(LifeSiteNews) — Church reformers have always challenged celibacy. This has not changed since Martin Luther’s time, and it is particularly true in the era of synodal aberration that the Church has embarked upon: celibacy must be abolished at any cost; that is the primary issue.
Where the Catholic faith is fading, the first thing to fade is always the acceptance of priests and celibacy; those who distance themselves from Christ inevitably also distance themselves from the understanding of the way of life that He exemplified for us. “Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12) then appears only as an outdated accessory, no longer as a core motif of the Gospel and the proclamation of the apostles (1 Cor 7:7). As a mere “law,” celibacy has long since become obsolete; although it is “appropriate” for the priesthood, it is essentially a relic of the past. Instead, married priests are to be ordained.
Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler (1910-2007) described all these tendencies in his highly acclaimed book, Der Klerikerzölibat (Clerical Celibacy), as early as 1993.
In it, Stickler makes it very clear that celibacy has never been just a hollow law that could be abolished at any time just as arbitrarily as it was once introduced; on the contrary, as Stickler shows, clerical abstinence goes back to the apostles in oral tradition and was already expected of all clergy in the early Church. Of course, most of them were married, but that did not change the fact that from the moment of their ordination, they were no longer allowed to have relations with their wives; from then on, they were to love them as sisters.
Stickler convincingly traces this practice back to 1 Cor. 9 and points to the corresponding decisions of the Councils of Tours (461), Gerona (517), and Auvergne (535). Above all, however, he makes it clear that celibacy is about much more than external renunciation or rigorous practice: it is about Christ and, with Him, the priesthood of the New Covenant; in short, it is about everything or nothing. Where faith in Christ dies, Stickler writes, “abstinence also dies,” and where heresies and schisms arise, the abolition of celibacy always appears as a harbinger. This was seen during the Reformation among Protestants, Calvinists, Zwinglians, and Anglicans – today it can be seen among the German “synodals” and their followers throughout the world.
In fact, celibacy has become a yardstick of fidelity to the Church, and because it is ultimately about Christ, the Church has always upheld it, even in difficult times, and certainly in times more difficult than today. As an example, Stickler cites the situation of the Church in France at the beginning of the 19th century. During the French Revolution, married priests had to either give up their (invalid) marriages or be removed from church service. Instead, they never agreed to a more comfortable middle ground, which would be suggested today. There were no concessions to the world, not when it came to the most sacred things and those who convey them.
But no one clings to a mere accessory or an arbitrary law for centuries, especially not when it is constantly rejected by the world. Ultimately, however, this rejection also comes from Christ and is like His seal of approval: Just as the world has always rejected Him, it also rejects those who follow His way of life and are sacramentally connected to Him as His priests.
Today, this rejection is undoubtedly dramatically noticeable in society, and it has now even spread to the Church, because even here celibacy is now under constant attack: bishops and priests have become traitors to the priestly way of life; one might even say traitors to Christ, traitors to the one to whom they have been conformed in ordination and whose celibate life they are supposed to share. It is precisely celibacy that points to the innermost essence of the priesthood with Christ: the priest is united with Christ in a sacramental and ontological unity, and because this is so, the priesthood is never limited to an external function. It is not a “profession” like any other, but a sacred calling; above all, it encompasses the whole man. Stickler writes that it encompasses him “in terms of his inner and outer being, and in terms of his ministry. Christ wants from His priest soul, heart, and body, and in all his activities, purity and abstinence as a testimony that he no longer lives according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom 8:8).”
Being a priest is not a half-hearted affair, and those who do not sacrifice themselves can never perform the sacrifice of Christ. Stickler clearly calls this the “continuous sacrificial life” of the priest, which is as little understood today as the sacrificial character of the Holy Mass. This New Testament priesthood has nothing to do with the Levitical priesthood of the Old Covenant, which practiced a cultic abstinence limited only to the time of temple service; it surpasses it, as Stickler says, “in its entire essence.”
Nowhere is this more visible than in celibacy, and that is precisely why it is so vehemently opposed. Whenever celibacy is discussed, the same question always arises, namely, whether it should finally be abolished or at least relaxed. The alleged shortage of priests makes this necessary, even though in reality it results from the glaring shortage of believers. Stickler, in turn, answers this question with a counter-question that leaves little room for maneuver:
In view of the theology of the New Testament priesthood, which has been confirmed and deepened by the official magisterium of the Church, we may ask ourselves whether the reasons for celibacy really only speak for its “appropriateness,” or whether it is not necessary and indispensable after all, whether there is not a connection between the two.
This “package deal” that Stickler refers to is rooted in apostolic tradition and ultimately in Christ. The fact that the Latin Church has preserved this package deal distinguishes it as “catholic and apostolic”; one could say that it is its “brand essence” and therefore indispensable. Moreover, the Church could never act here against its apostolic heritage. And even if, in exceptional cases, it ordains married men, it is precisely in these cases that the practice of marital abstinence should be rediscovered and its necessity made clear.
Without the sacrifice of total devotion to Christ, no one can lead a life as a priest. Cardinal Stickler points this out, contrary to today’s mainstream, and this is precisely what makes his book still so refreshing and relevant.
