The child they are expecting has been diagnosed with a serious heart condition.

Father Tomas Hlavaty (pictured) will now be formally removed from the priesthood and returned to the lay state, says Bishop Marco Brunetti of Alba, who praised Hlavaty's "great transparency and sense of responsibility".

Never choose abortion

Hlavaty says prenatal diagnoses have revealed the unborn child has a serious heart defect which will require a series of surgeries after birth.

Nevertheless, he and the child's mother are determined to give the baby the chance to "discover this marvellous world that's life" he says.

"Already at three, four months, the child moved, there's life there" he says.

"Please, never choose abortion."

Celibacy debate renews

Hlavaty's situation has renewed the debate over priestly celibacy.

Crux Now reports that the debate probably reflects Hlavaty's popularity with his parishioners who are publicly lamenting his departure from the six small towns he has served.

Mayor Piercarlo Biestro of Feisoglio, one of the six communities Hlavaty cared for, wishes him well while adding that he's also disappointed.

"Not for Father Tomas, whom we all wish well, but because he's always been appreciated by our communities, above all by the young people for whom he gave a lot."

Brunetti called on Catholics to support Hlavaty and his new family in prayer.

"We're called, in our prayers and in our feelings, to support those who find themselves in difficulty and to continue together to build a Church which, despite its human frailty, is ever more a sign of hope" he said.

A new life

Italian newspaper La Repubblica says Hlavaty has described the circumstances that led to his decision.

"I loved being a priest and I loved the people around me" Hlavaty said.

He told La Repubblica that during the 20 years since he arrived in Italy from his native Slovakia, he discerned his vocation and was eventually ordained a priest in 2015.

While being involved in several ministries, he met a woman and fell in love. Their child is due to be born in December.

La Repubblica says Hlavaty has been absent from his parish for the last two months, the explanation being that he was dealing with unspecified health issues.

He has since said he and the woman he loves plan to move out of the area, where he'll seek work to support his family.

"For the future, I hope to be a good father even if I have very limited experience" Hlavaty said. "But I'm sure of one thing: I'm madly in love with the person with whom I want to spent the rest of my life, and having a child is the most beautiful news a man can have. I'll give it my all."

Source

• Crux Now

At the tail end of 2021, freshly single and out of a 100-day lockdown, the 27-year-old was in a delicate headspace.

Tapping into the sex-go-round

For Sian, the dating apps had become an obsessive regime in curating profiles and swiping endlessly. Finding genuine connections felt like a futile attempt.

"What I probably needed was a therapist, but Bumble was free."

Navigating the outside world again was odd. Navigating the dating world again was intense.

"The apps are almost designed to facilitate hooking up; like, sex is always on the table, it's a given, it's an unspoken goal, it's implied unless stated otherwise.

"I was going through a breakup under the strangest circumstances, just cooped up at home with nothing but my thoughts, then suddenly we were outside again.

"I was so sick of feeling sad and helpless. I was keen to get through those feelings faster, so I was just doing whatever."

Sian began seeing a series of men post-lockdown and the sexual freedom felt exciting at first. Then, a few months passed, and she realised something was wrong. The problem was sex.

"I thought it was giving me this adrenaline rush but actually it was just giving me deep anxiety, meeting people, getting intimate too quickly, mixed messages, ghosting, rinse and repeat.

"I deleted the apps for a few weeks for mental clarity and naturally stopped seeing these men too. It was just meant to be a short break from dating and casual sex, but then it turned into almost a year of intentional celibacy. It was like a cleanse; emotionally, mentally, physically, everything."

Choosing celibacy

Celibacy might sound like an unconventional path for a 20-something-year-old, but disillusionment with hookup culture and increased sexual autonomy has led more and more young people to pursuing it.

Some pursue it for a few weeks, others a few months, or a few years.

On TikTok, intentional celibacy has become a trend; as of May 2024, the #celibacy hashtag has more than 200 million views, and religion is hardly mentioned by those practising it.

Earlier this month, an anti-celibacy ad campaign from Bumble also caught some flak online.

It began with a commercial showing a woman attempting to "swear off dating" and become a nun, only to abandon her convent after drooling over a sexy shirtless gardener and receiving an illicit phone loaded with the Bumble app.

Shortly after the commercial aired, global billboards with taglines like 'You know full well celibacy is not the answer' and 'Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun' were unveiled.

A TikTok video criticising the campaign caught the attention of model and actor Julia Fox, who lived a former life as an 18-year-old dominatrix in Manhattan.

Fox commented under the video: "2.5 years of celibacy and never been better tbh," and hundreds replied echoing similar sentiments.

"Celibacy and decentring men is lifechanging," one said. "Eight years celibate, no drama, no hate, I'm finally loving every second of life," said another.

Sexual autonomy

Women's sex and libido coach Sofie Louise says the trend in young people choosing celibacy could be down to an increased awareness of sexual autonomy.

"I think the motivations are changing and people feel like they have more choice around whether they're having sex or not, and they feel more validated in those choices and find community in those choices which is amazing.

"There are still a lot of stereotypes that exist that try and dictate people's sexual behaviour.

"There's the idea that women are sluts if they have too much sex or prudes if they don't have enough sex, that men should love sex and want to have it all the time and all of these generalisations.

"I think that slowly, while they still exist, they're being broken down and scrutinised more and more, and people's realities are being talked about more and more, so people feel like they have autonomy to make their own choices."

