Why Shouldn’t our Priests Marry?

It is the Church herself who will finally decide on matters of priestly celibacy; and it is plain enough that the hierarchy has recognised that a genuine problem exists. Pope John once made the remark that when he considered priestly celibacy, he was aware of an underground voice of sorrow and tribulation rising to his ears fromall over the world; yet knowing that he could change the situation by a stroke of the pen, he still did not do so. I would not dare to try to interpret the inner mind of Pope John, that tabernacle of the Holy Spirit; but I consider it more than possible that he was balancing the tribulations of the priesthood against the needs of the whole Church, and especially of the laity. Therefore I will tend to stress the reactions of laymen to the proposition that their priests should marry.

There is the matter of a special example to be considered. Not long ago, page 316 after a public meeting at which some young seminarians had been present, a good friend of mine, a single man, said to me: ‘It’s a great help, Jim, to see these young men doing what they are doing. I’m single. I have to be, and a single life can be lonely and hard. But when I see those young men accepting a celibate life for the love of God, it gives me new heart to cope with my own life.’

My friend’s situation would hardly be unique. In a world where many regard a celibate life as impossible, the celibate priest can show by example that the grace of God is sufficient; that such a life is not impossible, only difficult. This should not mean of course that priests should have to nail down all their difficulties under a lid and confide them to God alone. I am sure that priests are of help to one another in this regard. And many a layman has been encouraged in coping with his own difficulties by an honest human admission from his confessor that priests also have similar difficulties, discouragements and conflicts.

I do not find the argument that the priest who has problems regarding purity will automatically find a solution of those problems in the married state particularly convincing. In fact I doubt if there is more than one man in a thousand (I cannot speak for women in this regard, and after all we are considering a male problem) who finds a direct solution of sexual difficulties in this way. The ordinary married layman, for various reasons, may very often have to practise a total or partial celibacy, intermittently, where a priest has the simpler and more direct demand that he should wholly abstain from sex relations. Intermittent and partial celibacy may require a much finer moral and mental poise, and be a source of much greater suffering, than a commitment to total celibacy. I do not dispute that such suffering may be God’s will for the married man, and that it may change his character for the better, promote domestic altruism, and lead both him and his wife eventually into Heaven. But it can hardly be regarded as a direct and simple solution of sexual difficulties. A married priest may find that the partial celibacy required of him is a harder and a rougher yoke than that imposed by the demands of priestly celibacy.

Similarly a celibate priest may at times take an unreal view of the mental and spiritual joys of domesticity. He may have a mental picture of a loving wife warming his slippers for him by the fire, while he sets aside the preparation of his sermon for the next day in order to bounce a little child on his knee. It would be unfair to contend that such a picture could never be realised. But he may omit to visualise occasions when he may lie awake all night worrying not about the problems of his parishioners, but about the complicated mental and emotional problems of his wife or the possible place in which his teen-age son or daughter might at that moment – 4 a.m., wet, cold and windy – be whooping it up.

There is, by God’s will, a real cross embedded in the vocation of priesthood and an equally real one in every marriage. Is a priest’s back necessarily stronger page 317 than ours? Can he carry two crosses with ease when we mere laymen so often stumble under our single cross and doubt the certainty of God’s support? I would contend that priests, like us, are human, and that their vertebrae might shatter under the double weight.

To be realistic one should consider also the problem of the henpecked priest. The one doctrine of the Church whose observation has dropped from sight most in the past fifty or a hundred years is the moral injunction that wives should obey their husbands. Personally I am able to accept this situation with equanimity, resignation and (I hope) some humour. If the women are now in the saddle – well, let them do the best they can – perhaps in some respects they may make a better job of it than men did in the past. But it may be a real problem for the married priest when his emancipated wife begins to tell him not only what coat he should wear, what food he should eat, what hours he should keep, but also what friends he should have, what female parishioners may be a possible moral danger to him, and eventually what he should say in the confessional and from the pulpit. I admit I am overstating the case a little; but it is still a real problem, and nuances of female control may be harder to set aside than a direct wifely injunction. I am referring now to the possibility of nagging.

