I have recently started watching the TV show Pure Genuis on CBS. It is techy and medical. (I briefly thought about becoming a doctor when I was in college.) In the show, one of the main characters moves across the country away from his wife and two children to work at this special hospital. In the last episode, he comes home at 4 in the morning. He knows that his job is not good for his marriage and his relationship with his children, but he sees all of the good he is going at this special hospital. I have met some doctors who were great parents and great spouses. I actually do not think that doctors need to be celibate. However, being a doctors is such a noble profession. Because of this, some doctors put in some long, long hours. However, being a parent and spouse is not a noble profession, but a divine vocation, a divine call. To have to choose is hard. Celibacy saves one from this constant dilemma.
I think this is the wisdom of the celibate priesthood. One does not have to choose between doing the good of ministry and the good of home and family life. Because a priest is not married and does not have children, the priest is, or at least should be, always free to respond to the spiritual emergencies in the lives of those under their care. Celibacy has its own challenges, espeically in a sexualized society, but the freedom and flexibility it provides outweigh these challenges. Priests are routinely moved every six years. This could be hard on a wife and kids to be uprooted so often.
People sometimes will say that married priests are the answer to the priest shortage. However, if a priest is married, what is a just wage to pay a pastor who has to feed others besides himself? Also, if we are pro-family, prolife, pro-children, how do we promote children when a parish is already stretched thin paying just the pastor? I know othe denominations have married pastors, but from what I’ve seen, it is not easy to be the spouse of a pastor or to be a child of a pastor. It is easy for the pastor to get caught up in their ministry and put family on the back burner. Why? Because they are doing an extreme good for those in their care. It is hard to say no to doing such great things for others. Thus, spouses and children become secondary priorities. They can even be taken for granted. So even if a Roman Catholic married priesthood solved the priest shortage (even though I don’t believe it would), it would present other problems.
In Matthew 19:12, Jesus says there are eunuchs who are eunuchs by choice, not by biology, for the Kingdom of God. Jesus was celibate. Celibacy can be a great gift. Priests need married couples to remind them what daily sacrificial love concretely looks like. Married couples (and others) need to priests to remind them that our final destination is not this life, but eternal life in heaven. Celibacy is a gift to a good Catholic priest. It is also a gift to those around him.
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