Clerical Celibacy

Author(s): Brian Gogan

Source: The Furrow , January 2010, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January 2010), pp. 52-61
Published by: The Furrow

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Clerical Celibacy

Brian Gogan
The impending collapse of the institutional Catholic Church in
Ireland, such as many of us have known it, is a source of great
pain and deep anxiety to many people. Over the last decades an
obvious level of anger with the Catholic organisation has emerged
among many, including priests and religious, sparked by the fail
ure of Church authorities to deal adequately with the abuse of
children by clergy both diocesan and religious.
Nonetheless there are probably others like myself, who had a
happy experience of Catholicism in their younger years, in home,
school and parish. We can foresee the demise of religious houses
and the amalgamation of parishes as numbers of clergy and reli
gious plummet over the next ten years.
The figures to fill out this picture are now available. The
Research and Development Office of the Irish Episcopal
Conference has taken a census of priests in Ireland from 25 of 26
dioceses. The key numbers are given below.1

NUMBERS OF ACTIVE DIOCESAN PRIESTS IN IRELAND 2007

Age Group Total Across Dioceses

25-34 89
35-44 373
45-54 510
55-64 586
65-74 611
75-84 233
85+ 62
PREDICTION TEN AND TWENTY YEARS AHEAD
- If we assume ordinations remain static at the numbers for the
1. Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, Council for Research & Development, Report
on the age profile of diocesan priests currently working in Ireland's dioceses (2007).
At the end of August, 2009 news was released of larger numbers of candidates start
ing in Irish seminaries: 36 for diocesan seminaries and an educated guess of about 20
entrants to clerical religious communities. Compare entrants for Irish dioceses: 2004
06:28/27/30. Allowing a two-thirds dropout rate the improved figures for 2009 do not
constitute a major reversal of fortunes.

Brian Gogan is an Irish Holy Ghost priest. Address: Blackrock

College, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
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 CLERICAL CELIBACY

25-34 age group (averaging 8.9 annually), the number of

priests under 65 in Ireland will number 1061 in 2017.
- If we push this 'guesstimate' a further 10 years on, we get a
total of 640 priests in 2027 aged 25-64 years of age. (These are
only rough estimates.)
In keeping with the Irish practice of curates working till 70
years of age, one could have incorporated the 65-69 age group
in the figures. On the other hand, the common civic retirement
age is 65, and not without reason apparent to most 66 year olds.
Allowing for this discrepancy, these numbers do indicate that
the total number of active diocesan priests in Ireland could be
reduced by two thirds in 20 years time.
- By any standard this points to a crisis. If the numbers of lead
ership and training personnel in a leading football club were to
drop by two thirds, their hopes of success in any competition
with equals would rapidly disappear

This accelerating decline in the number of active diocesan clergy

is accentuated by the top-heavy age pattern that already exists,
with more men over seventy years of age than under fifty. This
decline was at one time more severe among religious and mission
ary communities than among diocesan clergy. It is now undermin
ing pastoral care in many dioceses, while at the same time dioce
san and parish activities are threatened, as the pastoral, social,
educational and spiritual infrastructures provided by religious
men and women are rapidly evaporating due to disappearing per
sonnel.
As time passes and this decline takes place, staffing of larger
parishes will be drastically cut back and smaller parishes will be
amalgamated into larger parishes. The intensity of pastoral care,
or even simple availability of pastors, will greatly diminish. (I've
met not a few French people who speak of a parish Mass once a
month or six weeks.) Large sections of the population will rarely
see a priest or a church liturgy. A simple analogy illustrates the
point. If a university lost two thirds of its teaching staff, what
respect would it have in the eyes of the public and how well could
it educate its student body to a standard that would meet interna
tional professional requirements? So too will our hopes of a
Christian revival diminish as the numbers of those involved in
pastoral care rapidly decline.

