Question 3.43

3.43 Do your memories become much more precise with Paul VI, who is ultimately the pope of your youth?

Yes, indeed, I arrived in Rome in September 1969. I was able to see Paul VI when he came to dedicate one of the buildings of the Collegio San Pietro, where I resided. For the first time, I had contact with a pope! The child of Guinea experienced a kind of miracle. . .

Paul VI had to cope with extraordinarily difficult upheavals. The world was changing very quickly, and the Council did not bring the much-awaited in-depth understanding. The progressive hermeneutic was even leading the faithful into dead ends. Many priests left the priesthood. Convents emptied out, and many nuns started to put aside their habits. Little by little, the spirit of the age caused the disappearance of the signs indicating that God’s hand had been placed on those who had devoted their lives to the Lord. There was a widespread impression that, even among consecrated persons, the presence of God was forbidden! For the pope, this meant terrible suffering.

His sorrow did not prevent him from standing firm. He knew better than anyone that the Council had been created by the Holy Spirit. In directing the work of the Council Fathers, Paul VI showed authority and theological reliability that were particularly well rooted in the faith. The pope intended to preserve the deposit of revelation from the reformist or revolutionary aberrations of the ideologues in attendance. He did all he could to fend off very violent attacks.

Thus, in June 1967, in his encyclical Sacerdotalis caelibatus on priestly celibacy, he rigorously confronted the arguments challenging the chastity expected of ministers of worship. He wrote: “Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes. Amid the modern stirrings of opinion, a tendency has also been manifested, and even a desire expressed, to ask the Church to reexamine this characteristic institution. It is said that in the world of our time the observance of celibacy has come to be difficult or even impossible. This state of affairs is troubling consciences, perplexing some priests and young aspirants to the priesthood; it is a cause for alarm in many of the faithful and constrains Us to fulfill the promise We made to the Council Fathers. We told them that it was Our intention to give new luster and strength to priestly celibacy in the world of today” (SC 1-2).

In fact, Paul VI issued a decree confirming the Council of Carthage in 390 as well as the ancient tradition of the Catholic Church with regard to consecrated celibacy. The law of celibacy promulgated by the assembly of African bishops has always remained in force, and it would be officially included in the major legislative anthology of the Church of Africa, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae, which was compiled and promulgated in 401, during the time of Saint Augustine.