Why does the Catholic Church insist on celibacy?

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Pope Francis in Brazil. Credit: ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP via Getty Images

Editor's Note: Rafael Domingo Oslé is a research professor at the Center for Law and Religion at Emory University and a professor of law at the University of Navarra. The opinions expressed in this column are exclusive to the author.

(CNN Spanish) - The recent crisis of sexual abuse by the clergy, the decline in the number of priests and their absence in so many corners of the world (the average is one for every three thousand Catholics) have opened within the Church Catholic a debate as old as new about the desirability of married people with good training and proven virtues accessing the priesthood.

The figure of the married priest already exists in the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as in the Anglican ordinaries created by Benedict XVI. Therefore, many people saw in the recent synod of the Amazon a golden opportunity for Pope Francis to give a definitive push to the priesthood of married people, after a millennium of restrictions and another ban on the Latin rite. It has not been like that. Francis has chosen to maintain a long and precious Church tradition that venerates priestly celibacy as a special gift of the Holy Spirit to certain people for the service of the Church and humanity that should be protected even at the cost of reducing the number of priests

But what does celibacy bring to the Catholic Church and humanity so that the last popes have protected it and protect it with nails and teeth? Why Benedict XVI, who has been silent since he resigned, decided to break his silence in defense of celibacy along with Cardinal Sarah?

In my opinion, a successful and profound version of this issue is the one that explains that a celibate person does not marry because he considers all human beings his brothers, and that is why any carnal relationship would, by definition, become incestuous. Yes, for a spiritually celibate person, getting married is incestuous because every spouse would be a brother rather than a spouse.

The celibate person does not despise marriage, values ​​it very much, but transcends it. Celibacy encumbers marriage, highlights its sacramentality. Therefore, the most sublime marriage was the virgin marriage of Mary and Joseph. Without a marriage institution, there is no celibacy; and without celibacy, marriage easily becomes banalized; without marriage, there is only pure singleness. Singleness is premarital; Transmarital celibacy. The celibate person loves everyone equally, with the logical correspondence with the closest beings: their parents, family and friends. But the religious celibate cannot choose an exclusive love other than God himself. The celibacy of a believer is a kind of falling in love with the divine. The celibate person directs all his eros, that is his desire for possessive love, towards God, and from God, to others. This type of celibate person wants to love as only God loves: everyone, infinitely, and equally. The married person loves God in their spouse; the celibate to all in God.

Thus understood, celibacy contributes to the spiritualization of the world in a different way than marriage does. Marriage forms families; Celibacy protects and strengthens humanity as a family. Marriage focuses on private love; Celibacy, in universal love. Celibacy is a gift that humanizes divine love. Christian marriage, on the other hand, is a sacrament that divinizes human love.

Celibacy is a source of love, fraternal communion and selfless service to humanity. The spiritually celibate person sees the world from top to bottom, from the top of the mountain, moves from the spiritual to the material; the married woman, on the other hand, sees the world from the bottom up, from the hillside: it moves from the material to the spiritual. Therefore, the celibate person usually admires the sleeplessness, virtue and sacrificial capacity of the married person; the married person, on the other hand, admires the contemplative capacity of the celibate, their total detachment, even living in the middle of the world, and their desire to surrender to each human being, to each child of God, regardless of race, color, religion .

In my opinion, the world and the Catholic Church need celibacy, they enrich themselves with it. Therefore, perhaps the pope has decided to protect this prophetic treasure in a markedly pragmatic and materialistic society that has trivialized marriage. The perfect redemption of eros is achieved by privileging agape.

Celibacy Priesthood