A SKELETON CHURCH
The natural consequence of this drop in numbers of more active
priests will speed up the downward cycle in which the Irish
Church is caught. As access to daily Mass disappears and the
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THE FURROW

facility of weekly Mass becomes rarer, attendances will naturally

go down. At the same time thousands will get sick and die with
out the sacraments as priest chaplains in hospitals and other car
ing institutions as well as parishes become thin on the ground.
More marriages will be celebrated outside the church and the
children of these unions will not be baptised or prepared for the
other sacraments.
Moreover young people will have even fewer younger pastors
to relate to and to guide them as their spiritual lives are threatened
by mass media addicted to sex and invaded by a popular culture
hooked on money and what it can buy.
While the organised Church steadily crumbles, fewer young
people will be attracted to the priesthood and numbers of clergy
will continue to drop. Faced with this crisis surely our Church
leaders have a moral responsibility of the greatest kind to provide
priests for their people. If this is not a grave matter, what is? Is the
preservation of current canonical provision for clerical celibacy of
greater importance in the eyes of our Sovereign Pastor, who sac
rificed his life for his sheep, than the pastoral care of those still
loyal to him and his teaching? Surely not, as Peter, a married man,
was appointed head of the apostolic group which first led the
Church after Christ's Ascension.
Shortage of clergy is not a new problem for the Church. It has
happened in other ages. The present period of diminishment
began with the 1960s cultural revolution. Today it affects most of
the western churches and indeed all churches struggling with the
spiritually toxic culture of the West. The response of Catholic
ecclesiastical authorities at various levels has been much as I have
described above. Close down, cut back, and amalgamate. The
result is a skeleton Church in many areas run in numerous places
by septuagenarians.
Despite the heroic devotion of elderly priests, the quality of
service rendered becomes hopelessly inadequate as aging limbs
and brains are less able to cope and the burden of numbers and
territory to cover increases. One colleague of mine, a returned,
retired missionary working in Alsace, France, tries to minister to
26 former parishes. This is an extended pastorate even in mission
ary terms. Not surprisingly the leakage of laity (and indeed of
dispirited clergy and religious) goes on.
It's a grim picture relieved, for Irish people as well as others,
by many flashes of light coming from small religious groups in
various places who, inspired by the Spirit, evolve new approach
es to the Christian life. However welcome and hopeful some of
these groups may be, they do not reach the broad body of the
Church, still less constitute it. We are left with an aged skeleton

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 CLERICAL CELIBACY

not a live and vigorous body. The Catholic Church, in any signif
icant sense of the term has died across swathes of Europe and the
Americas as it died under Muslim control in the Near and Middle
East and North Africa from the 7th century onwards.2

SACRAMENTAL, LITURGICAL MINISTRY ESSENTIAL

Vatican II defined the Church not merely as an organisation but
stressed even more that it is the sacramental presence of Christ on
earth. Without this sacrament of pastoral care and compassion and
more specifically the sacramental celebrations which express its
reality more immediately and dynamically, the Church dies.
Indeed, when Christians die, how can we let them pass away
without the solace and grace of the Sacraments? Surely this is
neglect of everything Jesus provided for and taught us about
sacramental grace. He came that we may have life and have it to
the full. The 'ordinary way' of receiving this in its highest degree
is through liturgical celebration (SC 2).
All of this is a slightly complicated way of saying you won't
have a Church without a diocesan clergy providing the sacramen
tal grace of 'ordinary' - in the dogmatic sense - Christian life.
From a common point of view, any dynamic organisation (e.g an
orchestra) if it is to thrive, needs full time professionally trained
personnel, deeply imbued with its spirit and mission. They pro
mote the organisation's mission and provide the services that it
entails.3
That is what Jesus tacitly provided for his followers. That is
what the Catholic Church has done with varying success through
out the ages. However, in stressing this, I do not in any way wish
to question the enormous role of laity and religious in every
aspect of Church life. Rather I wish to say that a fully engaged
laity and body of religious require a committed, full time and well
educated pastorate to guide and inspire their efforts, lead them in
worship and equip them with the word and grace God provides for
his people through sacramental rites, instruction and guidance.
Put simply this boils down to one issue. Is there any way we
can have more priests? One significant answer is given in

