CLERICAL CELIBACY – ITS SIGNIFICANCE
Some Tentative Reflections on the Theological Meaning of the
Church’s Discipline of Clerical Continence.
Paper delivered by Paul A. Williamson, S.M., to a Seminar on Priestly Celibacy, at
Holy Cross Seminary, Vermont Street, Ponsonby, Auckland, Tuesday, 22 February,
2000.
2
0. Introduction:
From the preliminary exploration, largely historical, of the Church’s universal
discipline of clerical continence, a number of important conclusions come together.
These provide essential data for subsequent theological reflection on continence and
its relationship to the sacrament of holy orders. From our previous discussion, we note
the following: Firstly, from the beginning up until the Council of Trent, clerical
celibacy was in fact clerical continence. It was not necessarily exclusive of marriage.
Clerics in major orders, that is, deacons, presbyters and bishops often were married.
For those already married before receiving major orders, the ancient discipline of East
and West, did not exclude marriage but the use of marriage. Secondly, once in major
orders, a man, deacon, presbyter or bishop, could not marry or, if widowed, re-marry.
And, thirdly, in East and West, there were, also, of course, many unmarried clerics in
major orders. Once, they had received major orders, they remained in the unmarried
state for the rest of their lives. Fourthly and finally, the only exceptions to these rules
resulted from exceptional legislation: legislation, that went contrary to the Church’s
ancient discipline, innovative legislation that sought to change the discipline. We
recall some famous historical examples: the Council of Mar Acacius, Council of an
heretical Nestorian Church in Persia which seceded from both Rome and Byzantium.
In 486 A.D., aware that it was contradicting the received ancient discipline, this
Council legislated to do away with it and make marriage and its use or celibacy
optional for all major clerics: bishops, presbyters, deacons. Again, more recently, but
still rather distant from us, there is the famous Quinisext Council, the Synod in Trullo.
In 691 A.D., by careful, and some would say, unscrupulous changes to the previous
legislation of the Apostolic Canons and the Canons of the African Church, this
Council legislated continence ad tempus for the lower orders of presbyters and
deacons: bishops still being obliged to the ancient discipline of perpetual or total
continence.
Scripture, tradition and these facts are where we start to do our properly
theological task of understanding. We seek to understand the relationship between
clerical celibacy or continence and the sacrament of orders. Again, we know from
history, just how much monastic and later religious life has influenced diaconal and
priestly life. As we have seen, if the Latin Church could be accused of imposing
celibacy on all the secular clergy to make them monks and religious, the post-Trullan
Eastern Churches could equally be accused of imposing marriage on all the secular
clergy, to make them like laity, while reserving the episcopate for those who were
monks. A theology which is not aware of this will have a hard time of it, to find
reasons specific enough to illustrate what I believe is an intrinsic relationship between
continence and holy orders. Reasons to illustrate the link which could equally, or,
perhaps even better apply to the monastic or religious life, I believe, are not sufficient.
Against the background that we have already made familiar, theology should have as
its task the pursuit of a group of insights that illustrate in a clear and specific way the
relationship between the sacrament of orders and the discipline of absolute
continence, which, in our circumstances, where we are normally speaking of the
unmarried, we now call “clerical celibacy.” To that task, we now give our attention.
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1. Background of Holy Scripture:
We return to the Pastoral Letters and the phrase, unius uxoris vir, a “husband
of one wife. The phrase, unius uxoris vir, - “a husband of one wife” - frequently is, as
we have seen, found in early canonical legislation and in early patristic witnesses to
the Catholic Church’s universal praxis of clerical continence. It is a stereotypical
expression and in the Pastoral Letters refers to episcopoi, 1 Tim 3,2; to presbyteroi:
Tit 1,6; and to deacons: 1 Tim 3,12.1
This saying is trustworthy: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a
noble task. Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once –
mias kunaikos andra – unius uxoris virum, temperate, self-controlled, decent,
hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not
contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well,
keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not
know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church
of God? [1 Tim 3,1-6].
For this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to
be done and appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, on condition
that a man be blameless, married only once – mias kunaikos aneer – unius
uxoris vir, with believing children who are not accursed of licentiousness or
rebellious [Tit 1,5-6].
Deacons are to be married only once – diakonoi estoosen mias gunaikos
andres – diaconi sint unius uxoris viri - and must manage their children and
their households well. Thus those who serve well as deacons gain good
standing and much confidence in their faith in Christ Jesus [1 Tim 3,12-13].
These texts interpreted in the light of 2 Cor 11,2 and Eph 5, 22-32 are clearly
covenantal. In 2 Cor 11,2, the Church is a “wife,” a “bride.” Paul presents the Church
to Christ as a “chaste virgin.”
For I am jealous of you [the Church] with the jealousy of God, since I
betrothed you to one husband – heni andri – uni viro - to present you as a
chaste virgin to Christ [2 Cor 11,2].
Here Paul has in mind the ancient covenantal theme, found in the earliest of the
prophets. God’s relationship to Israel is nuptial. It is, marital [Hos 2,42; Is 1,21; Jer
2,2; 3,3; 3,6-12; Ez 16 & 23; Is 50,1; 54,6-7; Song of Songs, Ps 45. The “covenant
theme” is not marginal in the New Testament. Jesus is the “bridegroom” of Israel
restored [Mt 9,15; Mk 2,18-19]. His coming initiates a messianic age, described
nuptially as a “wedding banquet” [Mt 22,1-14; 25,1-3; see also Jn 3,29]. This, as we
have discovered, the Book of Revelation also describes in magnificent nuptial and
marital imagery [Rev 21,2].
