Full Text COPYRIGHT National Catholic Reporter 1995

"Did you sign a document or make a vow to forgo marriage and sexual
gratification for the rest of your life?"

When asked this question, most elderly diocesan priests, true believers and
Vatican-friendly, will roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and groan. These
veteran clerics still have most of their marbles but have no remembrance of
making a vow or taking an oath of lifelong celibacy. Their lives and priestly
ministrations have been chaste and celibate, but current confusion about
sexuality has raised questions.

My seminary preparation for the priesthood was loose and theoretical. The
world was an enemy, the flesh a danger. We lived like monks deep in a quiet
cloister and starved our cultural interests, social concerns and sensual
appetites.

In countless classes and conferences, sexuality was a muddled and rarely
mentioned subject. Ancient fantasies and fears abounded. For many centuries,
sexual intercourse was considered degrading, a carnal experience approved only
for married couples when they wanted a baby. A Jansenistic stringency had
crept darkly from France to Ireland and then wormed its way into the fears of
many U.S. Catholics. Chastity is "the moral virtue that moderates and
regulates sexual appetites." Regulates, not annihilates. Chastity is to be
observed constantly by all persons, including married persons.

Celibacy is "the renunciation of marriage and any voluntary sexual pleasures."
The surprising news is this: A vow is not made/taken/given/received.

Our professors assured us that abstinence from sexual experiences is possible
and salutary for disciplined persons. Practical suggestions, however, for
maintaining a celibate life were in short supply. A young man's commitment to
perpetual celibacy was a plunge without an effective preparation. When the
celibate life is chosen, the actual problems and valid expressions of human
sexuality are not automatically clarified. Subsequent counseling for priests
to cope with their sexual selves was almost unheard of.

In 1139, the Second Lateran Council made celibacy mandatory for priests.
Legacies for the children of priests had become excessive and the solvency of
church properties was endangered. The most important reason for this
reformative decision was not that celibacy was seen as a higher or purer state
of life, or even that unmarried clerics would be more free to devote
themselves to the care of souls. The chief reason, it appears, was economic --
not an evil motive, but not a reason intrinsically related to the sacrament of
holy orders.

Several church historians have since pointed out that some antiquated
restraints imposed on priests -- a tonsured pate, a temperance pledge,
prohibition against horse races -- have quietly been put to rest. The celibacy
injunction, too, is written in erasable Latin, not carved in granite.

Have today's middle-aged priests taken a public vow of lifelong celibacy? The
rites of ordination do not say so. Before Vatican 11, only one reference to
sexuality was noted in the three steps toward the sacrament of holy orders.
The ordaining bishop said to the candidates for subdiaconate, "You will be
obligated to serve God perpetually and with his assistance observe chastity
(servare castitatem)."

A few rosy spiritual writers surmise that a priest's obligation to observe
perpetual celibacy was implied in this ceremony. An implication is a slippery
basis on which to bind persons to a life of perpetual sexual deprivation.

The ordination rites were revised after the Second Vatican Council. In the
liturgy for the diaconate, the bishop now asks the candidates: "Are you
resolved to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom and in lifelong
service to God and mankind?" Each candidate answers, "I am." A resolution, not
a vow, is asked and made. Here semanticists have a field day. But priests may
wonder what exact obligation regarding sexuality they have undertaken.

The church is always extremely precise in its choice of words for official
documents and sacramental ceremonies. Why was a vow of celibacy praised in
seminary classrooms but not mentioned or celebrated in the ordination liturgy?
Silence here carries a hint of ambivalence, confusion, discomfiture.

Priestly celibacy in the Latin rite, although it admits of exceptions, is the
law of the church. Many Christians, however, intuit an anomaly, some doubts in
the mind of the church about celibacy and sexuality itself.

Since Vatican II, the church has been enfeebled as more than 100,000 priests
resigned. Fr. Karl Rahner, a towering guide to the council, sent a warning to
the Vatican: "If in practice you cannot obtain a sufficient number of priests
in a given cultural setting without relinquishing celibacy, then the church
must suspend the law of celibacy."

A business losing many of its executives and salespersons is headed for
bankruptcy. The Vatican continues to repeat its self-defeating injunction.
Sharks, are swimming around the barque of Peter.

A few favorable winds are blowing in this sea of troubles.Some year soon,
the church will decree that marriage is optional for priests. The church
could provide an easy reconciliation and give a gracious welcome to priests
who have served admirably and then departed from the active priesthood by
entering an enduring marriage. Thousands would gladly return. The New 
Testament everywhere urges compassion, rapport, the love of a father for his
returning son. Rigidity here has the bitter taste of permanent rejection.
Open arms here could initiate a new era for the priesthood and the church.
Another Pentecost could begin.

Fr. Harvey F. Egan, pastor emeritus of St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis
is the author of Leaven (North Star Press).
                                                                              
 -- End --  Source:  National Catholic Reporter, May 12, 1995 v31 n28 p21(1).