Ask Ms. Catholic

These days, most Catholics (who are usually identified in the press as "prominent Catholics") when they are asked about a matter concerning the Church will speak with their own individual voices. And those voices frequently sound exactly like the voices of the world.

I want to be a Catholic pundit. I'm putting the entire U.S. press corps on notice. If you want to know what an informed, orthodox, Catholic believes, I'm volunteering my services.

Time was, while Latin was still the official language of the Catholic Church, when a Catholic spoke in public about matters of faith and morals, you could assume that person would speak "vox ecclesi," with the "voice of the Church."

These days, most Catholics (who are usually identified in the press as "prominent Catholics") when they are asked about a matter concerning the Church will speak with their own individual voices. And those voices frequently sound exactly like the voices of the world.

I am not a prominent Catholic. I don't have a degree in divinity, but I was taught the basics of my faith by dedicated sisters and priests who passed on to me the teachings of the Church. I read writings of the Church fathers and mothers, the Saints, the Church councils, and the current Pope, and I study and obey the new Cathechism of the Catholic Church, which is the definitive guide for Catholic belief.

So, I'm ask you, doesn't it make sense, because my thinking is in line with what the Catholic Church officially teaches, that it would better to ask me?

Recommendation for reporters: Don't be like the reporters who put together the April 1, 2001 issue of Time magazine with a series of articles about the scandal of priest pedophiles. Try to be more balanced in who you talk to.

Those reporters followed what seems to me to be a common pattern. They included some quotes from the Catholic Church leaders in Rome. But they concentrated heavily on the thoughts of the Church's critics in the U.S., and for background commentary sought quotes from decidedly unorthodox voices like Andrew Greeley and Frank McCourt.

For cripes sake, (to throw in a phrase I heard frequently when I was growing up Catholic in Boston), Andrew Greeley is a "prominent Catholic" priest and sociologist--who writes racy novels on the side. (I have never been able to figure out how his superiors let him get away with practicing these seemingly contradictory roles.) I've read a few of his books out of curiosity and I was not edified to find out that Father Greeley thinks union with God is orgasmic. And tellingly, for Father Greeley, God is a She.

Time magazine consulted Father Greeley in the Forum sidebar article: "How to Fix It" ("it" being the current problems facing the Catholic Church), and Father Greeley told Time that the celibacy is going to have to go because the Church "hasn't succeeded in making arguments for it" ("it" being celibacy).

Similarly Frank McCourt, lapsed Catholic author of Angela's Ashes, is quoted as saying that he'd banish celibacy because it is "a sick rule."

The third "prominent Catholic" quoted in the Forum article is Thomas Plante, a Catholic psychologist, who blames the Church hierarchy rather than celibacy.

To his credit, Plante repeated in his comments something I've read in many other sources while researching this article. There is no evidence that celibacy is behind the actions of those who are attracted to minors and who act out on that attraction.

To understand these issues properly, it is important to realize that celibacy and chastity are two different concepts that are often confused. Celibacy means abstinence from marriage. (For example, the French word for unmarried is "celibataire.") Chastity means abstinence from sex outside of marriage and purity of thought and behaviour inside and outside of marriage.

Where is the logic in the idea of getting rid of celibacy to get rid of sexual depravity among certain priests? If the Church got rid of celibacy as a requirement for priesthood, would priests who were fixated on having sex with boys go out and find wives and leave boys alone? I don't think so . . .. And it's a sad fact that just as many men who have sex with minors are married, oftentimes fathers of the children they abuse.

As a comment on Father Greeley's notion of what union with God is like, I have to bring in a striking quote from Mother Tessa Bielecki, who is a modern day mystic and abbess of a Carmelite monastery. This quote is from one of Mother Tessa's books called Holy Daring.

"Mysticism isn't sublimated sex. Sex is sublimated mysticism."

People like Father Greeley are missing the point. Union with God is greater than sex. It is the fulfillment that we experience only echoes of in a passing way in sexuality.

Mother Bielecki also stated, and I agree, that a celibate can only be a fulfilled, normal human being if that person is fueled by a fulfilling love relationship with God. Otherwise the celibate is not going to be able to live a life of service to the Church without some distortion of the psyche.

There are a lot of reasons why the Roman Catholic Church requires its priests to commit to celibacy, and I can't go into them all here. But, one bit of information that is missing in most of these discussions is that the Church does not forbid priests to marry out of hatred for sex.

The Church allowed married priests for many centuries and changed the policy mainly because the marriage of priests was leading to many abuses. Some married priests were diverting the donations of believers to enrich their families. Isn't it kind of ironic that a modern scandal is leading people to call for the Church to return to a practice that it stopped as the result of another scandal?

As a start to putting an end this current gross abuse of trust by priests, I suggest that we Catholics need to do everything we can, including praying for our priests, to make sure that priests are priests only for the right reason, for the pure love of God. And we should everything we can to get rid of the false shepherds who are in the priesthood for their own comfort, advancement, sensuality or any other kind of self love.

Today's Morning Prayer, which is prayed by all Catholic priests and religious around the world has a quote from St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews that says it all, "See that no one among you has a faithless heart." (Hebrews 3:12).

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Last Updated: December 22, 2003