2. See Noel O'Sullivan,'The Catholic Church in France' The Furrow, April 2007,191
200. O'Sullivan describes a renewed archdiocese in Paris but doesn't deal with wider
issues linked with declining clergy numbers; Jean-Ren? Bertrand et Colette Muller,
O? sont pass?s les catholiques? Une g?ographie des catholiques en France, Paris,
2002, 267-314 and passim; Dani?le Hervieu-Leger, Catholicisme, La Fin d'un Monde,
Paris 2003, passim, for detailed analysis of the declining years of a church.
3. Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, in Abbott, Documents of Vatican II,
532-576. See Donal Dorr, 'Do We Still Need Priests?', Doctrine and Life, 56, Dec.
2006, 2-11; Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Congregation for the Clergy,
1994.
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 THE FURROW

Scripture. Yes, it is God's Word! Allow married men into the

priesthood. This was the model with which the Church began in
apostolic times. St Paul, writing to the Corinthians, affirming his
right to material support from those he has evangelised, puts this
evangelical right on a par with the right of an apostle to be mar
ried: 'Have we not every right to eat and drink? And every right
to be accompanied by a Christian wife, like the other apostles,
like the brothers of the Lord, and like Cephas?' (1 Cor 9:4-5).
Here Paul refers to the marriage of other apostles, Christian
evangelists and missionaries like himself. He also refers to the
marriage of the brothers of the Lord, i.e. Jesus' relations includ
ing perhaps those named in Mark 6: James and Joset (otherwise
Joseph), Jude and Simon. James was the most distinguished of
these as he became leader of the Church of Jerusalem and
presided at its first council.
Paul also mentions Peter's wife whose existence was supposed
when Jesus cured his mother-in-law (Mk 1: 29-31). Peter was not
a widower for his wife is directly mentioned here by St Paul. Paul
himself probably remained celibate but Peter, the rock on which
the Church was founded, was a married 'bishop'.
We are all familiar with the most direct passages concerning
the selection of elders/bishops to preside over the church commu
nity prescribed in ITim 3:1-7 and Tit 1:5-9: the candidate must be
of impeccable character, husband of one wife, temperate, discreet,
courteous, hospitable, a good father and teacher to his children.4

CELIBACY
While scholarly debate continues about the origins of Christian
ministry, there is no evidence that celibacy was required of lead
ers of Christian communities in the Apostolic Age. By the end of
the second century the pattern of ministry had become established
with bishop, presbyter, and deacon serving together to build up
the body of Christ in their local assemblies. As a rule, the clergy
were married men though bishops in many cases remained sin
gle.5
As we know well, celibacy for the sake of the kingdom became
an accepted 'counsel of perfection' for clergy and laity alike in the
course of the third century. The celibate way of life was later insti

4. Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the

Corinthians, (Eng.tr.) Philadephia, 1975,152-153; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Structured
Ministry of the Church in the Pastoral Epistles, CBQ, 66, 2004,582-596; Robert
A.Wild, The Pastoral Epistles in NJBC, 891-902.
5. Raymond E. Brown, Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections, London, 1971, 13-45
and passim; Kevin B. Osborne, A History of the Ordained Ministry in the Roman
Catholic Church, New York, 1988, 32-129.

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 CLERICAL CELIBACY
tutionalised in the development of monastic communities in
North Africa, Asia Minor, and subsequently Ireland, Italy,
Ethiopia and elsewhere. Nonetheless, marriage before ordination
remained an option for the Roman Patriarchate as well as others
in Christendom and was common practice until the 12th century
in the West.
This was the case despite a concerted movement promoted by
Rome, from say, 300AD to 900 AD, to require abstention from
marriage from candidates for the presbyterate and at times for
other major orders. Married clergy were urged to observe sexual
continence. This movement collapsed in the fifth century with the
fall of the Western Roman Empire (476), had a brief revival under
Charlemagne (742-814) but relapsed after his death.

