Question 3.44

3.44 There are many who think that priestly celibacy is a merely disciplinary matter. What is your position?

Jesuit Father Christian Cochini, the author of a remarkable book, Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, correctly writes: “When, after hesitating for a long time, Pius IV finally decided to give his answer to the German princes asking Rome to authorize the marriage of priests, his first word on the matter would be a quotation from the decree of Carthage. Here then is the document that was to play such a part in the history of ecclesiastical celibacy. ‘Epigonius, Bishop of the Royal Region of Bulla, says: The rule of continence and chastity had been discussed in a previous council. Let it [now] be taught with more emphasis what are the three ranks that, by virtue of their consecration, are under the same obligation of chastity, i.e., the bishop, the priest, and the deacon, and let them be instructed to keep their purity. Bishop Genethlius says: As was previously said, it is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e., those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God, what the apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavor to keep. The bishops declared unanimously: It pleases us all that bishop, priest, and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from [conjugal intercourse] with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity.’ This text is interesting in many respects. Mention is made of the clerics’ wives, and particularly, the wives of the hierarchy’s high-ranking members: bishops, priests, and deacons. Most of those-or at least a large number-were thus bound by marriage. Such men are being asked by the African synod to give up no less than all conjugal intercourse and to observe perfect chastity. … Moreover, we are assured that such a discipline is not a new one: the Fathers of Carthage are only stressing the obligation of something that was ‘taught by the apostles and observed by antiquity itself.’”¹ This law is unanimously accepted and confirmed by the whole Church, in fidelity to the teaching of Jesus, who rewards those who leave everything in order to serve him: “Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Lk 18:29-30). And John Paul II insists: “The Latin Church has wished, and continues to wish, referring to the example of Christ the Lord himself, to the apostolic teaching and to the whole Tradition that is proper to her, that all those who receive the sacrament of Orders should embrace this renunciation ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’. This tradition, however, is linked with respect for different traditions of other Churches. In fact, this tradition constitutes a characteristic, a peculiarity, and a heritage of the Latin Catholic Church, a tradition to which she owes much and in which she is resolved to persevere, in spite of all the difficulties to which such fidelity could be exposed, and also in spite of the various symptoms of weakness and crisis in individual priests. We are all aware that ‘we have this treasure in earthen vessels’ (cf. 2 Cor 4:7); yet we know very well that it is precisely a treasure.”²

No, priestly celibacy is not responsible for the dearth of vocations in some countries of the world.

In this particular case, and in others, the ordination of married men would be a sad lure, an illusion, a confusing concession.