It is a time when the provision of the Eucharist, despite Christ’s specific request at the Last Supper is grinding to a halt. Despite this there are still people advocating one of the things which is causing this, ie. the necessity for those providing it to be celibate.
We found two beside each other on the web, one on the ‘Catholic Herald’ website, although we stress that they are blogs, and that the magazine does try to let all voices be heard.
The headline of the first is: ‘Those who want to overturn the ancient discipline are energetic, well organised and influential’ , exactly the language use about the Communist Party in the Forties. The writer manages to bring in the BBC programme about St Pope John Paul II’s romantic life ‘to illustrate how alien the idea of celibacy has become in today’s culture’. Anyway, it asks us finally to examine the ’profound implications of changing such a time honoured discipline’, without saying what these are.
Another begins with ‘The debate on married priests is damaged by mythmaking’ .He hits us , tellingly, with a reference to Hugh of St Victor, who with others, ’developed the theology of marriage as something holy’. Hugh of St Victor, OK? You know, Hugh of St Victor. Anyway, it wasn’t right for married men to leave their wives to become priests., and points out that permission to do this, because it is so rare, is now reserved to the Holy See. His conclusion is that ‘Celibacy, the choice of unmarried men for the priesthood became normal precisely because marriage is holy and a sacrament’.
You don’t have to be an oenologist to know that the bottom of the barrel is not going to provide many prizes for vintage. But we are more interested in the opening of this one, with the magic words ‘the debate on married priests’ .
Here we go again. As you will know, the expression ‘married priest’ seems to be deliberately used to strike at a tradition which has now become almost an instinct. It produces a revulsion at the idea of our Tridentine priests being married with families and all the consequence- the precise position of their mothers in law in the parish, chasubles stained by children’s jammy fingers, and the ends of amices being soaked by washing up water as Father does the dishes after he comes in from confessions.
It is rather tricky to mention St Pope John Paul at all on celibacy, as the first writer does, since his lyrical advocacy of celibacy is quite jarring when compared with his welcome to converting Anglican clergy with families. His own complex relationship with someone else’s wife is confusing, to say the least, and probably also to him.
Group solidarity is one of the most powerful of human relationships, especially when cemented by a feeling of common hardship. Think about it. But one despairs of wondering when the Tridentine priesthood will get over this, and remember why they are members of the Tridentine priesthood. Which is to provide the Eucharist.
Its day is done, and there are 50,000 parishes without priests to prove the point and a world shortage of ‘vocations’ . We need a new way to provide the Eucharist. And the valid ordination of parishioners to provide it is the way ahead.
What will it take, before it’s too late ?