OBLIGATORY CELIBACY INTRODUCED

During the Middle Ages in feudal Europe the Church had
obtained possession of vast tracts of land intended for the support
of clergy and other ecclesiastical institutions. From the early 900s
onwards powerful feudal lords at every level in society gained
rights to large estates by ensuring one of their family was appoint
ed to the offices entailing management of these often enormous
territories, office and land passing on from father to son. In this
way church office became a means to wealth and power placed
not at the service of God's people but of some feudal lord, prince
or reigning emperor.
At the same time, simony (the sale or purchase of church
offices) was a major concern to conscientious clerics as was the
question of ritual sexual purity of married priests handling the
sacraments on a regular basis. This concern grew from a patristic
spirituality which recommended celibacy as complete dedication
to God, freedom to spread the Gospel without domestic constraint
as well as providing space for prolonged prayer and close identi
fication with the virgin Jesus.
Concurrently, inherited attitudes which considered active sex
uality as incompatible, at least temporarily, with cultic practice
encouraged the stress placed on priestly celibacy. These values
derived from Jewish cultic practice on the one hand and collater
al paganism on the other. Neo-Platonism, received through St
Augustine, which regarded the body as an obstacle to spiritual
growth, provided further ground for this enthusiasm for the celi
bate life.
Reform of the western church of the Early Middle Ages,
begun by Cluniac monk and Pope, Gregory VII (c. 1021-85),
included divesting families of customary rights to particular
Church offices and their landed benefices, often immense estates

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THE FURROW

that had been established over time. One of the principal means of
achieving 'liberty' of the Church in this respect was ultimately to
require all candidates for ordination to be single and to remain
celibate for the rest of their days, sub-deacons, deacons, priests
and bishops.6
As we know this is still the law for Latin Rite clergy of the
Roman Patriarchate. It was never the law of other patriarchates
such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and
Moscow or of such of their communities as returned to commun
ion with Rome (sometimes called Uniate churches) centuries after
the Eastern Schism (1054). These churches, in union with the
Holy See, are alive and well today as are those of their fellow
communities of Ancient and Eastern Orthodox tradition.

ROMAN CATHOLIC MARRIED CLERGY

In other words, there already exists a married clergy in the Roman
communion; not merely convert clergymen from Anglicanism but
virtually entire clergies of churches which follow an intensely
Christian life in a variety of rites and customs as ancient in origin
as the Latin Church. As well as this, we know that the churches
which sprang from the Reformation returned to the original prac
tice of married clergy and that many of their congregations are
alive, dynamic and expanding: Evangelical, Baptist and
Pentecostal.
In these churches have married clergy carried out their pastoral
duties as diligently as their celibate colleagues? This is a large
question the answer to which lies far beyond the scope of a brief
reflection. However, one phenomenon immediately jumps to
mind: the survival of the Eastern Christian churches which, until
the fall of the Berlin Wall (1917-1989), lived under Communist
rule.
The most terrible reign of terror in the history of Christianity
was unleashed by Lenin and his successors as leaders in the
6. John E. Lynch, Marriage and Celibacy of the Clergy. The Discipline of the Western
Church. An Historico-Canonical Synopsis, Jurist, 32 ,1972,14-38;189-212; Michael
Pfliegler, Celibacy, 1967,23-43; John P.Mclntyre, Married Priests: A Research Report,
CLSA 56,1994, 130-152; Thomas O'Loughlin, 'Priestly Celibacy' and 'Arguments
from History', Doctrine and Life, 49, Sept. 1999, 411-422; Augustin Fliehe, Histoire
de l'?glise depuis les origines jusq? nosjours,Yol. 8: La R?forme Gr?gorienne, Paris,
1944, pp.30 ff., 190ff., 335ff., etc. See Christopher Brooke, Medieval Church and
Society, London, 1971, 69-99 for a case study of reform: see Gerd Tellenbach, Church,
State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest, Oxford, 1966, 89
169 and passim for the macro - political course of and implications of the reform. Also
Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050-1250, Oxford,
1989, 101-5 for celibacy issue. The formal promulgation of the law of celibacy was
made in canon 7 of the Second Lateran Council in 1139. It rendered future marriages
of clergy illicit as well as invalid. Cf O.Engels, Sacramentum Mundi, 2:14-15.

