What one Malawian Catholic Priest said recently in defence of the debauchery and wantonness of some priests cannot go without comment. To recap, a bishop argued that all men sleep around, therefore it follows that it is pardonable for some Catholic Priests to sleep around, because they too are human and that therefore the media should not make much of the brouhaha.
This argument lacks logic.
Catholic Priests take a vow of celibacy. At the time they take this vow, they do so with full awareness of the fact that they too are human, complete with sexual needs and all that. To deliberately indulge with the hope of using their fallibility as an excuse does not make sense at all.
Why, if I may ask, does the Roman Catholic Church still stick to the vow of celibacy for their priests when we all know this does not work? Allowing, for instance, for the fallibility of the priests, why doesn’t the church change policy and permit the priests to marry? Or, better still, why not make celibacy a matter of an individual priest, so that there could be celibate priests and married priests?
And it is not in Malawi alone where sexual scandal after scandal rocks the Catholic Church. All over the world, Catholic priests have been known to sleep with little boys or with women, both married and single, for decades. The Vatican itself celebrated this year’s Easter amid a scandal of similar proportions.
The media cannot simply stand aside and pay a blind eye to the shenanigans of the catholic priests based on the fallacious argument that priests too are human. Priests are human, yes, but they have made a personal decision to be the vessels of the Christ, to represent the purity of Jesus Christ. They are not common men like some of us. They represent a holiness that cannot simply be ignored using such shallow excuses as fallibility. The Catholic Priests would be doing themselves a great favour if they stopped living a lie.
Several popes have been married in history. Pope Siricius, selected Pope on 17 December, 384 AD was married, so was St Felix, the 48th Pope. St Hormisdas, St Silverius, St Agatho were all married popes. Pope Hadrian II, also known as Adrian II, was married, had a daughter and the family lived with him at the Lateran Place . Pope Boniface the IX, selected on November 2, 1389, had a wife. It is said he dispensed himself from celibacy to marry. Clement IV too was married.
Clearly it is a choice for the Catholic Church to simply do away with the celibacy vows and allow the priests to marry. They will stop living a lie. The Anglican Priests marry which, I think, they decided to do after realising they were human.
Unless the Church wants another Martin Luther to come up and nail 95 theses against the mask of celibacy, the most logical thing is for the church to take an official stand and make celibacy optional. Otherwise, these masks aren’t working at all. Either you choose to be celibate and stick by it, or you disavow the celibacy and marry. But you cannot be both and shamelessly stand up to tell the world at large that you are human after all, as if you realised that fact all of a sudden.
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2 comments:
Yes, they need to declare which side of the fence. Nobody should hide behing the human errors and infallibilities. What amazes me is that these people take a vow of celibacy knowing full well that they too will have feelings.
Part of the problem is the way church (spiritual) leaders are held in such high esteem. Jesus said those who want to lead should be like servants and Prohited us to call anyone on earth Father. We should be like brothers. A brother would listen to advice and criticism but no a Father, Lord, Highness!!!
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