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February 23, 2008

 

Another argument for married clergy 

A retired priest in Virginia was sentenced to prison for embezzling parish funds. He spent the money on a secret family. 

I was raised Roman Catholic, and I attended Catholic schools for twelve years. I was an altar boy during the early 1980s. This arguably enables me to make a claim of insider status in the Catholic Church.  

 

No, I’m not going to use this space to reveal some repressed childhood trauma. I have no unpleasant stories to tell about the Catholic Church. Moreover, practically all of the Catholic clergy I have met have been decent, dedicated people.  

Nevertheless, no one can deny that the misdeeds of some Catholic priests have claimed far too much space in the headlines in recent years. 

And most of these negative news pieces revolve around the repressed sexual feelings of priests---whether normal or deviant. While the priest in Virginia seems to have had quite conventional tastes, other priests have been charged with pedophilia.  

Even devout Catholics have felt betrayed by these scandals within the church. Unfortunately, there has been relatively little demand for a solution to the root causes behind the scandals. Catholics value their traditions and are slow to challenge church hierarchy. “Don’t rock the boat” is not a line of any catechism that I can recall---but it ought to be. 

Certainly the Catholic Church did not invent pedophilia. Nor does anything about Catholicism encourage it. However, Church recruiting practices do seem to attract a disproportionately large number of men who have this inclination. We aren’t reading news stories about pedophiliac rabbis, Baptist ministers, or imams. It always seems to be a Catholic priest.  

Catholic clergy are required to take a vow of celibacy. This has been strictly enforced since the 1200s. (For hundreds of years in the early days of the Church, Catholic clergy did marry.) Therefore, the priesthood is limited to men who are willing to abstain from normal sexual relations.  

In theory, this is supposed to mean men with conventional appetites who possess a superior level of dedication to God. In practice, this quite often means men who have abnormal sexual inclinations to begin with----whose sexual activities must be practiced in secrecy whether they are clergy or not. 

It is therefore easy to see how mandatory celibacy channels men with abnormal sexual tastes into the priesthood. Why not open up the ranks of the priesthood to more normal men? (And women, too---but that’s another essay.) Practically all religions have married clergy. The Catholic Church is a rare exception in this regard. Celibate clergy are not required by either the Old or the New Testament. This rule is rather a remnant of a misogynistic period that the church underwent during the Middle Ages, when even sex within the context of marriage was viewed as “unclean.”  

With the number of priests declining and all the bad press over the secret lives of priests, the Catholic Church would do well to rethink its policy on the priesthood and marriage. Sexuality is a normal part of life. There is no reason why Catholic clergy should have to choose between their humanity and their dedication to God.