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 CLERICAL CELIBACY
Soviet Union and its later extended empire. In Lenin's term of
office alone it has been estimated that in the first ten years of his
reign close on 250,000 priests and religious were put to death
along with many lay, believing Christians. Russian martyrs total
ly outnumber those of the Roman ages.7
Active persecution of the known Christian community contin
ued after Lenin, while systematic indoctrination in atheistic
Marxism was enforced on all citizens through the schools, media
and civic organisations and legalised discrimination against
believers. Because of the crisis of World War 2, Stalin loosened
the reins slightly. Religious practice within the four walls of the
church was tolerated but little beyond that. Not long after the end
of hostilities Nikita Kruschev followed by Leonid Brezhnev
renewed the campaign of persecution.
A few seminaries were allowed to supply a minimum number
of parishes with pastors as well as a tiny handful of monasteries
allowed to exist, while the KGB scrutinised all that was done.
Because of this, the essential framework of the sacramental
church survived in Russia and its subordinate nations. A tiny,
married clergy nourished those who were openly faithful to
Christ.
In those treacherous years, priestly liturgical ministry was used
by Christ to feed the faithful in the Eucharist, to provide essential
teaching during its celebration and impart the graces of the Holy
Spirit, notably the gift of fortitude, in face of unrelenting enmity
and frequently active persecution of believers. Life was even more
difficult and dangerous for the Uniate churches but they too tri
umphed over darkness. Today these islands of Christian faith have
blossomed to become the groundwork for a fresh evangelization
of the peoples of Eastern Europe and the recovery of an honoured
place for the Church in Russian and other Eastern European soci
eties.
The ministry of married clergy was essential to this monumen
tal success story too little recognised and appreciated in the West.
Surely this witness of the Eastern Churches gives more than
enough assurance (even if it were not obvious in other quarters)
that married clergy can be every bit as committed, caring and

7. See Dimitry Pospielovsky, The Russian Church under the Soviet Regime 1917
1982, 2 vols, New York, 1984, 163-191 and passim; Nicholas Zernov, The Russian
Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century, London, 1963 passim; Zernov, The
Russians and their Church, London, 3rd ed., 72-183. The figures for deaths under the
Soviet regime are close to unbelievable. In World Christian Trends, 230-46, ed. David
B.Barrett et al., the editors estimate on the basis of official statistics that the Soviet
state killed 20m Christians, mainly Orthodox, cited Wikipedia (web), Persecution of
Christians, 26 (i.e. as part of a greater massacre of 100m people by the Soviets; see
St?phane Courtois et al., Le Livre Noir du Communisme, Paris, 1997).

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THE FURROW
devout as their celibate colleagues. They certainly have made
excellent martyrs!

