The Tyranny of the Clergy

CEBU, Philippines – At the very outset, let me call the readers’ attention to my first article for the year 2015 entitled, “A Postscript and a Prelude” (The Freeman, January 04, 2015; p. 17). Therein I declared that my intention for my write-ups last year and this year is not to deride anyone nor to preach to my fellow priests, be they still celibate or already married (“praedicantibus non estpraedicandum”).

Neither do I want to commit the fallacy or wrong thinking of hasty generalization. Just because some members of the clergy are tyrannical, it does not mean that all of them are tyrants. There are real saints among the members of the clergy in our midst and I doff my hat to them. May their tribe increase!

In our country nowadays, Roman Catholic priests are either celibate (unmarried) or married (civilly and/or sacramentally). Once a priest gets married, he no longer belongs to the clergy. He now belongs to the laity, but he is a priest forever because it is solid Roman Catholic doctrine that the Sacrament of Holy Orders (Priestly Ordination), just like Baptism and Confirmation, imprints an indelible mark on the soul called “character.” In other words, once a person is ordained a priest, he is a priest forever.

Once an ordained priest ceases to be a cleric due to his getting married, he can no longer be supported by the so-called “stole fees” (stipends from Masses and from the KBL, Kasal, Bunyag, Lubong) or as a married Irish priest, Padre Noel Clarke, expressed the status of married priests as no longer protected by “celibacy security.”

Last week’s article defined celibacy as the state of being  unmarried and of abstaining from sexual indulgence, whether heterosexually or homosexually. This being the case, the late Padre Sergio Alfafara coined the phrase “unchaste celibates” and I invented the phrase “celibate with kabit” or with lovers, mistresses, paramours or professing to be unmarried but maintaining illicit relationships with women or men.

A Columban priest who had been a missionary for 20 years in Quezon province and who became a Baptist preacher described the mandatory, obligatory, compulsory celibacy imposed by the Western Rite Roman Catholic Church on the clergy to have made some of the priests professional hypocrites; that is, professing to be celibates, but are having illicit relations. In line with this thinking, the late Padre Narding Ariba used to tell his fellow married priests: “Conscience has made cowards of us all!”

There are Cebuano rhymes describing the two types of Roman Catholic priests:

For the celibate ones: “Patay o buhi; Sapi sa pari.”

For the married priests: “Kun magminyo ang usa ka pari; Dili na siya makapanapi.”

Once more, for emphasis: Not all members of the clergy are tyrants. However, it cannot be denied that some of them have become “more popish than the Pope! (The Freeman, July 13, 2014; p. 17 and August 13, 2014; p. 19).

Why does the tyranny of the clergy exist in the Western Rite of the Roman Catholic Church? This phenomenon is due to the tremendous powers vested upon the celibate priest, and of which he is divested (except the power to give absolution in case of emergency) once he gets married. A celibate or unmarried priest can give absolution in the Sacrament of Penance and can preside in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

Clerics who have become tyrants ought to take to heart the Gospel last March 3, the Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent taken from Matthew 23:1-12. Therein our Lord Jesus Christ denounces the Scribes and Pharisees (the priests and clerics at that time) who did not practice what they preached.

Pope Francis is moving towards diminishing the powers of the Roman Curia, and gradually getting rid of clericalism. Having our Lord Jesus Christ and Pope Francis as their role models, may our priests who still belong to the clergy, because they are still “celibate,” not  lord it over the laity. In his “Noli Me Tangere,” our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal wrote the words of the dying Elias, “There are no tyrants when there are no slaves!” Some members of the clergy will not become tyrants if lay people are not willing slaves.