Louise says a lot of people might approach a period of celibacy in the same way they might approach something like Dry July. Read more

• Jogai Bhatt is a digital lifestyle and entertainment journalist at Radio New Zealand

I want to emphasize the call to mission. This is indeed what the Lord asks for in the final lines of the Gospels, including that of Saint Matthew.

We suffer when we see that there are people in the Church who are obstacles to the encounter with God.

The urgency of a more faithful Church was received with such force that the synodal consultation began at the same time as France's Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published its report was published.

As for the whole of society, the difficulty lies in the exercise of authority.

The Church is suspected of abuse, of not respecting minorities and even of covering up abuse, and Pope Francis has expressed this well by pointing out that the three types of abuse - abuse of power, as well as spiritual and sexual abuse - often feed off each other.

Many words, or writings, conclude that the cause of all this is the specificity of priests and bishops, meaning both their lifestyle, including celibacy, and the authority they exercise in the Church.

They say that changing both would be the remedy for the excesses that have produced so many offenses and crimes.

A possible path forward

I resist this causal link.

I might be told that the reasons for my resistance is that I am defending and justifying who I am: a celibate and an archbishop. I want to go beyond this argument that stops all reflection.

Both the CIASE report and the synodal syntheses question the systematic character of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite — it must be remembered that the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite have preserved the tradition of a married or celibate clergy.

I have spoken about the possibility of the Latin Church ordaining married men to the priesthood.

This possibility would not be a solution to the number of priests, which is estimated to be low in Europe today, nor would it be a guarantee against possible deviances, especially sexual ones.

I have written the reasons why I believe this path is possible and undoubtedly desirable. But this would not call into question the possibility of a celibate clergy, nor would it lead current priests to be able to marry.

Indeed, the Gospel calls for fidelity to commitments, and the tradition of the Church commits those whom it ordains to remain in the state which they were when they were ordained.

A misunderstood choice

Many years ago, I did not want to consider the possibility of ordaining married men because I saw in it an argument that would be understood as denying all meaning given to celibacy.

I am aware, as are many priests that our choice of celibacy is often misunderstood, even mocked, or even suspected of not being faithfully lived out in private.

Without deluding myself about the falls and failures and without presuming to speak for others, I want to express everything about the meaning behind the celibacy that I strive to live.

Even if there were married priests, it would still make sense to me... how can one not find meaning in what one lives?

First of all, I want to affirm that I did not choose to be a priest, I was called to it.

Of course, none of this happened without my consent, nor even without my expressing a certain expectation and a certain desire, but it is through being called that I am a priest.

The Church, through men and women, has been the interpreter and the servant of God's call.

Excellent priests, but bad celibates

As for celibacy, I chose it. Others like me have discerned and verified their ability to be a priest in the Catholic Church in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it was I, myself, who perceived that celibacy suited me.

Of course, this celibacy is the corollary of my availability to be a priest, but it must also correspond to a human and psychological state, allowing me to experience it as a path of humanization.

I have known several young people who had the desire to be priests, but they could not see themselves living without a wife or children. They would have made excellent priests, I am certain, but bad celibates.

The rule of mandatory celibacy thus deprives the Catholic Church of some excellent priests and some excellent pastors.

There is certainly no one way to live out priestly celibacy, as psychologies and cultures are different.

Of course, this life makes you feel the absence... of an emotional life, of a sexual life, of touching someone else's body. The absence of children, of intellectual intimacy... For each person, the absence will take on a different aspect.

Yet, what human life is not without some kind of absence? It is a lie to think that a person could experience everything that the human race knows.

Attitudes of seduction

Each one of us lacks something; it is the consumer society that seeks to make it unbearable, to immediately offer a remedy with an object which, for hard cash, will fill it.

However, one must learn to live with absences, to suffer from them, and to find ways of sublimation. It seems to me that this is the way to envisage a life of celibacy before finding spiritual or religious reasons for it.

These reasons certainly count, but if they are not anchored in the heart of the person, they run the risk of being nothing more than external justifications that will not nourish one's existence.

The consequence will be to seek gratification in the eyes of others, or even to beg for it, developing attitudes of seduction, including religious and spiritual ones, even to the point of taking control. The person who behaves in this way will never acquire true freedom for himself and will not allow others to grow in freedom.

Rather, it is a man who is called to be a priest, and a man who has been verified as being more or less balanced!

Attachment to Christ

I am increasingly convinced that the priestly celibacy, which has been understood and lived above all as a means of availability for mission, can and will only make sense - notwithstanding human capacities - for spiritual reasons, thus coming closer to the celibacy of religious and consecrated persons.

The conditions of Christian life in a secularized world have done away with the social and reputational rewards that priests previously received. This affects all Christians.

Therefore, without a life of attachment to the person of Christ, a life of prayer and of giving, all believers - including priests - can feel a loss of meaning in their lives.

We must always be aware that we live not by what we do, but by the gift of ourselves; without having the exclusive right to do so, celibacy is an expression of this.

• Pascal Wintzer is the Archbishop of Poitiers in Western France. He currently heads the Observatory on Faith and Culture within the French Bishops' Conference.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

According to figures from the national bishops' conference, the Church in France was ordained 122 new priests this summer - 77 diocesan and 45 from religious congregations.

One can spend a long time discussing these numbers.

