To understand the Church’s teaching on celibacy, one has to understand it’s teaching of sexuality, the meaning of sex, and the meaning of marriage. I’ll try to sorta explain it, but I am by now means an expert, just an enthusiastic learner of the pope’s teachings on it. :)
But before I do, I want to make it really known that I am not doing this in any way to convert anybody. I just think it is tragic for folks to be dissenting something they aren’t properly informed of.
A great resource for all of that will follow that someone gave me is a book by a man named Christopher West called Good News about Sex and Marriage: answers to your honest questions about catholic teaching. It is a really easy to read question answer format that jumps off from Genesis and all the issues of our fallen nature and other things I don’t really want to go into right now but are really important to the whole understanding of the theology of the body and then delves into all the tricky issues: homosexual unions, contraception, celibacy, divorce.
First off, Catholicism is a very sensual religion, I’ve always liked it for that. The Church teaches that dualism, that the body and spirit are separate, is a heresy. We are body-persons, our bodies are expressions of our spirit, in a sense. Whatever you do to one, you affect the other. You can’t separate the two.
God, then, comes to us most effectively in both spirit/body forms in the sacraments. The sacraments, listed in no particular order, include baptism, communion, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, anointing, and holy orders. Each includes a physical element. Eucharist – wine and bread, baptism – water, marriage – the act of intercourse to consummate the marriage that night (not many people know that one very well, I venture... you never knew the Church was so scandalous in it’s theology, eh?), etc etc. I had the sacraments explained to me once as “where heaven and earth kiss”; they allow us to see invisible realities in the form of visible things. Not only that – they really communicate what they symbolize. Baptism, for an example: God’s washing away of sins and real cleaning by water.
Marriage symbolizes the one flesh union of Christ and the Church. Every married couple is like a mini Christ and Church. Where are husband and wife one, giving fully of themselves to another in both body and spirit? Only in sex. I wont go into much more of the details, but that is why the Church is so big on sexual morality. It is supposed to symbolize our relationship with God, our beautiful relationship with God. Marriage is a preparation for heavenly marriage, where we are all to be married to Christ, one body.
So, how does this relate to celibacy, it seems like a big paradox, doesn’t it?
The one flesh union of marriage is as a sacrament that is supposed to be a sign and foreshadowing of heaven, the nuptial union with God that we are all created for. Sexual desire, in this light, is then our desire for heaven. Marriage in this world is supposed to point us to the heavenly marriage in the next. Celibacy is the act of forgoing the earthly marriage for the heavenly one.
Celibacy isn’t essential for a valid priesthood – some converted priests from other denominations can be ordained as a Catholic priest even if they are married and eastern rite churches in full communion with the Catholic church have married priests. The Roman rite chooses to uphold this discipline in order to more fully follow the example of Christ. Christ didn’t marry any one woman because he came to marry the whole human race. A celibate is therefore not divided in his service, but fully giving of him or herself to embrace the beauty of their service.
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my answer (part one)
Date: 2003-09-10 10:48 pm (UTC)But before I do, I want to make it really known that I am not doing this in any way to convert anybody. I just think it is tragic for folks to be dissenting something they aren’t properly informed of.
A great resource for all of that will follow that someone gave me is a book by a man named Christopher West called Good News about Sex and Marriage: answers to your honest questions about catholic teaching. It is a really easy to read question answer format that jumps off from Genesis and all the issues of our fallen nature and other things I don’t really want to go into right now but are really important to the whole understanding of the theology of the body and then delves into all the tricky issues: homosexual unions, contraception, celibacy, divorce.
First off, Catholicism is a very sensual religion, I’ve always liked it for that. The Church teaches that dualism, that the body and spirit are separate, is a heresy. We are body-persons, our bodies are expressions of our spirit, in a sense. Whatever you do to one, you affect the other. You can’t separate the two.
God, then, comes to us most effectively in both spirit/body forms in the sacraments. The sacraments, listed in no particular order, include baptism, communion, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, anointing, and holy orders. Each includes a physical element. Eucharist – wine and bread, baptism – water, marriage – the act of intercourse to consummate the marriage that night (not many people know that one very well, I venture... you never knew the Church was so scandalous in it’s theology, eh?), etc etc. I had the sacraments explained to me once as “where heaven and earth kiss”; they allow us to see invisible realities in the form of visible things. Not only that – they really communicate what they symbolize. Baptism, for an example: God’s washing away of sins and real cleaning by water.
Marriage symbolizes the one flesh union of Christ and the Church. Every married couple is like a mini Christ and Church. Where are husband and wife one, giving fully of themselves to another in both body and spirit? Only in sex. I wont go into much more of the details, but that is why the Church is so big on sexual morality. It is supposed to symbolize our relationship with God, our beautiful relationship with God. Marriage is a preparation for heavenly marriage, where we are all to be married to Christ, one body.
So, how does this relate to celibacy, it seems like a big paradox, doesn’t it?
The one flesh union of marriage is as a sacrament that is supposed to be a sign and foreshadowing of heaven, the nuptial union with God that we are all created for. Sexual desire, in this light, is then our desire for heaven. Marriage in this world is supposed to point us to the heavenly marriage in the next. Celibacy is the act of forgoing the earthly marriage for the heavenly one.
Celibacy isn’t essential for a valid priesthood – some converted priests from other denominations can be ordained as a Catholic priest even if they are married and eastern rite churches in full communion with the Catholic church have married priests. The Roman rite chooses to uphold this discipline in order to more fully follow the example of Christ. Christ didn’t marry any one woman because he came to marry the whole human race. A celibate is therefore not divided in his service, but fully giving of him or herself to embrace the beauty of their service.