How Pope Paul VI blocked reform on priestly celibacy

Paul VI, during the final meeting of Vatican II in 1965, made an extraordinary intervention to forbid any discussion of the rule of priestly celibacy since he had elected to study this issue himself. Accordingly, on 24 June 1967, Paul VI published an encyclical on priestly celibacy known as Sacerdotalis Caelibatus.

Explaining how he arrived at his decision, Paul VI wrote: “We have, over a considerable period of time earnestly implored the enlightenment and assistance of the Holy Spirit and have examined before God opinions and petitions which have come to Us from all over the world, notably from many pastors of God’s Church” (sec. 1). To his credit, Paul VI acknowledges having received and prayerfully considered opinions and petitions coming from pastors.

To his discredit, Paul VI failed to consult the bishops by letter. He similarly refused to open this delicate pastoral issue up at the tri-annual Synod of Bishops in Rome. It appears that, as in the case of indulgences, Paul VI effectively bypassed the principle of collegiality affirmed at Vatican II and, in its place, he imposed a treatise of his own choosing/making.

Every informed pastor knows that celibacy was not universally imposed upon the clergy until the middle ages and that the Vatican imposition of celibacy was initially resisted for many generations by both pastors and their wives. Bishops bent upon separating priests from their lawfully wedded wives were often bombarded by crowds that threw rotten fruit. The reforming popes in the Vatican, in response, resorted to raw power. Priests and their wives were initially required to sleep in separate beds. When this failed to suffice, their wives were required to live in separate houses. Fines were imposed. In the end, many of the wives who became pregnant were publicly shunned or forced into slavery. The final solution was a campaign instigated by the Vatican to disseminate preachers who denounced every priest living with his wife as “unworthy of administrating the Holy Eucharist” and “as a spiritual danger to the faithful” who depended upon their divine mediation. Only when the laity began to boycott the altars of priests living with their wives and bishops began to require a solemn vow of celibacy for all those being ordained as deacons did the campaign for clerical celibacy finally take hold.

Needless to say, Paul VI, in his encyclical, tells us nothing of this dark historical underbelly of imposed celibacy. Rather, Paul VI offers us the mistaken impression that celibacy began with Jesus when he freely chose celibacy as an essential character of his own service of his Father and when he declared that “there are eunuchs [like myself] who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12).  Paul VI thus leaves the impression that the link between celibacy and priesthood gradually grew within the church and that it has come to full flower as an eschatological sign of the life that everyone will one day enjoy for “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mt 22:30). The celibacy of the priest, consequently, was heralded in Sacerdotalis Caelibatus as the proleptic “presence on earth of the final stages of salvation.”

Even if flaws within Sacerdotalis Caelibatus could be forgiven in the name of piety, one can hardly overlook the clear evidence of the Gospels to the effect that Jesus never mentions celibacy when he chooses any of his disciples. Peter, who is clearly recognized as a married man, receives no admonition to separate himself from his wife. But, more importantly, we read in 1 Tim 3:2 that “a bishop must be above reproach, married only once [a one-woman man]” and, in Tit 1:7, we read that a presbyter should also be “someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers.” Instead of fostering celibacy, therefore, we find in the late apostolic tradition the requirement that bishops and presbyters must have a wife and children. Why so? For this reason: “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he be expected to take care of God’s church” [which is an extended family]? (1 Tim 3:5).

Is it possible that Paul VI failed to notice these things in the sacred Scriptures? Or, did he notice these things but deliberately omitted to mention them because they collapse his argument in favour of priestly celibacy? In either case we may be compelled to raise questions regarding his competence and honesty as a scholar and teacher.

In developed countries, the negative stigma attached to sexuality even in the case of marriage has been largely dissipated. Sex is no longer registered as a surrender to concupiscence or as an impediment to holiness but is widely seen as a sign and seal of love. Men no longer use their wives to relieve their sexual urges and to produce their children; rather, the act of sexual union is now commonly referred to as “love making.” As such, love making is a sacramental sign that communicates and celebrates the intimacy, transparency, and mutual self-surrender between two persons. Thus, among my seminary students, many of them confided to me that they experienced an acute personal struggle between their calling to priesthood and their calling to intimacy. “What kind of God,” one seminarian asked, “would call me to be a celibate priest while confounding me with an equally strong call to be a loving husband and father?” In other cultures, to be sure, this is not the case. In Africa, “virility” is invariably associated with “the number of children,” and celibacy is often forced to take a second place when it comes time for priests to gain the respect of their congregations.

With the renewal of the Church following Vatican II, many priests had anticipated a relaxation of the rule of celibacy.  The adamant position taken by Paul VI in his encyclical killed any hope for compassionate change. Many Spirit-filled priests, facing a crisis of conscience between their call to ministry and their call to marriage, decided to apply for laicization. All told, 200,000 priests worldwide left their ministry in order to marry. Those who stayed called for more collegiality and more discussion on this matter. In 1970, nine German theologians, including Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), signed a letter publicly calling for a fresh discussion of the rule of celibacy.

In 1971, an open discussion on obligatory priestly celibacy erupted at the Synod of Bishops that was devoted to the growing problems confronting priests. After days of deliberation, a vote was taken on a proposal for ordaining married men “if the needs of the faithful warranted it and the pope approved.” The proposal was defeated by a vote of 107 to 87. If the curial bishops had been removed from the voting, then the vote of the bishops-pastors would have carried the day. Nonetheless, when Paul VI closed the Synod, he said, “From your discussions, it emerges that the bishops from the entire Catholic world want to keep integrally this absolute gift [of celibacy] by which the priest consecrates himself to God.” This, of course, was not quite the truth. He should have said, “From your discussions, it emerges that more than half of the bishops from the entire Catholic world favour returning to the earlier practice of ordaining married men while the curial bishops here in the Vatican are almost unanimously opposed to this course of action.” Here again one can gauge how the Synod was manipulated to maintain the illusion that clerical celibacy was universally approved by the bishops.

When ministers within Anglican and Lutheran denominations were welcomed into the Catholic communion, it was particularly difficult for long-suffering priests to notice how easily Rome was able to relax the rule of celibacy for these former Anglican or Lutheran pastors who were escaping churches that endorsed the ordination of women. I have frequently heard bitterness expressed by older priests on this matter. In this case as well, we are forced to consider whether Paul VI arrived at a one-sided and un-pastoral decision. This caused and continues to cause an enormous amount of personal suffering for priests and for those who are close to them. The bishop who said, “I doubt whether the Lord would be pleased with our loneliness,” may have been saying what so many others knew in their heart but were afraid to reveal.

Dr Aaron MILAVEC

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