Catholics who are more or less resigned will deplore the decline in vocations. Others will see the figures as a reason to abolish mandatory celibacy or ordain women.

And still others will urge the bishops to follow the example of those dioceses or communities that are attracting vocations.

What these three seemingly different attitudes have in common is that they focus on numbers - numbers that should be increased one way or another. But perhaps this is the wrong way of looking at the problem.

To put it provocatively, we do not "need" priests who will be available to everyone to provide various spiritual services. We must place ourselves on another level.

The priest is first of all a sign of God's concern for his people. The priest is a gift that God gives to his Church to guide it and help each of its members to advance on the path of holiness, through listening to the Word of God, sacramental life, fraternal service, and so forth.

But are we aware that God wants to make us a holy people, a people of saints?

The vocation crisis is perhaps above all a crisis of the desire for holiness, an issue that is apparently absent from the synodal consultation's feedback.

It's a desire to live more and more in the grace with which God fills us and which transforms us interiorly, to the point of making us new beings.

What use are priests to us if we have no desire to be made holy?

And how can we desire to become saints if there is no longer anyone to remind us, through a choice of life totally dedicated to the building up of the Church, that God calls each one of us to holiness (cf. Lev 19, 2) and sustains us on this path by his grace?

That is why we need priests. But not just any priests, especially after revelations of various types of abuse committed by the clergy.

We need priests who will not be puffed up by pride, but who are fully dedicated to the sanctification of those entrusted to them.

Hence the fundamental role of Christian communities in the discernment of vocations.

• Dominique Greiner is a senior editor at La Croix, as well as a moral theologian and Assumptionist priest.

Ours is not a quiet house.

A house of screaming and a house of endless snot, it's also a house of love, grown and multiplied every few years.

In a house of little sleep, my hobby these days is simply to sit down; fellow parents know what I mean.

Just like that loud and beautiful Kelly family gone viral out of South Korea recently, ours is a perfectly normal family, "normal" understood, of course, in relative terms. It's both exhausting and energizing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

It is the form and gift of my life, my family.

But here's what's strange about us: I'm a Catholic priest. And that is, as you probably know, mostly a celibate species.

Now the discipline of celibacy, as a Christian practice, is an ancient tradition.

Its origins belong to the very mists of early Christianity: to the deserts of Egyptian monasticism, the wilds of ancient Christian Syria and to Luke's gospel.

You might be surprised to learn, most married Catholic priests are staunch advocates of clerical celibacy.

I, for one, don't think the Church should change its discipline here.

In fact, I think it would be a very bad idea.

For priests, celibacy has been the universal legal norm in the Catholic West since the 12th century and the de facto norm long before that.

Saint Ambrose in the fourth century, for example, wrote about married priests, saying they were to be found only in "backwoods" churches, certainly not in the churches of Rome or Milan.

Yet there have always been, for good reasons, exceptions made, particularly for the sake of Christian unity.

The Eastern Catholic Churches, for example, many with married priests, have since early modernity flourished in the Catholic Church.

Likewise for me, a convert from Anglicanism.

I'm able to be a Catholic priest because of the Pastoral Provision of Saint John Paul II, which was established in the early 1980s.

This provision allows men like me, mostly converts from Anglicanism, to be ordained priests, yet only after receiving a dispensation from celibacy from the pope himself.

The Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the United States, established by Pope Benedict XVI to provide a path for Anglican communities to become Roman Catholic, is another instance of the Church making an exception, allowing for the same dispensations from celibacy to be granted to priests.

But these are exceptions made, as I said, for the sake of Christian unity, because of Jesus' final prayer that his disciples be "one."

They do not signal a change in the Catholic Church's ancient discipline of clerical celibacy.

Laity who have no real idea of what priesthood entails and even some priests who have no real idea of what married family life entails both assume normalizing married priesthood would bring about a new, better age for the Catholic Church.

Now you might be surprised to know most married Catholic priests are staunch advocates of clerical celibacy.

I, for one, don't think the Church should change its discipline here. In fact, I think it would be a very bad idea.

Which brings me to my particular bête noire on the subject.

I get that I'm an ecclesiastical zoo exhibit.

On my way to celebrate Mass in Saint Peter's in Rome a few years ago, fully vested in my priestly robes, I had to push my boy in the stroller through that ancient basilica as we made our way to the altar.

He had a broken leg, and Alli had the other kids to manage; and so there I was pushing the kid and the purse through Saint Peter's, wide-eyed tourists' mouths agape at the sight.

It is indeed quite a sight, a life outside the norm.

Even in my own parish, visitors will sometimes sheepishly step forward with curious and concerned questions.

"Are those your children?" they'll ask in whispered tones as if it's something scandalous, as my kids hide underneath my vestments as if it's something normal.

A zoo exhibit as I said, but I'm happy talking about it, it's not a problem.

It's just us: Fr. Whitfield, Alli, and all the kids. A perfectly normal, perfectly modern, joyful Catholic family.

People's assumptions frustrate

They are very few, of course, who refuse to accept me.

Hardened idiosyncratic traditionalists who think they know better than the tradition itself sometimes call it a heresy.

This, of course, is nonsense; to which, when such rare criticisms reach me, I always simply invite them to take it up with the pope.

He's the one they should argue with, not me.

Most of the time, however, people see me as some sort of agent of change, the thin end of some wedge, some harbinger of a more enlightened, more modern church.

