Dear Joe,

A first step is to understand the Catholic teaching on grace and works. In homily I expressed it this way:

We are saved by sheer grace. To some people this sounds like a Protestant doctrine. They might have the idea that Martin Luther taught "grace" but the Catholic Church taught "works." That is not true. The doctrine of grace has been part of the Catholic teaching right from the beginning. The Catechism sums up this long tradition in the following words: "Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers in the divine nature and eternal life." (#1996). The Catechism goes on to explain that when we talk about good works or "merit," even then we must give the credit to God. "Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God." (2025) Saved by Grace Alone

Regarding celibacy, here is a helpful article written by a non-Catholic Scholar:

Celibacy for Beginners
Yes, It's an Issue, but It's Not the Reason for the Church's Troubles

By Philip Jenkins

Sunday, March 31, 2002; Page B03


In recent weeks, as cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have
appeared regularly in the headlines, the notion of priestly celibacy
has become the subject of talk radio and dinner party discussions.
But much of the debate has been rooted in myth and misinformation and
clouded by the assumption, particularly in this country, that the
time has come for the Roman Catholic Church to end this Medieval
foolishness anddo away with the practice. In fact, the subject is
much more complex. And barring unforeseen circumstances, celibacy is
likely to be around in the American Catholic church for a long time
to come.

The popular view seems to be that celibacy reflects a hatred and
contempt for sexuality -- and for women -- and that it turns priests
into frustrated loners who express their inner conflicts through
sexual assaults on little children. For many reasons, I think these
charges are unfair.

I belong to a church that does not require celibacy of its clergy and
has female priests, namely the Episcopal Church. Yet speaking as a
historian, I can understand the reasons another church might require
priestly celibacy. And as a consumer of news, I see that celibacy's
origins and the church's motivations in requiring it are widely
misunderstood.

Let's start with what has become a standard misstatement about its
genesis: That priests were required to be celibate beginning around
1100, maybe even a little later. We do know that compulsory celibacy
was not a practice of the earliest church. We know that Saint Peter
had a mother-in-law, that the apostles traveled in the company of
their wives, and that some early popes were (without causing scandal)
the sons of other popes. Yet beyond these facts, much is in doubt.

The notion that mandatory celibacy wasn't imposed until the 12th
century, stated as "fact," seems quite damning to the church's
insistence on the practice. If true, modern Catholics would be
insisting on an innovation that has been around for less than half of
the history of Christianity, one that dates to the Middle Ages, a
period that enjoys a dreadful reputation in modern thought. Through
guilt by association, celibacy seems to be linked in many people's
minds with such horrors as witch-burning, the Inquisition and the
Crusades. Worst of all, the reasons often cited for the invention of
celibacy are not even spiritual, but rather involve land rights.
According to a scholarly myth widely held among historians, the
church was just trying to ensure that the children of priests could
not become legitimate heirs to church land. Literally, according to
this story, the modern Catholic Church is keeping alive a survival of
feudal times.

This pseudo-history is wrong at almost every point. Mandatory
celibacy goes much further back than Medieval times, if not quite to
the days of the apostles. Priestly celibacy was the usual expectation
in the West by late Roman times, say the 4th century, and Medieval
statements on the subject were just reasserting discipline that had
collapsed temporarily in times of war and social chaos. Of course we
can find married priests throughout the Middle Ages, just as we can
find priests committing molestation today, but that does not mean
that, in either case, they were acting with church approval.

In making this point about dates, I am not just nitpicking in the
worst academic tradition. I am stressing that priestly celibacy is a
product of the very early church. Just how early? It was celibate
priests and monks who made the final decisions about which books were
going to make up the New Testament, and which would be excluded. If,
as most Christians believe, the ideas and practices of the early
church carry special authority, then we should certainly rank
priestly celibacy among these ancient traditions.

So if they were not defending land rights, why did successive popes
try to enforce celibacy? Odd as this may seem, the main reason seems
to have been the increased frequency of the Eucharist or Mass.
Because of the need to focus on spiritual rather than worldly
interests, married priests in the 3rd and 4th centuries were supposed
to abstain from sex the night before saying Mass. As Mass became a
daily ritual, this effectively demanded permanent celibacy. Out of
this practical need came a whole theology of self-sacrifice. The idea
of celibacy is based less on a fear of sexuality than on a deep
respect for its power, and with proper training, a celibate could
transform or channel this power into a source of strength. Modern
psychologists would later invent the term "sublimation" for this
complex process.

