By Xavier Ryan
This February, 5 seminarians had the pleasure of attending the Senior Celibacy Seminar with Rev. Dr Jake Mudge in Bendigo, Victoria.
A central theme of this seminar was the profound, yet often neglected, question: what is the reason that clerics accept chaste celibacy? Why am I, personally, embracing chaste celibacy?
Clerical celibacy is, and always has been since Apostolic times, a sign of the Kingdom of God. Clerics (bishops, deacons, and priests) promise or vow “perfect and perpetual continence” for which there are two purposes, to “adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart,” and to “dedicated themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity” (CIC 227). To promise or vow perfect and perpetual continence is to commit to not being married, and so refraining from all sexual activity that is the domain of married life. This requires a healthy, wholesome, and ordered sexual integrity to live out one’s earthly days fruitfully in chaste celibacy.
“But isn’t that impossible?” For man, perhaps, but not for God. Christ, as always, is our model: He lived a perfectly chaste, continent, celibate life for the Kingdom of God. His example, and that of many saintly priests and religious since, is the fulcrum on which we can draw the strength daily to live celibacy chastely, as a sign of the Kingdom of God and what is to come. In Heaven, as difficult as it may be to comprehend, everyone will be a chaste celibate, as Christ tells explicitly tells us: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30).
Not everyone is called to live celibately—indeed, that would quickly spell the end of mankind—but some, by God’s grace, are called to lead such lives for the sake of the Kingdom. Herein lies the answer to each cleric’s personal acceptance of chaste celibacy: because God—specifically, undeniably, positively, and particularly—wants me to. God wills it, and the Church, in her wisdom, has seen to it that this august discipline has been safeguarded to this day.
The Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, in a recent address to bishops, reminds us that “it is not just a question of living as a celibate, but of practicing chastity of heart and conduct, and in this way living a life of Christian discipleship and presenting to all the authentic image of the Church, holy and chaste in her members as in her Head.”
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of All Priests, intercede to her Son on our behalf that we, too, may live up to this great calling.
