www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Article: Is Mandatory Celibacy an Apostolic Tradition?

This article originally appeared in Eastern Churches Journal. Here are a few excerpts:

The entire article is now available online. You can find it at the following link:

Is Mandatory Clerical Celibacy an Apostolic Tradition? [east2west.org]

God Bless,
Anthony

Anthony,

Isn't mandatory celibacy a "received" tradition that we ought to fight for? Can you imagine if our bishops ordain a married man? Can our church put up with this reform (or restoration)? It will only drive away parishioners when they see us restoring ANOTHER thing. Many are still trying to get over having to attend Pre-sanctified liturgies, infant communion(!), and the loss of that great Filioque.

Mandatory celibacy has been a "received" tradition since 1929, hardly a recent innovation. If we Byzantine Catholics rid of this yoke, it will only be another received tradition down the drain in the name of reform/restoration.

So what if the early church had married priests? We can't pretend to go back to ways practiced by the ancient church. No scholarship or group of theologians have the right to tamper with a received tradition that the people have gotten accustomed to for 75 years! Our bishops should not take the liberty to ordain married men until ALL the rest of the Eastern Catholic churches.

It is good that our bishops have not tried to restore this old practice. It demonstrates their good judgement in honoring our received traditions here in thist country. So what if our clergy 'over there' are permitted to enjoy the companionship and comfort of a good, loving wife?

What do you think?

Joe

Pius XII has a great encyclical on clerical celibacy that contains neither the mere "sociological" arguments nor the "celibacy=dogma" arguments.

In the encyclical, he discusses the theological fittingness of celibacy for priests--as a sign of their conformity to Christ and of their complete dedication/"marriage" to the Church, as a means through which they can be united to God with no intermediaries, etc.

The encyclical is relatively brief but extremely rich.

His Holiness specifically mentions the Eastern tradition as something that he is not criticizing or condemning.

I think it is the best statement of the Latin theological position on the matter.

Btw, I have the utmost respect for His Eminence Cardinal Stickler. I haven't read this particular writing of his that the Eastern Churches Journal attempts to refute, but I just wanted to say that Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler is one of the finest (and oldest!) Churchmen alive today. I had the privilege (along with several others) of serving his Mass in the immemorial Rite of the Roman Church, at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mother's Day in 1996.

God bless all.

Go Yankees.

In Christ,

LatinTrad

The fact of this matter is that there has never been a time when even a simple majority of the diocesan clergy of the Byzantine Catholic Churches in the USA and Canada were celibates. Thus it is not possible to claim that any received tradition of celibacy exists (nor is 75 years a sufficient length of time to create such a tradition, incidentally). Most Greek-Catholics are personally acquainted with one or more married priests; virtually all Greek-Catholics are well aware of the existence of married priests.
Christ is Risen!

Incognitus

Btw I do support married clergy for the Eastern Churches.

But the majority of our Byzantine Catholic priests are not married. They are obedient to their bishops by signing promises. If we restore such traditions now, we would only be pretending to go back to older practices. We don't live in 4th century Egypt, 9th century Greece, or even pre-1929 USA. This is our tradition, like it or not. We have adopted it in all our parishes.

(ACROD was nothing but a footnote in the best of hissy-fits.)

This attempt to reform our church back to earlier practices is just another attempt to rid of our Ruthenian received traditions. We have to be careful of academics and theologians. They don't live and breathe the ethos of our church traditions.

Joe

Joe, I would suggest you clarify your description as the "American-Ruthenian received tradition". Slovak Greek Catholic Bishop +Michael (Rusnak) of blessed memory in Canada ordained quite a few married men.

Anthony, a well-written and insightful article. It is unfortunate that Cardinal Stickler, whom I greatly admire and respect for his positions with respect to the Latin liturgy, has chosen to ignore the majority of the patristic and historic corpus of the Church of the first four centuries, starting with St. Peter.

These arguments really have little academic or historic merit. It really saddens me to see theology, history and patristic teaching being invented, twisted and manipulated to support an erroneous thesis as his. It is as if Elvira begins the teaching of the Church with this line of thought.

And why someone as erudite as Cardinal Stickler would continue to use the erroneous and historically incorrect material and positions of Cholij and Cocchini, is beyond me. They, in my opinion, represent absolutely the worst academic work in this subject.

I don't think outside of a fairly limited circle of clergy and laity who already feel this way ("preaching to the choir") this will have much effect. But that being said, Anthony, I completely and wholeheartedly support your efforts in this matter. Truth, history, and the Fathers are clearly with your position.

The Cardinal seems to have forgotten that Rome has spoken loud and clear on allowing married former Lutheran and Episcopalian priests to receive Holy Orders.

The Latin Church really needs to come to grips with resolving her own history and practice in this regard. 13 centuries of a practice once very common cannot be made to go away. Rome has indeed already spoken on this issue, allowing married former Lutheran and Episcopalian priests to receive Holy Orders as Roman Catholic clergy, operating in perfectly normal situations within their diocese, with more waiting in line.

Joe Thur writes "But the majority of our Byzantine Catholic priests are not married." That could only be said on the basis of a theory which insists that married Byzantine Catholic priests are "not ours", whatever "ours" might mean in such a context. Or is he seriously suggesting that all the Byzantine Catholics in North America may properly have married priests except the Ruthenians?
Christ is Risen!
Incognitus

Diak and Incognitus,

I think that Joe was being facetious when he said:

etc.

(If not, I'm scared )

Nice article, Anthony.

Many years,

Neil

We asked Archbishop Peter of the OCA in one of our canon law classes what he thought of the book by Ignatius Press trying to prove the Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy (I think that is the title of it, even) and he said basically it was bad scholarship and not even worth reading

And no, it's not some anti-Catholic jab because here at SVS one of the other canon law professors, Fr Rentel, highly recommends Ignatius Press's other book, Deaconesses: An Historical Inquiry as a the diffinite work on the subject.

anastasios

Subdeacon Diak,

Thank you for the positive feedback. It means a lot coming from you.

I'm afraid that Cardinal Stickler has fallen into a trap that many of us faithful Catholics can fall victim to. It is possible to become so wrapped up in fighting "heterodoxy" that our vision may become very narrow, and objectivity can go out the window. I've experienced this temptation myself on more than one occassion.

Neil,

Thank you for the compliment.

Joe,

If the Ruthenian Church in the United States really thinks this way, then maybe it deserves to fade into the sunset. I really hope that this isn't the case, however!!!

Anthony

In being a stickler on the mandatory celibacy issue, it seems that Cardinal Stickler has forgotten Sacred Scripture. Celibacy certainly predates the apostolic period, one need only look at the Essenes, but mandatory celibacy was not a requirement for bishops and deacons. (cf 1 Tim. 3:2-4, 11-12) Married clergy seems to be the norm not a concession.

Anastasios,

Unfortunately, I really believe that we need to take this movement seriously. Over the past several years there has been a strong push in Rome to have the necessity of mandatory celibacy doctrinally defined. Several prominent prelates and religious orders are backing this, and from what I hear, quite a bit of money has been spent towards this end.

Therefore, while the book itself may not be worth reading (it isn't), we should still study its claims and be prepared to refute them.

Anthony