Being a married priest, they assume I'm in favour of opening the priesthood to married men, in favour too perhaps of all sorts of other changes and innovations.

This too is an assumption, and not a good one.

Laity who have no real idea of what priesthood entails and even some priests who have no real idea of what married family life entails both assume normalizing married priesthood would bring about a new, better age for the Catholic Church.

But it's an assumption with little supporting evidence. Continue reading

According to Bishop Wellington de Queiroz Vieira of Cristalandia and a member of the current Amazon synod the real issue is a lack of holiness.

de Queiroz says combating priest shortages in the Amazon region by ordaining mature married men does not address a greater problem.

He says he thinks the real obstacles to increasing local priestly vocations are scandals and a lack of holiness in bishops, priests, and deacons.

de Queiroz, 51, says clergy need to be close to their people. However, quoting Pope Francis he adds:

"But very often we do that, but do not convey the perfume of Christ. And we are not able to convey the real message."

The reality instead, is that clerics often either drive people away from Christ, or become proclaimers of themselves.

"We are not always holy priests and holy bishops in our own churches," he says.

People need to think about changing themselves before changing as a Church.

He says in his opinion, the instrument to reawaken vocations lies in the holiness of the evangelizers.

"I am convinced that if I live a holy life, I will not lack ordained ministers," he says.

This is because young people are looking for models of holiness and will be drawn to it when they see it.

"We have an obligation to provide examples of holiness."

De Queiroz describes holiness as including simplicity of life, openness to dialogue, respecting differences, unwavering proclamation of the Christian life, compassion for those who suffer, charity and accepting challenges.

He thinks there should be another solution to priest shortages in the Amazon that needs to be considered.

At present, he notes there is an unequal distribution of priests in the region.

In some areas there is a higher concentration of priests than in others, but they lack a "missionary spirit" to leave and travel to the more remote and challenging areas of the Amazon.

"We need to change this mentality," he says.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Kasper, who is considered one of Francis's close theological advisers, says such a change could be made during this year's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon set for this October, if the prelates were to ask Francis about it.

The ordination of women, even to the diaconate, is out of the question, however.

Kasper says this is because it would undermine a "millennia-old tradition".

At the same time, Kasper notes, the Catholic Church would "collapse" without women.

"If the bishops agreed through mutual consent to ordained married men - those called viri probati - it's my judgement that the pope would accept it," he says.

"Celibacy isn't a dogma, it's not an unalterable practice."

Kasper says he would prefer to see celibacy continuing to be an "obligatory way of life with a commitment to the cause of Jesus Christ".

However, he points out, "this doesn't exclude that a married man can carry a priestly service in special situations".

Kasper's views seem at odds with those of Francis, who in January addressed the issue of possibly ordaining married men, during the in-flight press conference on the way back to Rome from Panama.

"I would rather give my life than to change the law on celibacy," Francis said at the time.

"I'm not in agreement with allowing optional celibacy. No," he said.

He added, however, that he believes theologians should study the possibility of "older married men" being ordained, in "far, faraway places," such as the islands in the Pacific.

Even then, he said, they should be ordained only to celebrate Mass, hear confessions and anoint the sick.

At the time, Francis also said the question of married priests is a matter to be "prayed on" and discussed by theologians, and is one he personally hasn't meditated on enough.

"It's not for me to decide. My decision is, optional celibacy before the diaconate, no," referring to the fact that future priests typically are first ordained as deacons.

"I will not do this. I don't feel like standing in front of God with this decision," Francis said.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Crux Now

The diminished number of candidates for ordination and the abuse crisis have prodded the discussion, which seems mainly focused on the elimination of celibacy as a mandatory discipline for priests in the Western church.

But a more foundational concern, in my estimation, needs our reflection before we consider any change.

That concern has to do with formation for celibacy and formation in celibacy.

To resolve or even address the problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, many people insist that the church must do away with mandatory celibacy for priests.

If you give priests a healthy outlet for their sex drive, the thinking goes, they will not abuse minors.

It sounds simple.

And it echoes an ancient take on the purpose of marriage as remedium concupiscentiae, a remedy for concupiscence.

Here it doubles as a remedy for abuse as well.

The elimination of priestly celibacy, however, would not eliminate abuse.

Noncelibate and in many cases married men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual abuse against minors.

First, let me state the obvious.

Sex—in its various dimensions: physical, emotional and even spiritual—is a powerful force.

It is a gift of God, and it also carries the burdens of our wounded human condition.

Everyone, no matter their gender, orientation or marital status, needs to integrate their sexuality.

Ultimately, in the Christian vision, this transformative process leads to self-acceptance and self-gift.

The transformation and integration of sexuality represents a universal human task.

It does, however, take on a specific shape in the instance of priests who commit themselves to celibate living.

The situation of priests

For celibate priests, there are three specific and essential elements of formation for sustaining their commitment: They need a meaningful reason for celibacy, they need skills for celibate living, and they need a supportive community.

Given the challenges and obstacles for priests to live the celibate life well, it might seem better to change the current discipline of the Western church and make celibacy optional.

But much more reflection is needed to understand the positive value of the current discipline.

The church's persistence in maintaining this practice, in the face of great difficulties and even its nonobservance in certain historical contexts, suggests something that deserves careful spiritual discernment to detect the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

A consideration of the three indispensable elements that make celibacy possible and real—a reason, skills and a supportive community—can actually contribute to a fuller reflection and discernment.