A GLANCE ABROAD
When we look at churches with married clergy, we get some idea
of how replacement rates for priests work out. For example, the
Uniate ( in communion with Rome) Eastern Rite Catholic Church
3.7m. members. To care for this population there were in that year
2722 priests, diocesan and religious. In training there were no less
than 1136 senior seminarians. That same year in Ireland Catholics
numbered 4.8m . To care for these baptised faithful there were
5362 priests in total and 202 senior seminarians preparing for the
priesthood. Quite a difference.8
As regards clergy numbers, a glance at the Anglican Church in
England and Wales also sheds some light on recruitment to a
largely married clergy. Church statistics for 2002 show for
England and Wales a population of weekly churchgoers of about
1 million; monthly churchgoers, about 1.5 million; annual
churchgoers (mainly at Christmas), 2.5 million. The Church had,
in 2002, 8,158 men in Holy Orders and 1,194 women clergy. Thus
a pastoral force of 9,352 trained and educated personnel: one pas
tor for 106 weekly churchgoers; one pastor for 160 monthly par
ticipants; one for 267 annual congregants.9 Church of Ireland fig
ures were not available to bring the comparison closer to home.
In the USA, another Christian congregation with a married
clergy, the Southern Baptist Convention (of churches), played a
prominent role in the development of the influential Religious
Right, which in the last 20 years has brought religious values back
into the public square. The SBC numbered 16.3million members
in 2003. Sunday School goers amounted to half this community.
Two million of the members took a programme in discipleship
training - deepening their spiritual lives while 36% were Sunday
worshippers. This large flock is cared for by 71,988 ministers,
i.e., 226 church members for each pastor while 82 regular church
goers have one parson to care for them and their children - on
average.10 Those numbers of carers don't protect them from the
stresses of life today as the Convention faces losses and depar
tures of some of its faithful.
SBC has a more than plentiful clergy. A plentiful gathering of

8. Statistical Yearbook of the Church, Vatican City, 2002, pp.41,175,176,205,3O2,310.

9. Church Statistics 2002, Parochial Membership, attendance and finance statistics
for the Church of England, January to December 2002,pp.5,21 and passim.
10. SBC Statistical Summary 2003,Nashville, 2004. The SBC congregations are
under pressure in the last decade to hold on to their members with strong competition
from Pentecostals and megachurches.

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 CLERICAL CELIBACY
apostles! It goes without saying that church is not measured sta
tistically when individual lost sheep require so much attention.
Nonetheless, numbers of faithful cared for as well as numbers of
carers do have a bearing on strategic provision for care and
growth of the flock.
Moreover, let us not be optimistic concerning the fate of
Christians in the West today. In my opinion, the increasingly sec
ular and often amoral culture of the West is taking as great a toll
of faith and godly living as systematic atheism did in the East, as
Pope Benedict so frequently warns us.
We need faithful Christians and the faithful need the support,
guidance and leadership of full-time deacons, priests and bishops
as well as the immeasurable support of a committed and well
informed laity. If the supply of celibate candidates has run dry,
then let candidates for the priesthood be married. No doubt there
are logistical issues to be raised concerning such a policy - essen
tially pay, insurance, housing and education as well as questions
of adjustment on the part of laity and present clergy alike. If
impoverished Ukrainians can look after their priests, so too can
the affluent Irish.
By all accounts Anglican priests who entered the Catholic
community in some numbers in recent times have been well
accepted and have done well in their pastoral ministry. In my own
observation many married people and young people preparing for
marriage have shown preference for a clergyman who is also a
family man (in this case, an ordained widower).
Here in Ireland we look back in pride to our father in faith,
Patrick, son of a married deacon, grandson of a married priest.
Given the frequency of names such as McEntaggart and
McEnaspie ( mac an tsagairt and mac an easpaigh - son of priest,
son of bishop) married clergy in earlier Irish tradition were looked
on with respect. Marriage was not a dark secret but a publicly
accepted characteristic of some priests' lives.
At the same time is it not a little ridiculous to imagine that if St
Peter were to live his life again and apply for admission to the
seminary of the diocese of Rome, he would be turned down
because of his marital status? Yet Peter's marriage in his apostolic
life did not prevent him from being the Rock on which Christ built
not merely the Church at Rome but his worldwide Church as well.
Perhaps Pope Benedict's decision to provide a welcoming struc
ture for those Anglicans who wish to enter into communion with
Rome reveals a certain movement of opinion concerning an
unbreakable link between compulsory celibacy and ordained
priestly ministry.

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