Rethinking celibacy and reclaiming the church

Catholic New Times, Dec 14, 2003 by Ted Schmidt

Mike Crosby is incredulous, his voice animated and rising as we chatted for an hour about his book, Rethinking Celibacy, Reclaiming the Church.

"I could not believe, that a bishop whom I deeply respect, responded to those of us (163 Milwaukee area priests) who signed the recent statement on optional celibacy and said, 'From my heart I do not believe that married priests are going to solve the priest shortage.' What is the basis for such an impassioned statement as this?

"The celibate pool is drying up as we speak. The data is unequivocal and it asks why you are going to keep fishing in a pool that is drying up when across the road are all these other pools? Does he believe we are not going to get anything from them--from the priests who have resigned, from the women, from deacons, from people with theological degrees. It begs comprehension."

The data Crosby refers to is unequivocal. According to Vatican statistics nearly one half of the world's parishes do not have a resident priest. Catholic University sociologist Dean Hoge says that for every 100 priests who resign, retire or die, there are only 30-40 to replace them.

Crosby, a Capuchin Franciscan from the Milwaukee province, has thought deeply about the issue. His latest book is a thorough updating of a previous book, Celibacy: Means of Control or Mandate of the Heart(1996) which he wrote in response to the first wave of priest pedophilia cases which rocked Canada and the U.S. in the early 90s.

What changed for Crosby was the response to the second wave of cases which surfaced in 2002. Wave after wave of shocking tales of abuse hit the press along with stories of priestly abuse of women in Africa. The second wave was the one which broke the back of the Catholic confidence in the church in the U.S. Here, the terrible episcopal stonewalling was revealed--bishop after bishop had shuffled pedophiles from parish to parish. This resulted in the virtual firing of Cardinal Law in Boston. Not only his own priests but the laity told him he had lost their confidence.

Episcopal denial

It was all too much for Crosby. His gut feeling Was that he was a part .of a clerical system where power had been abused at the highest level, even by well-meaning members of the hierarchy. "I fear these men have so insulated themselves ideologically and theologically that they do not realize they have lost their moral authority. This delusion keeps them from acknowledging any need for basic structural change." (p.xi)

Crosby echoes most unbiased observers who state the obvious: Celibacy is not working. Too many priestless parishes worldwide, too many stopgap measures to remedy the shortfall and too many hierarchs who are unwilling to face the obvious. It all adds up to a major crisis, which, despite papal insistence to the contrary, demands widespread discussion.

"As long as it is imposed, it will be increasingly unworkable, unsustainable and unjustified," Crosby states in the introduction to his book. "It is not needed for the church to function in a holy and healthy way." (p.xii) To many people the eucharistic nature of the church is being needlessly sacrificed on the altar of celibacy.

Crosby, like many others, cannot abide that silence is the norm. "Patriarchal clericalism that has demanded celibacy must be broken by the inclusion of women to full equality, including priesthood itself," he adamantly insists.

In order for this to happen, the monarchical model of church must die and another model based on the creation of new structures "of authority, accountability and governance" which honours the gifts of all the baptized must become the norm."

It is obvious that Crosby's analysis is far from a rant against celibacy, but focuses as much on the deep institutional problems of an aging church caught in a time warp, one which has been increasingly unmasked by the rise of a powerful feminist critique of patriarchy and hierarchy.

Crosby has added his own understanding of systems analysis which he expressed in his 1991 book, The Dysfunctional Church: Addiction and Co-dependency in the Family of Catholicism. Here he scrutinized the problems of a huge addictive organization, whose leaders "were obsessed with preserving the male celibate clerical model of the church" (p.xvii). If one needed any proof he was on to something, the meltdown, evasions and obfuscations of church leaders caught in the sex abuse scandal proved to be classic textbook proof of Crosby's thesis.

Michael Crosby insists that his book is in the great tradition behind his Franciscan charism. Clare and Francis were about repairing the church in the 13th century. The disease today is not in the freely-chosen celibacy of many priests and nuns, but is in "the deeper pathology that identifies with the abuse of authority in the system that has used sex over the centuries in ways which have been revealed to be unhealthy, unnecessary and ultimately unholy" (p.xix).

The use and abuse of scripture

Crosby analyses the use and abuse of scripture and tradition and in particular "the selective interpretation of the scriptures, misusing them to promote something far removed from their real meaning." And if the church has moved beyond its initial distrust of sex, its impurity and its grudging tolerance to a more sacramental view that all are called to holiness, what does this do for the rationale for celibacy? If the Second Vatican Council acknowledged that celibacy is "not demanded by the very nature of priesthood" and if scriptural scholars have rejected any basis for an all-male priesthood, and if celibacy can not come through prayer, how many have received it as gift?