Celibacy is not an ordinary choice.

Making the choice for celibacy requires a very deliberate decision based on a clear and even compelling reason.

That reason, motivation or rationale may take on different shapes, as we will see, but it must be in place for the decision to be made and to be sustained over a lifetime.

At the same time, although a motivating and meaningful reason for celibacy is essential, by itself it is insufficient.

Knowing how to live out this commitment is also necessary.

In other words, celibates also need to be in possession of those life skills that enable them to stay faithful, productive and joyful in their way of life.

To summarize: Celibates need a reason, skills for living and a supportive community.

A quick historical survey can help us understand these elements more deeply and identify today's challenges more precisely.

Historical context for priestly celibacy

The history of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God begins in the New Testament. Celibacy and consecrated virginity stretch across the whole trajectory of Christian history.

The more specific history of celibacy attached to holy orders has had many complex turns for both the Eastern and Western churches. Continue reading

• Image: Mercatornet

They are holding rites without priests outside churches and suspending voluntary church work and ministries in 50 parishes in protest over the male-only priesthood, celibacy and the church's slow response to sex scandals.

Masses and committees will be unattended, parish housework and liturgical readings - tasks left typically to regular churchgoing women - will be left aside.

The central protest will be outdoors in Münster on Sunday.

One of the strike's initiators, Andrea Voss-Frick, says the Maria 2.0 movement (named for Our Lady) began this year at a women's parish bible meeting.

She says in the women's opinion, the Vatican's pronouncements and church teachings of hope "didn't come across at all" amid abuse and cover-ups.

On Friday, two nationwide groups - the Catholic German Women's League (KDFB) and the Catholic Women's Community of Germany (KfD) - described the strike call as an "important signal" and urged bishops not to ignore it.

The KDFB says abuse cases and cover-ups by priests have slid the church into deep crisis and credibility loss.

They say the striking women want to show how much the church and its evangelical "gospel" means to them.

Thomas Steinberg, president of the Central Council of German Catholics (ZdK) came out in support of the women at the Council's lay convention in Mainz on Friday.

"Without the women nothing happens," he said.

The ZdK says it voted to pursue a "synodic path" at talks with the German Catholic Bishops' Conference to tackle the decades of pent-up frustration over a lack of reforms on power structures and sexual mores.

In Steinberg's view changes are unavoidable. He thinks women will at least be licensed to become deaconesses and married men priests.

"Never before have I experienced a situation in which indignation extended so far into the core of our churches," Steinberg says.

Source

• Deutsche Welle
• La Croix

The crisis does not mean "the end of faith" but rather "the end of a lack of formation and the end of deviance," and a call to return to Jesus' message of love, says Immaculate Conception Sister Marie-Paul Ross.

"If we really want to save the faith, the spiritual experience of the people, the depth of Christianity, and focus on evangelical values, we have no choice but to let go of the structures and build with the inspired heart.

"We must listen to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit."

In her opinion, simply allowing priests to marry and ordaining women will not make sexual problems go away.

Ross says that when religious and priests come to her feeling stuck in their vocation under the pretext that celibacy is not livable, she always tells them the same thing.

"The problem isn't your celibacy, it's your immaturity."

She says recently she's been interested in the abuse of nuns. She's found them to be naive.

"I told superiors: You don't form women who stand up.

"You form little girls looking for their father, and who fall for every man who gives them a wink and tells them a pleasant word, who tells them that she's beautiful.

"I say that there is a lack of formation, of knowledge. When you try to name these realities, they exclude you."

Ross says she believes preventing abuse necessarily requires formation that leads candidates to religious life to "treat deep anxieties," including traumas from their childhood.

"Sexuality is a power. Life and love pass through sexuality. We are beings of love and life," she says.

The church is now "faced today with a humanitarian mess," she says.

Above all, the crisis of sexual abuse occurs in a context where "society encourages pedophilia and sexual deviance," mainly because of pornography, she says.

"Sexual deviance is created by repression and pornography. These are the two extremes. And often, the sexual formation of priests is made of both.

"There is a lot of repression and, in their solitude, with the internet, pornography."

Ross says she has seen many such cases over her decades of practice as a nurse and a sexologist.

Porn creates an "inability to live human sexuality with genital, emotional, biological reactions, in love and commitment to love. It completely dissociates love and sexuality," she says.

Ross points out younger children are exposed to pornography now. In her view, it's up to adults to teach them how to deal with this reality which she says is "impossible" to stop, and to teach them how to develop a critical mind.

"Children have, it seems, a greater capacity than adults to capture the dignity of a human being and the dignity of a body."

Source

• Crux Now
• Catholic Philly
• Image: Global Sisters Report

These include priestly celibacy, the Church's teaching on sexual morality and a reduction of clerical power.

Marx, who is the president of the German bishops' conference, says the bishops unanimously decided these three topics would be subject to a process of "synodal progression" that could lead to a binding, but as yet undetermined, outcome.

In his opinion the Church needs synodal advancement, which Pope Francis endorses.

The sexual abuse scandal and demands for reform have changed the German church, he says.

"We will create formats for open debates and bind ourselves to proceedings that facilitate a responsible participation of women and men from our dioceses.

"We know about the cases of clerical abuses of power. It betrays the trust of people searching for firm footing and religious orientation. What must be done to achieve the necessary reduction of power and to construct a fairer and legally bound order will be to clarify a synodal path."