The same applies to the book written by Cardinal Robert Sarah in 2019 on the priesthood and celibacy, which contains a final, magnificent essay by Benedict XVI: “The Catholic Priesthood.”
The fact that this topic is close to the heart of both the late pope and the cardinal is evident not only from the title of the book; it is written entirely “from the depths of the heart,” namely, from a heart that burns for God, the Church, and the priesthood. Accordingly, the cardinal has dedicated it “to the priests of the world.”
Shepherds like Cardinal Sarah have become rare, especially in Germany, where the bishops, led by Bishop Georg Bätzing, are dismantling themselves, not to mention the priesthood and celibacy.
Yet it is precisely priests and priestly candidates who need bishops who, in a fatherly way, encourage them in the celibate life and value it accordingly. On the other hand, no one needs bishops who, like Cardinal Reinhard Marx, describe celibacy as “precarious” and advise against this way of life. Where such bishops officiate, there is a consistent lack of priestly candidates.
While the Church’s magisterium has now been abandoned in Germany, Sarah conveys the treasures of Church tradition and the full richness of that tradition. He does so with great freshness, and everyone senses that it is the truth of God that speaks through him, not the small-minded dwarfing that proclaims a “synodal Church” as a new “revelation.”
If there are books that are written on one’s knees, then they are indeed those of Cardinal Sarah. It is evident that the author took his time and opened himself to the Holy Spirit before he began to write, and Sarah himself describes this as the actual methodology of his writing. This, too, is a different attitude than in Germany, and it pervades the entire text. If there is a spiritual oasis for priests and those who want to become priests in the grueling discussion about celibacy, then it is undoubtedly this book.
Like Cardinal Stickler before him, Sarah traces celibacy back to the practice of the early Church and the apostles. And like Stickler, Sarah emphasizes that the Church can never abolish what has been handed down to it by the apostles. Celibacy is not a rigid law, nor is it one that might be superfluous; it is much more than that. And Sarah clearly points out what this “more” is: it is about love. He writes this as simply and clearly as the holy Curé of Ars, whom Sarah quotes at the very beginning: “The priesthood is (…) love for the heart of Jesus.”
This is probably the only reason why one becomes a priest and why one chooses celibacy: it is about a relationship similar to marriage, a loving relationship with Jesus, about “loving to the utmost,” just as Jesus loved us. Without love, there is no sacrament of ordination, just as there could be no sacrament of marriage without it. Both sacraments correspond to each other in the sense of a “true analogy” and culminate in nothing less than “total devotion.” For this reason alone, marriage and ordination are mutually exclusive; there is no such thing as a double totality, and even if there were, it would hardly be credible.
Of course, Sarah knows that there are married priests in exceptional cases and, even more so, that they are validly ordained. But that is not what he is concerned with. What he is concerned with is the ideal of the priesthood. He is concerned with the precious pearl, the treasure in the field (cf. Mt 13:45f.), in short, with what must never be abandoned as the sacred norm of the Catholic priesthood.
According to Sarah, one can never speak of celibacy without speaking of love. This is as refreshing as it is profoundly true. Without love, one cannot understand the priesthood, for the priest is, as Sarah writes, above all one thing: he is a lover. And he is even more than that. He is a bridegroom and, as such, stands with Christ before the Church.
This “bridal vocation” of the priest “includes a call to total and exclusive dedication, following the example of Jesus’ dedication on the cross.” However, only celibacy gives the priest “the opportunity to enter into this authentic vocation as a bridegroom,” which, following the example of Jesus, is at the same time a “Eucharistic form of life.” Sarah writes: “Celibacy corresponds to the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Lord, who out of love gave his body once and for all, to the point of extreme self-sacrifice, and demands a similar response from those called, namely, an absolute, irrevocable, and unconditional one.”
It is clear that Sarah writes all this with the heart of a lover, and that is precisely what gives the whole thing even greater depth. Conversely, however, Sarah also shows that love has been lost wherever the priesthood is questioned as well as celibacy: where love is no longer an argument, the Spirit of God has disappeared. Those who want to abolish celibacy have, in truth, long since abolished love.
Sarah’s plea for celibacy, on the other hand, is a plea for a “radically evangelical priesthood” that knows only one logic: the logic of self-renunciation, which again has its model in Christ. This logic, “which entails celibacy, must go as far as obedience and renunciation in poverty.” Without this logic of the “evangelical counsels,” there is no priesthood, especially not in wealthy Germany, and it is precisely there that one would be well advised to listen to the voice of an African cardinal, to whom the bourgeois, rich, and ailing Church of our latitudes has always remained foreign.
At the end of his book, Cardinal Sarah reminds us that the Second Vatican Council also stated that celibacy is by no means a simple precept of canon law, but a “precious gift from God.” Like Cardinal Stickler before him, he sees an “ontological-sacramental connection” between the priesthood and celibacy. For this reason, the Church has always considered celibacy to be the most appropriate way of life for the priesthood, the deepest reason for which is the conformity of the priestly life with the way of life of Christ.
Any weakening of celibacy would therefore, as Sarah writes, be “a questioning of the teaching of the last Council and of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.”
Celibacy remains what it has been since the time of the apostles: indispensable and irrevocable!
