Posted on 01/13/2007 5:19:10 AM PST by xzins
Dr. Ben Witherington III is professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. The author of more than thirty books, including The Brother of Jesus, he has twice won the Christianity Today award for one of the best biblical studies books of the year
After the Foley Follies, The Catholic Temperature Rises Yet another case of a teen molested by a priest. Only this time it was a Republican in high public office who was molested as boy. The priest of course has been banned from ministerial duties but this hardly addresses the larger question. Is there something indemic to the Catholic approach to priesthood that is fundamentally flawed? My answer to this question is yes.
The requirement (not merely the option) of a celibate priesthood is unBiblical. At a minimum it should be optional at best. It's time for the Catholic Church to have a more Biblical approach to persons in ministry. Even the OT priests were not celibate! This is simply a relic of pre-medieval and medieval asceticism. And behind that earlier asceticism is unfortunately an inadequate theology of the goodness of human sexuality. And yet today's paper informs us that Catholic bishops are about to meet and provide new guidelines for ministering to gay persons. This may well be helpful, but the Catholic priestly hierarchy really needs to put their own sexual house in order before telling priests how to minister to gays appropriately. They need to look deep into their own souls and ask--- What is wrong with us? Here is the link to today's story--
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/us/29bishops.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
What would a healthy approach to these sorts of issues of human sexuality look like that neither endorses sexual sin and calls it good on the one end of the spectrum nor endorses unBiblical forms of asceticism on the other? My answer to this is several fold, and it starts with 1 Cor. 7, and its frequent mis-interpretation.
Throughout 1 Corinthians Paul has been dealing with problems in the Corinthian Church. 1 Cor 7 is no different, and clearly enough what is happening in 1 Cor.7.1 is that Paul is quoting some views that Corinthians have about human sexuality, and he is critiquing and qualifying them in various ways. Notice how the verse starts-- "Now concerning the things about which you wrote 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman.'"
The 'you' here is not Paul, but rather the person's who wrote to him. Someone or someones in Corinth held an extremely ascetical view about male-female relationships. It is possible that the term 'touch' here is a euphemism for 'have sexual contact with' just as we use the euphemism 'sleep with' to mean roughly the same thing.
Notice Paul's response--- at a minimum, because of sexual sin "each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband". The word 'each' will later be qualified by Paul's discussion of the fact that there are some people (a minority) that have the gift of being able to remain continent and single. But the drift of the argument is clear enough that Paul thinks this is a minority of persons. This is one reason why he starts with the bold assertion "that each one of you should have...." Now notice the context. The context is sin-saturated Corinth. Paul was a good pastor, and he knew the temptations in Corinth were as grave as they are in our own sex-saturated environment. Were Paul here today I have little doubt he would be telling Catholic priests to get married right, left and center UNLESS they were one of those rare persons whom God had blessed with the gift of celibacy in singleness. We would have a lot less messes in the church today, especially the Catholic Church which is the only large denomination that requires celibacy of its ministers, if the celibacy requirement was dropped altogether.
Secondly, notice 1 Cor. 7.4-- Here Paul says something radical. He not only says that the wife's body belongs to the husband (which was the conventional wisdom of the day) startling every man he wrote to in that patriarchal culture with the sexual double standard he says that the husband's body belings exclusively to his wife. No messing around with call girls (called 'companions' back then) prostitutes, or other men's wives. Paul is balancing the ledger, and the eqality he is building into the marriage relationship stands out from the norm in the larger culture. Paul was not just another endorser of the old patriarchal status quo.
Thirdly, notice 1 Cor. 7.5-6-- "Don't deprive each other of sexual relationships except during a time of prayer, but after that come back together again". Paul, far from being in the least bit ascetical is encouraging a robust and repeated sexual sharing as normal for a Christian couple. And his standard for ministers was no different than his standard for everyone else he was writing to in Corinth. This was advice for all Christians there. Notice in 1 Cor. 9.5 he says that he has the right to have a wife and travel with her just as Peter and the Lord's brothers do. So much for the notion that the first 'Pope' was celibate. But back to 1 Cor. 7.