By giving up the most basic human needs and comforts, the priest was
able to devote himself entirely to God and to the people he served.
He was meant to treat all the faithful equally, with no need to give
special preference to a wife or children. A "father" was meant to be
father to all.Of course, changes in society mean that the church no
longer needs to prove that its clergy stand above the narrow ties of
kin, but other reasons for celibacy remain unchanged. In some ways,
the case for celibacy may even be greater today than it was centuries
ago. In a society that seems to be so thoroughly aware of sex and
sexuality, maybe even obsessed with it, what greater self-sacrifice
could there be, what greater rejection of the culture, than the
adoption of celibacy?

At the same time, not even the Catholic Church claims that clerical
celibacy is a strict matter of faith that can never be changed. The
church indeed says that some of its teachings can never be softened
-- for instance, the prohibition on female priests or the ban on
abortion. But it also makes clear that celibacy (like matters of
liturgical practice, for example) is a question of internal church
discipline, which could be changed if circumstances demanded it. Such
a change would not require any embarrassing backtracking on past
policies, any kind of reversal of once "infallible" statements.

It may come as a surprise that Catholic authorities do allow a little
flexibility in the matter of married priests. If, for instance, a
priest converts to Catholicism from a church that allows marriage,
like the Orthodox, then he may be able to enter the Roman church as a
married priest in good standing. Some have done so -- often to the
annoyance of mainstream Catholic clergy, who are not granted this
same privilege.

But now let me ask an outrageous question: Why should the Roman
Catholic Church change its stance on celibacy? Much has been said of
late about the damage that celibacy inflicts on the modern church and
its poor exploited believers. But, like the pseudo-history, may of
these contemporary charges are false.

Among the harms caused by celibacy, two possibilities come to mind.
One, obviously, is the problem of "pedophile priests," who allegedly
commit their crimes because of the frustration and immaturity caused
directly by celibacy. The reform motto is beautiful in its
simplicity, and inspiring in its urgency: End celibacy and save the
children! Yet there is no credible evidence to link the two. Many of
the same problems also happen in churches and denominations that
allow clergy to marry. Based on some excellent studies using large
samples of priests, we can say that about 2 or 3 percent of Catholic
priests are sexually involved with minors. There is no evidence that
the rate for these priests is higher than that for any other
non-celibate group. So how does celibacy come into the picture at all?

Another issue more plausibly connected with celibacy is the growth of
gay subcultures in the American priesthood -- not that having
homosexual priests is necessarily bad in itself. But when men with
gay inclinations are represented in the priesthood at a rate 10 or 20
times that in the average male population (which studies suggest is
the case), this does tend to make the priesthood more of a closed
caste separated from the lives of ordinary believers. But ending
celibacy now almost certainly would not change the situation, or make
the priesthood less gay. Just look at my own Episcopal church, in
which clergy have been allowed to marry since the 16th century: The
Episcopal clergy has flourishing gay subcultures quite as active as
those rumored in theRoman church, only far more public.

Ultimately, the Catholic stance on priestly celibacy can change in
one of two ways, neither of which seems very likely. The American
church could go into schism, declaring its independence from Rome,
which nobody is predicting. The only alternative is to wait for Rome
and the global church to declare changes from the center, an idea
that reformers have prayed for over the years. As the hopeful joke
goes, at the Third Vatican Council, the pope will bring his wife; at
the Fourth Vatican Council, the pope will bring her husband. Yet
today, the chances for that sort of reform seem bleak.

There are any number of reasons the Roman Catholic church might want
to end mandatory celibacy for its clergy. It might rethink the
theology of the whole matter; it might carry out surveys showing that
a married priesthood would simply do a better pastoral job of
ministering to the faithful. Above all, it might decide that ending
celibacy is simply the only way to restore the numbers of the
priesthood, and that seems to me an excellent idea -- though as I
say, I write as an outsider. But whatever it does, let the church
decide its course on celibacy for the right reasons. Let it act
according to the logic of its own principles, and not in response to
bogus history and convenient mythology.

Philip Jenkins is a professor of history and religious studies at
Pennsylvania State University and the author, most recently, of "The
Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity" (Oxford).

Regarding the Scriptural basis for celibacy

About the papacy (scriptural basis for primacy, infallibility, etc)

Any comments you have would be welcome. God bless,

Fr. Phil Bloom

Pedophilia and Teaching of Bible

Other Letter regarding Boston Scandal

Letter from Former Catholic

Homily on Boston Scandal

"Catholicism is the Answer"

Home