Author name: Molly Hostetler

The question of the Catholic celibate priesthood has become more and more common, first following fear of a shortage of priests and then amid scandals within the priesthood. Allowing priests to marry looks to some as the easiest and most logical fix to what they perceive as broken. But first we should ask why celibacy is the norm, for priests in the Roman rite and for bishops in the Eastern church. We need to understand why celibacy is the longstanding tradition of the Church.

The American Jesuit Fr. William Byron tells a story about ministering to a young woman who lost her husband in a fatal car crash. He celebrated the funeral Mass and helped the young widow get into law school and start a new life. Later, when Fr. Byron’s name came up in conversation, the woman’s five-year old daughter asked, “Whose ‘Father’ is he?” The mother answered without thinking, “Anybody who needs one.” That young woman understood more about celibate priesthood, perhaps, than many of us priests!

Some have understandably asked why priestly celibacy cannot be optional, especially given the shortage of vocations and the profoundly disturbing violations of celibacy in recent years. Celibacy is clearly not a prerequisite for priesthood since there are validly ordained priests who are married in the Eastern Churches and by exception in the Latin Rite.

Before Christ, sterility was seen either as a curse or as a condition for God to reveal his power by transforming it into fruitfulness. The patriarch Abram, a Hebrew name meaning “Exalted Father,” was still childless at the age of a hundred when he received an even more incongruous name: Abraham, meaning “Father of a Multitude of Nations.” As Scott Hahn observes, for a man of Abraham’s age without progeny, such a name must have provoked ridicule. “I’m sure the new name didn’t make life any easier for old Abraham,” Hahn remarks, “as he made his way past the cruelest of his gossipy neighbors.”

Before Christ, sterility was seen either as a curse or as a condition for God to reveal his power by transforming it into fruitfulness. The patriarch Abram, a Hebrew name meaning “Exalted Father,” was still childless at the age of a hundred when he received an even more incongruous name: Abraham, meaning “Father of a Multitude of Nations.”

John Carroll was named the first bishop of the United States by Pope Pius VI in 1789. In 1791, he wrote a prayer for government to be said throughout the Diocese of Baltimore, which at the time encompassed the entire United States.

God is not a Sadistic Poker Player. Yet this is the image that many young people unknowingly have of Him. He holds the cards of our lives in His hands. He knows the secret to our best life and true happiness, but He won’t tell. We don’t even know if He’s holding a good hand or a bad hand. Worse yet, He might be bluffing.

There are two wonderful and lasting legacies of which the Catholic Church need not be ashamed; indeed, she may trumpet them full-throatedly before the world. So surpassing is their value, so indefectible her possession of them, that neither folly nor wickedness can ever deprive her of their use.