Reading «Querida Amazonia»

by Gabriele Cantaluppi

In recent months, since the celebration of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon last October, priestly celibacy has become all the rage on the web, in the press and in speeches. But how many were able to read up before aligning themselves with the opinions of many "sports bars"?

Few know that celibate life is required for priests of the Latin rite, but it is not for the majority of those who, despite belonging to the Catholic Church, profess other liturgical rites. In addition to our Latin (or Roman) rite, the Catholic Church includes twenty-one other Churches with their own right, mostly of the Eastern rite and nineteen of them provide for the ordination of married men, the majority of whom belong to the parish clergy , sometimes very numerous. 

But even in the Latin Church there are exceptions. Since the time of Pius XII, dispensation has been granted to ministers converted to Catholicism from other Churches, and a recent case occurred with Benedict XVI in 2009 with the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, for the admission of priests coming from Anglicanism. In fact, the celibacy law - being an ecclesiastical norm and not of divine law - can be dispensed with by the Pope. The Conciliar Decree on the priestly ministry  Presbyterorum ordinis, in paragraph 16, recalls «the tradition of the Eastern Churches, in which, in addition to those who together with all the bishops choose celibacy with the help of grace, there are also excellent married presbyters», adding that the Church Catholic «in recommending ecclesiastical celibacy, however, does not intend to change that different discipline which is legitimately in force in the Eastern Churches, rather it lovingly exhorts all those who received the priesthood when they were in the married state to persevere in the holy vocation, continuing to dedicate themselves fully and generously lay down their lives for the flock entrusted to them."

A statement, often left in the shade, is that celibacy in itself is not a value and there is no point in defending it as such, but it acquires it from the motivation for which it is chosen, which for the Christian is "for the Kingdom of God ”.  

So that even many lay people choose this state of life, even without accessing Holy Orders. This qualification systematically disappears, in newspapers and in the media, every time priestly celibacy is spoken of. In this way, by neglecting the qualification, we lose sight of precisely what celibacy is intended to be a manifestation of.

Also for this reason, in the last century, Secular Institutes arose, whose members, lay or cleric, consecrate themselves to God through the public profession of the evangelical counsels (vows of poverty, obedience and chastity), while living in the world, each on their own , and carrying out their work. They have their own rule, their own spirituality and they help each other spiritually.

The Second Vatican Council, in the Decree on the apostolate of the laity Apostolicam Actuositatem, of 18 November 1965, sanctioned the full validity of these methods of consecration.