Celibacy today: mystery, myth, and miasma

There is another mystery, or puzzle. Priesthood and celibacy have been so wedded, over the last five centuries especially, that even recent popes (John Paul II and Benedict XVI) claim that it is not within their power to abandon the requirement that clerics bind themselves with the vow of perfect and perpetual celibacy before they are ordained. Part of the puzzle that this presents is that there is no scriptural evidence that Jesus practiced celibacy. The evolution of the moral teaching about sex--that it is rarely free from the taint of sin--retrojected from the fourth century back to the time of Jesus the theological presumption that Christ and most of the apostles of necessity "must have" practiced celibacy. Celibacy, even on a natural level, does bespeak power, discipline and control and can inspire awe and confidence in the authority of one who claims it. The reforming Council of Trent reasserted the celibate requirement for ordination and reinforced the bond between celibacy and the power of the priesthood. Bishops have been dedicated to preserve the image of the celibate priesthood before the public and in the minds of the faithful since celibacy is a fundamental source of power. That image of priesthood is defined in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (1545-1563); an image that can hardly be postulated without the presumption of celibacy:

    Bishops and priests being, as they are, God's interpreters and
    ambassadors, empowered in His name to teach mankind the divine law
    and the rules of conduct, and holding, as they do, His place on
    earth, it is evident that no nobler function than theirs can be
    imagined. Justly, therefore, are they called not only angels, but
    even gods, because of the fact that they exercise in our midst the
    power and prerogatives of the immortal God. (5a)

This image and the power that derives from it are so intimately bound to clerical celibacy that its demise would threaten the collapse of the entire clerical edifice. Sociologist Anson Shupe analyzes the essential social exchange in various religious traditions. (6) He claims that celibacy is Le Don (The Gift), that is, the basic contractual tie of the Catholic Church with its members. Clerical purity is the vital, inseparable core of the social exchange between the hierarchy/clergy and the members of the faith community. In theory and practice the assurance of the celibacy of Catholic clergy is exchanged for the trust, respect, belief, support, obedience, and allegiance of the faithful. The faithful in return receive comfort, forgiveness, and salvation. (In the Protestant ministry the gift is servantship. In the rabbinate the gift is scholarship and interpretation.)

The core gift of any religion is essential to maintain the commitment of faith within communities between the clergy elite ands the faithful. Clergy misconduct in the form of celibate violations within the Catholic Church is a betrayal of the kind most destructive to the structure of Catholicism. Celibate violations, like no other, obliterate the core commitment and threaten to invalidate the trust, respect, support, belief, obedience, and allegiance that the faithful willingly exchange for what they have perceived as the ultimate sacrifice of their clergy--celibacy.