on the Alter. The Holy Scriptures require them to be as completely pure in their exercise of this most glorious ministry as they can be by His grace and help, and the Church has and always will require them to preserve this bodily continence. The whole totality of the priest is involved in this ministry of Word and Sacrament [21]. The discipline of celibacy enables the priest to oher himself, for the sake of his love for Jesus and his neighbour, to God as a whole ohering (see Rom 12:1) for dedication through praying constantly and being free for pastoral ministry, for serving everyone, especially the members of the Church. 

 

Although there are many more historical and theological intricacies to expand upon on this topic of celibacy and the purpose of the priesthood, I want to end this second to last section with the below, which makes clear that the reason for the priesthood and its requirement of celibacy is not just for practical and historical reasons but for so much more: 

 

“The priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ the Spouse of the Church… In his spiritual life, therefore, he is called to live out Christ’s spousal love towards the Church. The priest is therefore not without spousal love, he has as his Bride the Church. Therefore, the priest’s life ought to radiate this spousal character which demands that he be a witness to Christ’s spousal love, and thus be capable of loving people with a heart which is new, generous, and pure, with genuine self-detachment, with full, constant and faithful dedication and at the same time with a kind of “divine jealousy”

(cf. 2 Cor 11:2)
 

– and even with a kind of maternal tenderness, capable of bearing “the pangs of birth” until “Christ be formed” in the faithful

(cf. Gal 4:19).” [22].

 

 Concluding Thoughts 

The priesthood, like any other vocation, such as marriage, has its beauties as received from the Lord but also challenges. As per our fallen human nature, we tend to focus on the challenges first. With the priesthood, we think perhaps of bouts of loneliness, bad and hurtful experiences from people in the Church and outside, the complexities of the world we live in, and the role of the minister to serve people who themselves are facing unique challenges. In terms of marriage and family life, we tend to focus on the brokenness in which many marriages end, sickness overcoming children or their parents, financial stress, and many more. But the Lord calls us in these challenging times to be beacons of light and hope, salt which brings forth his love, mercy, and compassion in the various vocations He calls us to. All of us have a shared vocation to be bringers of Good News to a world that is perishing. To tell the world of a God who loves them and wants them to become His sons and daughters and share in His new creation that has already started and will come to full fruition. Let us first focus on this shared vocation before delving deeper into discerning where the Lord specifically call us. See also a beautiful testimony of a faithful priest and the impact he can make. This is from Sister Mariam James Heidland: “And what God did is He inserted a person into my life that further changed the course of my destiny in the best way possible. And that man was a Catholic priest. And to this day, I have a tremendous, great love and reverence for the priesthood. My dear priest, oh, my dear priest, your ‘yes’ changes the destinies of human souls. And I'm largely today a religious sister because a Catholic priest loved God, and he loved his priesthood, and he loved me. And I just watched how that man lived his life. Gosh, he loved Jesus. Oh, he loved Jesus. And there are many things in my life I couldn't say yes to and things I could deny. But I could not deny the palpable experience of Jesus Christ in that man. And it was so beautiful. And you know what? He wasn't perfect. He certainly had his own story. But oh, he loved Jesus. And I remember being 21 years old at that time and just being a full-blown addict. And if you would have asked me how I was doing, I would have told you I was fine because just the level of unawareness in myself is just, I can have deep compassion there, it was just too much. But I remember looking at Father one day, and he was much taller than me, and he was looking down at me, and we were talking about faith, and he was radiant. And I could see Jesus looking at me through his eyes. And I just remember saying to Father, “Father, I don't know what's going on here. Like, I don't know what that is. But whatever you have, I want that. And his eyes sparkled, and he just looked at me, and he said, "You come and see”. Which if that sounds familiar to you, that's the first words that Jesus spoke in the Gospel of John to the disciples: "You come and see."' And so I did.”

 

Bibliography and Recommended Resources: 

 

Bibliography:
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 293 and 341
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1116
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460 and 516
[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 775
[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324
[6] Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. 2022. The Priesthood Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.
Catholic Truth Society. p. 14
[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324
[8] John Paul II PP (2003) Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. p. 5
[9] John Paul II PP (2003) Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. p. 14
referencing Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen
Gentium, 10.
[10] ibid.
[11] John Paul II PP (2003) Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. p.
14 referencing Institutio Generalis: Editio typica tertia, No. 147.
[12] John Paul II PP (2003) Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. p.
14 referencing Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (20 November 1947): AAS 39 (1947), 556;
cf. Pius X, Apostolic Exhortation Haerent Animo (4 August 1908): Acta Pii X , IV, 16; Pius XI,
Encyclical Letter Ad Catholici Sacerdotii (20 December 1935): AAS 28 (1936), 20.
[13] John Paul II PP (2003) Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. p. 5
[14] Hahn, S. and Mitch, C. 1st ed. 2024. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New
Testaments. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 1760.
[15] ibid.
[16] Stickler, Card. A.M. (1995) The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and
Theological Foundations. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 7-8
[17] ibid.
[18] ibid.
[19] Stickler, Card. A.M. (1995) The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and
Theological Foundations. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 25-62
[20] Stickler, Card. A.M. (1995) The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and
Theological Foundations. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 34-35
[21] Stickler, Card. A.M. (1995) The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and
Theological Foundations. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 105-106
[22] Stickler, Card. A.M. (1995) The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and
Theological Foundations. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. p. 108-109
Recommended Resources:
• Benedict XVI PP and Robert Cardinal Sarah. From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood,
Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church
• Benedict XVI PP. The Spirit of the Liturgy
• Francis PP. Dilexit nos. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana
• Archbishop Emeritus Alfred Hughes. Priests In Love with God.
• Stefan Heid. Celibacy in the Early Church: The Beginnings of Obligatory Continence for
Clerics in East and West.
• Brant Pitre. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the
Last Supper
• Brant Pitre. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah
• Scott Hahn. The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth
• Scott Hahn. Rome Sweet Home.
• Jimmy Akin: The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early
Church
• Joe Heschmeyer: The Eucharist is Really Jesus: How Christ’s Body and Blood Are the
Key to Everything We Believe
• Do I regret Becoming a Priest So Young.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkH3Yz_JR70&list=PLmV0IbfBYrIpp7YIxx7UNmUo
XUMDOBiKt&index=16
• The Comment about Priests That I Can’t Ignore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lq1ojaNCn4&list=PLmV0IbfBYrIpp7YIxx7UNmUo
XUMDOBiKt&index=17
• In Love with the Church: A Priest Forever https://escriva.org/en/amar-a-la-iglesia/apriest-
forever/