Very few men and women entering religious life grumble about spending the rest of their lives unmarried. They don’t have a low opinion of marriage. In fact, they have a universally higher opinion of it than married people do.
They freely embrace celibacy because they want to devote their complete energies to God and to the service of his Church. They follow St. Paul’s own example by making this sacrifice. Paul recommended celibacy for those called to that vocation, without deprecating marriage in any way (1 Cor 7:8). As our world tends to give less and less value to marriage — the divorce and “living together” statistics are revealing — a counterthrust is coming from, of all places, the ranks of the unmarried religious, whether priests, sisters or brothers.
There is another fact about celibacy that surprises even many Catholics: It has not been a rule for all Catholic priests. In the Eastern Rites, married men can be ordained. This has been the custom from early times. Once ordained, though, an unmarried priest may not marry; a married priest, if widowed, may not remarry.
In the West, the rule has been different. In the very beginning, some priests and bishops were taken from the ranks of the married. But celibacy was soon preferred, and eventually it became mandatory. The change in the rule did not imply a change of doctrine. In recent years, we have seen a few married Latin Rite priests. Some have been Lutheran or Episcopal ministers who were married at the time of their conversion to Catholicism.
Despite what some critics may say, marriage is not evil in the eyes of the Church. It’s the Catholic Church that claims Christ raised marriage to a sacrament! Moreover, neither celibacy nor marriage is forced on anyone. It’s true that Catholic priests in the West may not be married, but no one is obliged to become a priest. Marriage is not forbidden to them as human beings, but as priests. Therefore, a Catholic man is free to choose the celibate priesthood, the married life or even the single life, which is also celibate.
Karl Keating is the founder of Catholic Answers. This column is reprinted with permission from his book “What Catholics Really Believe — Setting the Record Straight: 52 Answers to Common Misconceptions about the Catholic Faith,” pages 130-135 (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 1995).