In this respect, the German church has undertaken a number of projects which are now nearing completion. These include:

• Working out how to move forward following the sexual abuse scandal, taking into account advice and information from a range of experts.
• Debates on celibacy, which require further study.
• Developing Catholic sexual morality.

Source

• America Magazine
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: America Magazine

Alessandro Gisotti, a Vatican spokesman, says a 2017 document synthesised a decade's worth of procedures and that its "fundamental principle" was the "protection of the child".

The document is for internal use only.

Gisotti explains the rules say a priest who fathered a child would be requested to leave the priesthood. After this the priest would be expected to "assume his responsibility as a parent, dedicating himself exclusively to the child".

However, Monsignor Andrea Ripa, who is the under-secretary in the Congregation for the Clergy which oversees more than 400,000 priests, says "it is impossible to impose" the dismissal of the priest.

Instead, leaving the priesthood "can only be asked" for by the priest.

Having said that, Ripa added that the failure to ask to be relieved of priestly obligations was reason for the church to take action: "If you don't ask, you will be dismissed."

He added the guidelines are more of a formality than an order.

The tradition of celibacy among Roman Catholic clergy was broadly codified in the 12th century, but not necessarily adhered to, even in the highest places.

Rodrigo Borgia, while a priest, had four children with his mistress before he became Pope Alexander VI, an excess that helped spur Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation.

Luther wrote mockingly that the pope had as much command over celibacy as "the natural movement of the bowels."

The number of children born to priests is unknown although one support group, Coping International, has 50,000 users in 175 countries.

Source

• New York Times
• The Guardian
• CNN
• Image: Epic Pew

The article focuses on the increasing numbers of women entering the clergy, particularly in Christian denominations, claiming a "right" they had previously been denied.

More than that, the article claimed that a further consequence of this shift: an increase in perception of a feminine vision of God.

Dr. Serene Jones, first female president of the Union Theological Seminary, was quoted as saying: "We're seeing a new day of understanding of who God is," Dr. Jones added.

"When the people who are representing God, making God present, have female bodies, that inevitably changes the way you think about how God is."

She predicts this shift "will powerfully reshape Americans' understanding of God from stern father to more of a maternal healer and nurturer."

Set aside for a moment some of the articles more tendentious claims. (Are fathers not nurturing? Can mother's not be stern? Is Christ not routinely portrayed as a healer?)

Though it mentions in passing a few times that the Catholic Church is "behind" in this movement because it only ordains men, the arguments of Dr. Jones only help to confirm the Church's teaching—because the Church agrees with her argument, but says that her premise is wrong.

There can be no doubt that the characteristics of God's representatives have always affected people's perceptions of God, for good and ill.

Holy priests and ministers have long inspired people, and immoral clergy have been a perennial stumbling block to the faith of the laity—"How can I believe in God if this is the best He can give us?"

But this argument gets at something deeper, that the most fundamental aspects of a person can be representative of God.

Proponents of female clergy often argue, as Dr. Jones does above, that women are needed in ministerial roles in order to bring out an aspect of God that is absent in the symbolism of a male cleric.

Of course, God in His essence is neither male or female, neither essentially masculine or feminine.

However, God, in His relation to His creation, does have a masculine aspect.

This is clear in the way God has revealed Himself, and is fundamental to the Church's understanding of the priesthood.

The priest represents God who reveals Himself as "Father" (Scripture never uses a female pronoun to refer to God).

The priest acts in the person of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, who became human as a man.

The liturgy is our participation in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb to His Bride the Church, with the priest representing the Bridegroom.

For all these reasons, in order to be a fitting sign of God, the priest must be a man.

And since the Sacrament of Holy Orders is one sacrament with three orders within it, the same applies to all three orders.

The priest not only represents God ex officio, by virtue of his appointment as a minister.

In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest is conformed to the character of Christ the priest at the very level of his being—an ontological change, leaving an indelible mark.

The priest is made permanently into a living symbol of God. Thus, who he is matters.

Curiously, then, both sides agree that the minister provides a "sign value" for God and communicates to us something of who God is.

It is just who God is, and how God relates to us, that is the point of disagreement.

While those who favor women as ministers often speak of terms in equality and fairness, we see, especially in the Catholic context, that those who agitate for women's ordination often have further agenda items.

Very often proponents of female ordination discuss the issue not only in terms like equality, but also "representation," in a political sense, that women need to be represented in "decision-making."

Dig deeper, and you find that they want women to become clergy in order to change other teachings.

Those who say women ought to be ordained as Catholic priests are saying that the Church's teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Orders is wrong, and we should not be surprised when we find that this is not the only area in which they believe the Church has erred.

Female ordination advocates also routinely promote abortion, contraception, same-sex relationships, and any other of a number of the "usual suspects" of dissenters.

They do not simply want to serve the Church; they want to change the Church.

Two ironies suggest themselves.

First, the proponents of female clergy often vociferously denounce clericalism, yet their position implies that the clergy are the "real Christians," or the important ones—that one cannot participate meaningfully in the Church unless one is ordained.

They see ordination as a form of power than a call to service.

It is the error of Simon Magus, dressed up in new clothes.

Second, the idea of female clergy and "the feminine divine" are being lauded precisely at the same moment in which we are being told that gender is fluid and a construct and both essentially meaningless and deeply meaningful to one's identity.