It has struck me often that our clergy see marriage (no doubt very properly) from the point of view of the Holy Spirit, as a majestic affirmation in human terms of the relation between Christ and the Church; yet may overlook the worm’s-eye view of the matter held by a husband or wife who are finding the going particularly hard. The problem of the layman is of course to bring both views together in a positive unity. But a married priest could suddenly find himself holding a view of matrimony which he had never before considered possible. The traumatic shock of this experience could even adversely affect his sanity.

I can go a long way with the argument that priests who are determined to get married should be given dispensations and allowed to receive the Sacraments; though whether it would always be wise for them to continue dispensing the Sacraments is another matter. Without mercy our religion is a rigid carcass, and who needs mercy and understanding more than the priest who is torn in half by conflicting desires and aspirations?

There is also the problem of scandal among the faithful. The scandal offered by lapsed priests is now a common topic of controversy at the public level. What is less often considered – if indeed it is considered at all – is the fact that a majority of laymen who lapse do so because of their highly complicated matrimonial arrangements. What is to preserve a married priest (whose wife would undoubtedly require also a special double vocation) from the same dangers?

I am imagining a conversation among the faithful that would run something like this: ‘Ah, yes, I see that Father Jones’s wife has left the Church page 318 and is now divorcing him. On grounds of mental cruelty – she claims he was paying more attention to reform of the liturgy than he was paying to her . . . Well, well – it’s a sad case – one has to admit that the new programme for establishing a married priesthood has one or two disadvantages. . . .’

Or again – ‘I see Father Smith has left his wife and headed off with the wife of a university professor. A brilliant man. He’s writing a book now to show that Christ really approved of divorce and remarriage – the other view was all a mistake rising from the fact that most of the early Fathers were celibate and didn’t understand the real inward significance of sexual love in marriage . . .’.

Such a situation, despite its humorous side, would depress me.

The crux of the matter seems to me, however, to be closely related to the needs of the faithful. I grant that we are spoilt by our priests. We tend to take for granted their almost superhuman patience, generosity and fatherly gentleness. When I came into the Church as a scruffy convert, the first undeniable evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the People of God that penetrated to my clouded mind was the extraordinary charity of our priests.

When I headed up to the presbytery, worried and torn apart after a domestic row or a booze-up or a headlong plunge into the great bog of self-pity I carry inside me – there was a man who was not a man – he could be Father X or Father Y or Father Z; but this man would listen to my confused outpourings and give quiet, deliberate counsel, and send me away with a renewed faith in God and in the human species represented by such a man. These are mere facts, not the fantasies of hero-worship. I grant that I came to love them more than any other people on earth; and this love led me to self-control, to speak with them less when I could see they were already humanly harassed and tired. Without their unique ministrations, their constant spirit of mercy, I would certainly be by now in the graveyard or a permanent inmate of a mental hospital, shadow-boxing and mumbling with a wet brain.

The question is – could they have given me (selfish me) the kind of help they did give me if they had been married? Could they have at one and the same time truly cared for a wife and four children and truly cared for Jimmy Baxter? I think not. One would come to the presbytery and be met by a woman in an apron – not a housekeeper but a wife – and the conversation might be like this –

‘Could I see Father X—?’

‘No; I’m afraid not. He’s painting the playroom. Counselling is from two to four on Fridays.’

‘I’m afraid it’s rather urgent. I’m in a state of mortal sin. Is Father Y— at home?’

‘No; he’s not at home. He’s up in Rotorua on holiday with his family. His wife has been very sick lately. The doctors advised a change of air for her.’

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‘What about Father Z—?’

‘Young man, I happen to be Father Z—’s wife. And I can tell you quite plainly I’m not going to disturb him. He’s having a lie down. He was up late last night taking Tom and Jeanie to the fireworks display.’

‘If you’re really in such a terrible state – and you look quite all right to me – you could go up to the monastery. There’s always somebody up there to deal with the hoboes. Of course they’re an Order who’ve stuck to the old rule of celibacy. If you ask me, a most unnatural state of affairs – it could lead to all kinds of perversions. The Lord never meant men to remain single.’

‘You know, before I married Father Z— I never knew how selfish parishioners can be – they’re always pestering him with this and that. Frankly, I think the cure of your kind of trouble is to stay out of the pubs and do a hard day’s work. . . .’

One would go away from the slammed door, and the slightly dubious oracle of the Holy Spirit, perhaps to the monastery – perhaps to the pub – perhaps somewhere else . . . It wouldn’t seem to matter very much where.

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