CELIBACY
From "The Catholics ready answers" By REV. M. P. HILL, S.J.
A Prejudice. "Take from the Catholic Church
the compulsory celibacy of its priests, and the
universal sway of the Church is at an end." Celibacy
is unbiblical and its effect on morality is dubious. Tschackert.
THE TRUTH. We admit without the slightest reservation
that the celibacy of the clergy is of vital importance to
the Catholic Church in the prosecution of its divine mission.
None but an unmarried clergy could wield the influence
or win the credit or authority needed for the successful
guidance and government of the faithful of Christ.
None but unmarried clergymen are fitted to go as missionaries
to foreign lands and labor there for the conversion
of souls. This statement is amply borne out by the history
of non-Catholic missions. (See MARSHALL S "Christian
Missions.") The missionaries of Canada, the Far West,
and South America have a unique place in history owing
to their self-sacrificing devotion. How changed their story
would be if wives and offspring and domestic finances figured
in its pages!
Nay, even in Christian countries none but unmarried
priests could risk their comfort, to say nothing of their
lives, as Catholic priests do to-day in their ministrations
to souls. Without her unmarried clergy the Catholic
Church could never have accomplished all that she has in
the course of centuries. The salutary influence of clergy
upon people which is one of the fruits of celibacy may be
styled universal dominion if our critics are minded to call
it such ; we shall not make that a casus belli.
The objector seems to regard the compulsory element
in celibacy as the secret of the Church's power; but in no
absolute sense does the Church compel any of her children
to be celibates. No one is under any obligation to enter the
priesthood. To force one into the priesthood is forbidden
by the laws of the Church. It is only after a voluntary
reception of the higher orders that one is obliged to remain
unmarried ; and the obligation then imposed upon her
clerics by the Church is justified and to a great extent
necessitated by the nature of their clerical functions.
There are other professions in which the unmarried state
is preferred as a condition of success. In the teaching
profession, for instance, preference is given to unmarried
women over those who have the cares of family life. Why
should it be a reproach to the Church to require in candidates
for the priesthood conditions that will make them more
efficient priests? Add to this the fact that the young
men who present themselves for orders not only voluntarily
but cheerfully make this sacrifice of their liberty in order
to devote themselves the more to God and the Church.
But we are told that celibacy is contrary to the teaching
of the Bible. Strange that the statement should be made
by any one who has read the Bible. Is it not well known
that Christ gave the highest praise to voluntary celibacy
when it was chosen for the sake of the kingdom of heaven
(Matt. xix. 12), and that St. Paul places voluntary virginity
far above the married state? When Protestant readers
of the New Testament come to the seventh chapter of
the First Epistle to the Corinthians they would do well
to pause awhile and ask themselves whether they have ever
understood the plain meaning of that chapter, which really
seems to be very Catholic and very un-Protestant. Let
them read that chapter as well as the nineteenth of St.
Matthew, referred to above, and if then they can regard
the effect of celibacy on morality as dubious, their opinion
is clearly at variance with the words of Christ and His
Apostle.