Sometimes 1 Cor. 7.6 has been totally twisted out of its context. The context makes reasonably clear that the exception or Pauline concession is not to HAVE sex, but rather to abstain from sex for the period of prayer. He is not conceding sex, he is conceding abstinence for a brief period of prayer time. That's all.
But what of 1 Cor. 7.7? Here we get to the nub of the matter. Paul does indeed wish that more people had the gift of celibacy so they could devote themselves wholly and solely to Christ and his ministry. But he recognizes that that is not everyone's 'charisma'. The Greek word 'charisma' from which the English word comes does not mean what it means in English. It means a 'grace gift' a gift from God.
What Paul says is that Christians should not ever make decisions about sexual relationships or abstaining from them on the basis of what they think or feel is 'natural'. Grace trumps nature when it comes to these issues. And so for Paul it requires a special gift of God's grace to remain faithful in marriage and it also requires a special gift of God's grace to remain celibate in singleness. Nothing is said here about natural inclinations and the like. Christians should make decisions about such matters on the basis of what God has given them the grace to do and be. And Paul recognizes that only a few like himself have been given the grace gift of remaining celibate in singleness throughout the rest of his life.
If the Catholic church could only listen to and live by this one Scripture when it come to requirments for the priesthood, things would not have gotten so out of hand in a sex saturated culture. There are many wonderful talent persons in the Catholic church whom God is calling to ministry, but has not gifted to be celibate. And since the church allows already for married priests, if their call to ministry comes after their marriage vows, its time to fix the rest of this flawed system.
I am under no illusions that this will solve all of the sexual problems in the Catholic Church, and I am also well aware that we Protestants have just as many problems as well, but for different reasons. We have not listened to the 1 Cor. 7.4-6 portion of this teaching well enough. Infidelity is rampant because marriages are not being nurtured as they should be.
There is an old saying of Chaucer from the Nun's Priest's Tale--- "if Gold rusts what then will iron do?" How in the world could either Catholic or Protestant clergy expect their parishoners to behave, or to have a good and healthy theology of human sexuality if we do not model it as well as teach it? We truly need to get our own house in order. We need to pluck the plank out of our own eyes. Jesus told us a long time ago that there were only two legitimate sexual options-- celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage (Mt. 19.1-12). Whether we are happy about this or not it means the sexual sharing is limited in the Bible to monogamous heterosexual marriage relationships. That's all. And if we cannot handle that, then we must pray for the grace gift of continence which God gives to some and not to others, and God does not decide this issue on the basis of whether he has also called the person into ministry.
Its time for the whole church to stop sending mixed messages like "Sex is dirty and unholy, save it for the one you really love and marry". The message needs to be "sex is a beautiful and precious gift of God. There is nothing remotely unholy about it. Indeed it is such a precious gift that it should indeed be saved for the context of unconditional love and an unlimited life time commitment." Unfortunately, however this great truth about human intimacy is one even much of the church and even too much of the clergy can't handle as things now stand. So what shall we do about this malaise? Inquiring minds want to know.
If you want to read more about the Pauline sexual ethic, pick up my Conflict and Coommunity in Corinth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) and read the relevant bits.
If the Catholic church could only listen to and live by this one Scripture when it come to requirments for the priesthood, things would not have gotten so out of hand in a sex saturated culture. There are many wonderful talent persons in the Catholic church whom God is calling to ministry, but has not gifted to be celibate. And since the church allows already for married priests, if their call to ministry comes after their marriage vows, its time to fix the rest of this flawed system.
What is the sign that someone has been gifted in a certain area?
At a minimum, it would seem to be the ability to demonstrate that gift.
Failure in demonstrating the gift is certainly evidence that such is not one's gift.
