Sunday, September 9 – Can Catholic priests get married?

Christ Who Gave Up Everything For Our Sake

We celebrate the self-sacrificing love of Christ, the unfathomable wisdom of God, who was prepared to give up everything out of love for man. in the same spirit, St. Paul was prepared to send back to Philemon the dear friend of his captivity, Onesimus, a part of his own self.

- the Sunday Missal
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Wisdom 9:13-18

What man can know the intentions of God?
Who can divine the will of the Lord?
The reasonings of mortals are unsure
and our intentions unstable;
for a perishable body pressed down on the soul,
and this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind.
It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth,
laborious to know what lies within our reach;
who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?
As for your intention, who could have learnt it, had you not granted Wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from above?
Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened
and saved, by Wisdom.
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Philemon 9-10, 12-17

This is Paul writing, an old man now and, what is more, still a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus. I and sending him back to you, and with him – I could say – a part of my own self. I should have liked to keep him with me; he could have been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the Good News has brought me. However, I did not want to do anything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any more, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as well as a brother in the Lord. So if all that we have in common means anything to you, welcome him as you would me.
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Luke 14:25-33

Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them. “If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

“And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, ‘Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.’ Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his possessions.”
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Can Catholic priests get married? Sure they can! Celibacy is not the rule for all Catholic priest. In fact, for Eastern Rite Catholics, married priests are the norm, just as they are for Orthodox and Oriental Christians.

Does the Roman Catholic Church forbid men to be married? Of course not. The Church does not forbid anyone to be married. No one is required to take a vow of celibacy. Those who do so, do so voluntarily. As St. Paul says in the second reading, such an act is one that is spontaneous, not forced. Such men “renounce marriage” (Matthew 19:12) for the sake of the kingdom. Any Catholic who doesn’t wish to take such a vow doesn’t have to, and is almost always free to marry with the Church’s blessing.

The Church simply chooses candidates for the priesthood from those among those who voluntarily renounce marriage.

As you know, the Church has always believed in monogamy. When it comes to the priesthood, each Roman Catholic priest is encouraged to look on his flock as his wife. Just as he, the priest, represents Christ as the Bridegroom, so his flock is his Bride. All men are called to lay down their lives for their wives, just as Christ laid down his for the Church.

This is the mystery of self-sacrifice love that Christ came to show us when he came down from heaven, as in the first reading. God came down from heaven to show us his intentions – to show us what love really is, and how we are called to love.

Most Catholics marry, and all Catholics are taught to venerate marriage as a holy institution, a sacrament. In fact, it is precisely the holiness of marriage that makes celibacy precious, for only what is good and holy in itself can be given up for God as a sacrifice. Just as fasting presupposes the goodness of food, celibacy presupposes the goodness of marriage. To despise celibacy is to undermine marriage itself, and this is something that the early Church Fathers pointed out.

Celibacy is also a living out in this life, the universal celibacy of heaven where we, the Church, is married to Christ. When those of us who are called to the married vocation see the presence of celibates living among us, we are reminded of our final celibacy that we will celebrate in heaven. Similarly, when those of us called to celibacy see the presence of married persons, we too are reminded that we are living out, through our celibacy, the marriage between Christ and his Church.

Let us therefore thank the Wisdom that God has sent us, the Holy Spirit that enables us to understand the mystery of love, the mystery of God becoming man. Let us also pray for an increased respect, understanding, and love of both the celibate and married vocations. Amen.

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