What does it mean to be a female priest when we no longer seem certain what it means to be female?

• Nicholas Senz is is Director of Children's and Adult Faith Formation at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Arlington, TX. He holds Master's degrees in philosophy and theology from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA.
• First published in Catholic World Report. Reprinted with permission.

They say celibacy is "the wound of the Catholic Church that has been festering for eight centuries". Read more

For them, celibacy is a burden that is very difficult to live with.

They contend that if it was made optional, more men will be attracted to the priesthood, especially at a time when there is a shortage of priests.

After all, celibacy is not really essential to the ordained ministry.

During the first millennium, most priests and even bishops were married.

It was only in the 12th century that obligatory celibacy was legislated for the Roman Catholic Church.

After Vatican II, many expected that the church would make it optional sooner or later.

The church continues to maintain that mandatory celibacy is appropriate and required for the priesthood.

The only exception is for those belonging to the Oriental rite and married Anglican and Episcopalian priests who convert to Catholicism.

What is the basis for holding on to the discipline of celibacy?

The church looks up to Jesus as the basis and model for celibacy.

His celibacy was unusual because a Jew was normally expected to marry and raise a family.

This was demanded by the prevailing culture and by Jewish religion of his time. Even priests who offered sacrifices in the temple were married.

Celibacy was indeed counter-cultural and not in accordance with Judaism.

How did Jesus justify his celibacy?

It was for the sake of the kingdom.

When Jesus spoke about those who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God, he was implicitly referring to himself and to those who would come after him.

The proclamation and inauguration of the kingdom was so central to Jesus' mission that all his attention, time and energy were focused on this.

His celibacy was a radical expression of his total dedication to the work for the kingdom.

Instead of marrying and raising a family, Jesus' entire life was dedicated to raising up and engendering a community and a people who will make up God's family — a spiritual family who are adopted children of God whom they recognize as their loving Father and related to each other as brothers and sisters, not by blood but by one faith, one baptism, one Spirit.

Jesus made himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom and recommended it to some of his followers who freely decided to dedicate themselves totally to the work of the kingdom.

Jesus made it clear that celibacy is not for everyone. He did not make it a requirement for discipleship.

The apostles were presumably married, including Peter who had a mother-in-law.

But according to the Gospels they left everything to follow him — perhaps including their families, their wives and children to fulfil their mission all over the Roman Empire.

Paul, the great missionary to the Gentiles, was himself a celibate and he recommended it to those who totally dedicated themselves to the Lord and in carrying out their mission.

Jesus' celibacy was not due to a negative attitude towards sex, marriage or family. It was a radical expression of the priority of his mission — for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

His love was not focused exclusively on one woman and some children, but rather an inclusive and universal form of love.

Thus, Jesus' celibacy would later be used as the basis and model for the ordained ministers of the church. It took over a millennium for the church to universally adopt it.

Following Jesus as the model, the priest's celibacy is a radical expression of the priest's total dedication to God and to God's kingdom.

It is for the sake of the kingdom.

Through a celibate lifestyle, the priest can dedicate all his attention, time and energy in carrying out his ministry and mission of evangelization — of proclaiming the Good News of God's kingdom and prophetically denouncing evil in society, in forming and leading the Christian community (including the basic ecclesial communities within the parish), in presiding over the liturgical and sacramental celebrations of the community, in working for the kingdom through action for justice, peace, development and the integrity of creation, and in caring for the poor and the needy.

When he does this, celibacy becomes meaningful and easier to live out.

Instead of being a yoke or burden, celibacy provides more freedom to carry out his mission for the kingdom.

A priest's celibacy is empty and meaningless when he spends most of his time and energy solely in beautifying the church or rectory, watching television, drinking and playing mahjong, shopping, surfing the internet, going out with his friends to bars and night spots, or managing his business ventures.

When he is not available to the people, to his parishioners, to the poor, when he does not have time for encounters with God in prayer, a priest's celibacy becomes empty and meaningless.

His life is characterized by perpetual boredom and loneliness making him more vulnerable to the "temptations of the flesh."

When celibacy is not intimately connected to ministry and mission, when it does not further the realization of the Kingdom of God, it turns the priest into an irresponsible bachelor.

Instead of being an authentic sign of selfless dedication to the kingdom it becomes a sign of selfishness and self-indulgence.

• Father Amado Picardal CSsR is known for his activism and advocacy for human rights. He is executive secretary of the Committee on Basic Ecclesial Communities of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. First published in UCANews.
• Image: SCALR

"This is the Church's blind spot. It's there, very present, but nobody talks about it. We don't see them," she says.

Lesegretain, who is single, believes the relationship between the Church and single people should be looked at from a vocational perspective.

"For centuries, we heard that there are basically two vocations: the majority, called to marriage, and a minority, called to the priestly or religious life.

"When we are neither, we are led to believe that we have no vocation. And that's terrible, completely wrong and extremely devaluing. As soon as we are baptized, we have a vocation.

"This vocation is not related to your status. This status is a means to live this vocation," she says.

"At a time when priestly or religious vocations are falling, lay singles can be a chance for the Church."

Lesegretain says this is a delicate situation because singles might be upset with God.

Some will be asking "Am I forgotten by God?"

"We have anger toward God, and sometimes we do not dare to say it because we say that he loves us … So we are caught in a paradox," she adds.