Ohhh boy!
highlight:
. . . This is simply a relic of pre-medieval and medieval asceticism. And behind that earlier asceticism is unfortunately an inadequate theology of the goodness of human sexuality. And yet today's paper informs us that Catholic bishops are about to meet and provide new guidelines for ministering to gay persons. This may well be helpful, but the Catholic priestly hierarchy really needs to put their own sexual house in order before telling priests how to minister to gays appropriately.
What an unoriginal, useless article. This reverend has decided that the clerical sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church was caused by that old bugaboo, clerical celibacy: if priests didn't have to be celibate, they wouldn't molest children. This is the biggest load of anti-Catholic B.S. If celibacy causes men to molest children, then why do so many married men abuse children or commit sex offenses?
The clerical sex abuse scandal in the Church involved a very small minority of priests, men with homosexual inclinations, who never should have been ordained. It is doubtful that marriage would have "cured" them of their predilictions for young boys. Moreover, the great majority of priests are faithful to their vow of celibacy and it is blatantly unfair to lump them in the minority who have shamed the Church and themselves by violating their vows. But people like Witherington aren't interested in the truth, they are just interested in bashing the Church. To some bigoted Protestants, the Church will always be the "whore of Babylon."
Sorry, Rev. Witherington, I'm not buying the crap you're selling.
Pretty weak argument in my opinion...
Queers are not created...They are recruited...So WHO recruits these young Catholic boys that become priests and when are they recruited...
And as we all know, birds of a feather flock together...So when a bishop or a cardinal just shuffles these people around instead of getting rid of them when they are found out, you can bet it's just one of these 'birds' covering for another one, im my humble view...
Look up a priest named Jadot; note the changes he made to screening of those entering the seminary, and when they were made; correlate that time to current age of those involved in homosexual (usually not pedophile, as the victims are sexually mature) predation. Then draw your own conclusions.
My reaction is, "Of course Witherington's right."
How in the world can anyone say that X Person/Priest has the gift of celibacy when they don't practice it?
They simply don't have it.
The results indicate whether the gift is there or not.
"Why pretend?" is Dr. Witherington's take on this. I have no idea how anyone could possibly disagree with that.
Dittos from me re: your post.
I notice you also responded in kind to Bosco on a recent thread: "Pope:Homosexuals Destroy Themselves".
The Reverend is talking about something from a distance and not from close hand. And it IS " blatantly unfair to lump them in the minority"----those priests who are fully manly men, who preserve their vows and serve a lifetime of faithful service to their parishes---BTW, in such a life they become unsung and often unappreciated standards of grace.
Who is the one who can discern and/or judge the grace of a priestly, celibate life or a calling to it from God? One who is already prejudiced against it? I don't think so.
This subject comes up regularly--too regulalrly--and provides a bully pulpit for those who have already prejudged against the Church and the meaning of an ordained and celibate priesthood, or who don't want or don't care to understand it.
My day is full to the max or I would post more. Unfortunately, I must work and will have to leave this to my better Catholic apologists.
Thanks, steadfastconservative.
The author wrote: There are many wonderful talent persons in the Catholic church whom God is calling to ministry, but has not gifted to be celibate. ...I am under no illusions that this will solve all of the sexual problems in the Catholic Church,
Is there any way to disagree with that?
Could you explain how attacking the messenger and ignoring the message helps the situation? Furthermore you claim "the great majority of priests are faithful to their vow of Celibacy", --most priests do not take a vow of celibacy - only the religious - and before you repeat that claim too many times talk to some real priests about the observation of celibacy, and don't forget to take into account the priests in South America and Africa. Seems to me honest dialogue would be more helpful than knee jerk reactions and hiding your head in the sand.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that a man attempting to live a celibate life suddenly becomes homosexual?
If Priests were allowed to marry, then you'd have dating priests, serial sexual encounters, divorced priests, etc...
