Celibacy: Obligatory or Optional?

CEBU, Philippines – Celibacy is defined as: 1) the state of being unmarried, especially that of a person under a vow not to marry; and 2) complete sexual continence.

Celibacy as a discipline imposed by the Western Rite Roman Catholic Church on priests is only a promise not to marry. It is not a vow because there are only three vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience. Religious priests (like the Jesuits, the Redemptorists, the SVDs, etc.) make those three vows; whereas Secular priests (those running the parishes in a diocese) do not make those three vows prior to their sacerdotal ordination.

For all practical purposes, celibacy is optional for priests because if and when they think they did not receive the gift to remain single all their lives, they may apply for a dispensation (permission from the Pope to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony). In my case, I was in the active ministry of the celibate Roman Catholic priesthood for 11 years and I had to wait for another 11 years for my dispensation. And it was worth it because St. Pope John Paul II approved my application and Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal officiated at my Church Wedding.

Before I got married, I had all the reasons in favor of celibacy. Now that I am married, I also have all the reasons against it especially when it is imposed or made obligatory or mandated. It is inhuman because getting married is a human right and compulsion or obligation deprives man of his freedom of choice. Man is not man if he is not free!

Being a married Roman Catholic priest, I now belong to the group of those who question: “Does celibacy belong to the essence of the Roman Catholic priesthood? In other words, does one have to make the promise not to marry before he can be ordained a Roman Catholic priest in the Western rite? With its present law of celibacy, what kind of development has the Roman Catholic priesthood (Western Rite) undergone?” This law cannot be proven from the fact that Jesus Christ was unmarried or celibate. He was the God-man while the priests are just human beings. As the song goes, “Sapagkat kami ay tao lamang…” or as a priest answered his bishop who reprimanded him for begetting so many children: “Where will my nice food go? Shall I use my shoulder as its outlet?”

Neither can celibacy be traced to the first priests, the apostles, most of whom were married. The unmarried St. Paul himself wrote, “It is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor. 7:9)” The first Pope St. Peter was himself married. The Gospel according to St. Mark (1:29-39) narrates about his mother-in-law being cured by our Lord Jesus Christ.

As far as tradition is concerned, the priests in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern or Western rite, were married up to the Council of Elvira, Spain (about the 4th or the 5th century), when the law of celibacy was promulgated. What about the news that then Episcopalian ministers were recently admitted to the Roman Catholic Church, remaining as priests and without giving up their married state?

We cannot claim either that celibacy makes our priests efficient. Are they more efficient than the married Protestant ministers, the married Jewish rabbis and the married priests of the Eastern Rite Roman Catholics? These last are just as Catholics as we are. The Philippines geographically belongs to the Far East, but it belongs to the Western Rite Roman Catholicism due to the Spaniards who colonized our country.

I am tempted to accept the opinion of a certain Filipino lawyer who thinks that celibacy is there to protect the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. The priests’ properties should remain in the possession of the Church. Besides, when they will have families of their own, the priest will surely start demanding their rights (just wages, allowance, etc.) in order to be able to support their wives and children. A very convenient and practical law indeed!

Wealthy widow and matrons love to make donations to unmarried priests because “walay asawang mohawid ug walay anak nga mokabyon.” I personally think that celibacy does not belong to the essence of priesthood which is sacrifice. And this thinking is concerned by Vatican II in its Decree on the Ministry and Life of the Priests (Footnote; A.D. Sherfan, “Should A Priest Marry?” Philippine Priests’ Forum, Vol. IV; March 1972, p.10).

From my own experience since I have tried both states, there is more sacrifice in the married than in the celibate state. Padre Noel Clarke, an Irish Columbian priest who is himself married, asserts that one of his reasons for resigning from the active ministry of the Roman Catholic priesthood was the “security provided by celibacy.” This security, according to him, quite contradicts the witness that priests are supposed to give the existence of the next life. These witnessing needs a faith in the caliber of Abraham’s and is contradicted by celibacy security! Paradoxical isn’t it? I personally think that faith is not faith if it were not paradoxical.

Regarding celibacy, my “Analogy of the Table” is very applicable. The celibate St. Paul who advised others to be unmarried like him writes in the same First Letter to the Corinthians cited above admonished, “It is better to marry than to burn.” The jocose meaning in our dialect is: “if you cannot aguants, better descans.”