"Do I accept to be looked at by God as I am, in this poverty? Because celibacy is a fragility, a poverty: It is not written on your forehead, but almost."

Lesegretain, who is often called to speak at conferences on the subject, says over the years she has met at least 2,000 single laypeople looking for a Christian meaning to their celibacy and a place in the Church.

She says she struggled with her faith and celibacy in her mid-30s.

"I did not see the meaning of celibacy as a Christian."

This led her to ask herself questions like "What does the Lord want from me?"

She says the social and personal pressures as a single person become sufferings for many single people.

"As a Christian, we were raised in the idea of giving ourselves, of loving one's life. And to whom am I giving my life?" she says she recalled wondering.

"I have heard many cases of singles who were seated at children's tables at family reunions. It's humiliating," she says.

"It's as if singles don't count. On top of that, we often end up feeling guilty. We say it's our fault, we live it as a failure. I am not enough this or that. We always think it's our fault."

Source

• Crux
• Image: Cruxnow.com

The report, Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretive Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports, was co-authored by Prof Des Cahill and theologian Dr Peter Wilkinson.

Cahill, who helped the Australian child sexual abuse royal commission, says part of the reason he has devoted the past five years to analysing why child abuse has plagued the church came about because he found he's been living with pedophile priests.

After examining the findings of inquiries, police records and church reports since 1985, Cahill and Wilkinson found the patriarchal nature of Catholic establishments that means abuse can go unchallenged.

The possibility of abuse in Catholic residential institutions, like orphanages, should be getting more attention, especially in developing countries, the report notes.

Cahill and Wilkinson reported that although a small number of nuns had abused, the risk for children was much higher in institutions where male priests had minimal interaction with women.

"Their contact with women in teacher training institutions would have been carefully proscribed and then they were appointed to male-only schools where they were in charge of young boys and adolescents,' the report says.

"And they were living in all-male religious communities. They had to make do with a sacralised image of a sexless Virgin Mary.

"It was a recipe for a psycho-spiritual disaster."

Cahill says the report's findings show there's an urgent need to rethink the priesthood in the 21st century in relation to the celibacy requirement for priests.

Source

• The Guardian
• Christian Today
• New York Times
• Image: Psychology Today

The complicated question is dealt with in historian Philip Jenkins's excellent study on the problem. Published in 2001, Pedophiles and Priests looks at the problem objectively, and his basic findings on the American church can probably be applied to the Australian situation.

Jenkins summarizes his findings in this article. He acknowledges the problem, but also points out press exaggeration and popular flawed understanding of the causes and possible solutions.

Jenkins also points out how the sexual abuse crisis spurred on progressive critics of the Catholic Church. "What else can we expect from a Church that keeps its clergy in a lifelong state of sexual immaturity," they inveighed… "that denies the spiritual gifts of women, that preserves an authoritarian system?"

"The abuse issue illustrates the secretive workings of the hierarchy, the neglect of the laity, and the pernicious effect of celibacy," he wrote. "For feminists, epidemic clerical abuse is precisely what their theories would predict of a patriarchal institution that permits unchecked sexual exploitation."

The whole crisis is too complex to deal with in a short article, but it is worth examining one repeated and popular critique: that sexual abuse of children is caused by the discipline of celibacy. The usual formulation of this charge is the simplistic viewpoint that if the priests were able to have a proper, sexual relationship with a wife, they would not have abused children.

However, one only needs to nudge this seemingly obvious critique slightly and it collapses. Outside of Catholic clergy circles the majority of child sex abuse happens within the family—the perpetrators being married men. It is clear therefore that marriage, on its own, does not cure the problem of the sexual abuse of children. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Fr Dwight Longenecker in Crux.
• Image: St Louis Review

You will sometimes hear people say that priests could be married up to the 12th century. Others say that celibacy was imposed on the clergy by Gregory VII or that celibacy was promoted "because they hated the body". These are familiar statements, but they are all untrue.

The history is complicated, but well documented in studies such as Stefan Heid's Celibacy in the Early Church. Yes, indeed, during the first millennium it was perfectly regular for married men to be ordained deacon or priest, but they had to separate from their wives beforehand.

Technically not celibacy, but continence: sexual abstinence by formerly married men. They never pretended they had not been married. Their wives enjoyed status, and their children often followed them into the ministry. The sons, incidentally, could be ordained to minor orders before their teens, up to acolyte.

It was never forbidden for acolytes to marry, and still be clerics, and they easily found employment as clerks. We seem to have forgotten that minor orders existed (they were reformed in 1972), but many "married clergy" were in minor orders, who often decided later to proceed to major orders - though only if their wives were happy about it.

True, we know little of the early period, though St Peter boasted, "we have left our homes and followed you", when Our Lord commended leaving house or wife (Luke 19:28-9), and St Paul says bishops must be "self-controlled" (Titus 1:8; in Greek "continent" or "abstinent"). But from the 4th century, legislation, and writings of popes and bishops, make it clear that they believed the discipline of clerical continence went back to the Apostles.

From then onwards, there are innumerable decrees of local councils, circulated throughout the Church. It would be tedious to record them all, and councils only needed to repeat the law because it was not always kept. (I discovered all this while preparing for my little book on community life among pastoral clergy, Vita Communis, which was published by Gracewing in 2009.) Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald article by Fr Jerome Bertram, a priest of the Oxford Oratory and CTS author.
• Image: Crisis Magazine