But none of that changes the number or percentage who are homosexual or preying on young boys!
There is much great sense in what he says about celibacy.
I've known many wonderful priests who have lived very wonderful fulfilled lives, and celibate.
http://www.theologyofthebody.net/
Blessings to you!
My understanding in the EOC priests are allowed to be married and it is only their Bishops that must be celibate. They don't seem to have experienced the problem to the degree the RC's have.
"My understanding in the EOC priests are allowed to be married and it is only their Bishops that must be celibate. They don't seem to have experienced the problem to the degree the RC's have."
Technically, our priests are allowed to be married, not to marry. They must marry before ordination if at all. Bishops are monastics and thus celibate.
We have, unfortunately, had to deal with our own sex abuse cases. The gay ones seem, not surprisingly, to arise among the celibate monastics (though not among the bishops) and the heterosexual ones, a greater number by far, among the married clergy. Consequently, I don't think that celibacy per se drives these abuse cases. I think its simply and obviously the work of demons on weak people or on people in a moment of weakness. I do not, by saying that, mean to excuse any of this.
"How widespread is pedophilia among priests?: Commentators have suggested between 5 and 10 percent. That figure has been presented by various "experts" and widely used by the media. However, true pedophilia--sexual contact between an adult and pre-pubescent child--is extremely rare in the priesthood. The best estimate is "0.3 percent of the whole body of clergy." The most extensive study which considered 2,252 priests over a thirty year period found only one case of pedophilia. It involved a priest-uncle with two six-year-old nieces. The number of pederasts or ephebophiles (priests involved, usually homosexually, with an adolescent minor) was much larger, but still less than two percent. Jenkins traces how those figures were blown up and presented without nuance in the media." From The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church
"Does the celibacy requirement increase the likelihood that a priest will be a sex offender? Jenkins details how the media accounts of clergy sex abuse emphasized not only "cover up" but the celibacy factor. The view presented repeatedly was that the type of formation around this unrealistic requirement contributed to the supposed widespread sex abuse among priests. However, the difficulty with the argument is that there is no proof the problem is greater among priests than Protestant ministers—or even other service professionals, like teachers or physicians. It is worth noting that while the case involving former priest James Porter received massive media attention, the equally scandalous case of Protestant minister Tony Leyva got only limited coverage." The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church
The opposite is really the truth: In other churches, with no celibacy, the rate of sexual abuse is 12%, while in the Roman Catholic Church is less that 2%... and in the adult population the rate of adultery among marriage people is over 20% as well as the the rate of fornication among non-marriage people. Clergy Sexual Abuse.
These are findings from national surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies nationwide.
CMR's annual surveys of about 1,000 churches nationwide have asked about sexual abuse since 1993. They're a remarkable window on a problem that lurked largely in the shadows of public awareness until the Catholic scandals arose.
The surveys suggest that over the past decade, the pace of child-abuse allegations against American churches has averaged 70 a week. The surveys registered a slight downward trend in reported abuse starting in 1997, possibly a result of the introduction of preventive measures by churches.
"I think the CMR numbers are striking, yet quite reasonable," says Anson Shupe, an Indiana University professor who's written books about church abuse. "To me it says Protestants are less reluctant to come forward because they don't put their clergy on as high a pedestal as Catholics do with their priests."
At least 70 incidents a week
Dr. Shupe suggests the 70 allegations-per-week figure actually could be higher, because underreporting is common. He discovered this in 1998 while going door to door in Dallas-Ft. Worth communities where he asked 1,607 families if they'd experienced abuse from those within their church. Nearly 4 percent said they had been victims of sexual abuse by clergy. Child sexual abuse was part of that, but not broken out, he says.
I suspect, it is also exacerbated by those same people being in positions of authority in seminaries.
"I suspect, it is also exacerbated by those same people being in positions of authority in seminaries."
I suspect you are right, at least insofar as the gay stuff is concerned.
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