There is also a fourth text: 1 Tim 5,14: - unius viri uxor – “a wife of one husband.” which
complements the other three. This text refers to the special ministerial order of widows in the
early Church.. See, “Clerical Celibacy – Its Origins,” hereafter CCO, p.8.
1
4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth
had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride
dressed for her husband [Rev 21,1-3; also 22,17].
Again, we need to grasp all this in the context of Ephesians 5,22-23. Husband
and wife, united in the “one flesh” of marriage, are the symbolic, even the
sacramental image of Christ and the Church. Christ gives himself up for the Church to
make her his glorious, holy and spotless bride [Eph 5,26-27]. The married minister of
the pastorals, in his marriage – unius uxoris vir, mirrors and imitates the “ChristChurch relationship.” In his relationship to the Church, the ordained minister must be
like Christ, the bridegroom of the Church. Further, the Church-Bride, like the “virgin
daughter of Sion of the Old Covenant [Zeph 3,14-18], is called parthenon hagmee – a
“chaste virgin.” Marital love between Christ, the bridegroom and the Church, his
bride is virginal.
Clearly, the proximate Scriptural basis for clerical celibacy seems to be not
“virginity” but rather marriage, monogamous marriage – a “husband of only one
wife.” Ordination makes bishop, presbyter, deacon sacramentally representative of
the relationship Christ has to the Church as bridegroom to bride, as husband to wife.
For this reason, those ordained can be a “husband of only one wife.” This is a radical
call. We need now to struggle for deeper theological insight. But even at this stage,
we are evidently not dealing with some external, merely ecclesiastical prescription
which could easily be otherwise. The relationship of the ordained minister to Christ
and through Christ to the Church is that of the unius uxoris vir. It is spiritual, marital
and covenantal. We have seen the implications of this relationship emerge in the
Churches of both East and West in patristic writings and canonical legislation, and
also in a developing understanding of the sacraments and the Church, especially in the
relationship the Eucharist has to the Church.2 Thomas Aquinas touches the reality of it
when he comments on 1 Tim 3,2:
Oportet ergo episcopum .. esse unius uxoris virum – the bishop ought be the
“husband of one wife,” not merely to avoid incontinence, but to represent the
sacrament, since the Church’s bridegroom is Christ, and the Church is one:
Una est columba mea – “My dove is my only one” [Song of Songs, 6,9].3
2. Christ, the Ordained Minster and the Unity of the Church:
Catholic doctrine and a Catholic theology which wants to be faithful as well as
insightful are of apiece. They come together to form a seamless robe or like the pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle. Technically, we know this convenientia as the “analogy of faith.”
HENRI CARDINAL DE LUBAC, S.J., Corpus Mysticum: ‘L’Eucharistie et l’Église au
moyen-âge. Étude historique, 2e édition, revue et augmentée, sér., Théologie 3, Paris : Aubier,
Éditions Montaigne, 1949. See also, DONALD J. KEEFE, S.J., Covenantal Theology : The
Eucharistic Order of History, vols 1 & 2, Lanham, New York, London : University Press of
America, 1991 and also, more recently, “The Eucharistic Foundation of Sacerdotal Celibacy :
Preliminary Clarifications and Distinctions” [Unpublished Paper, 1997].
2
3
AQUINAS, In 1 ad Tim., c.3, lect.1, ed. Marietti, no.96. Cited by de la Potterie, art.cit.,
p.25.
5
Commonly many contemporary theologians distinguish and contrast, as if they could
never be related, two issues: clerical celibacy and the non-ordination of women. The
former, they suggest, is easily changeable, a mere matter of canon law; the latter,
touching the nature of the sacrament of orders, for some at least, is more intractable.
In fact, by a strange quirk, theologically, I believe, both priestly celibacy and the nonordination of women go together. Theological developments seeking to understand
more adequately why the Church does not and insists she cannot ordain women,
promote insights into the Church’s discipline about celibacy: why she tenaciously
continues to hold onto it in the present as she has in the past and, it seems, as she has
always done.
We begin with the recognition of a clear doctrinal development in the theology
of ordained priesthood. Since Presbyterorum Ordinis, the Decree on the Life and
Ministry of Presbyers, no.2, it is now a commonplace to qualify as something specific
to priest, bishop or presbyter, that he acts in persona Christi Capitis.4 We also know,
particularly clearly, since the publication, 15 October, 1976, of Inter Insigniores, the
Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood but also
through subsequent magisterial teaching that the correct taxonomy for the priest’s
relationship to Christ and the Church is in persona Christi Capitis and, therefore, in
persona Ecclesiae, and not the reverse.5 It is through sacramental ordination into the
4
We cite the text in full:
Quare sacerdotium presbyterorum initiationis christianae sacramenta quidem
supponit, peculiari tamen illo sacramento confertur, quo presbyteri, unctione Spiritus
Sancti, speciali charactere signantur et sic Christo Sacerdoti configurantur, ita ut in
persona Christ Capitis agere valeant.
The priesthood of presbyters, therefore, supposes in fact the sacraments of Christian
initiation, but it is conferred by a proper sacrament. By that sacrament, presbyters are
signed by a character, through a special anointing of the Holy Spirit. They are
configured to Christ, the Priest in such a way that they are enabled to “act in the
person of Christ, the Head.”
5
In no.5 of the Declaration, the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith makes this very clear:
It is true that the priest represents the Church, which is the Body of Christ. But if he
does so, it is precisely because he first represents Christ himself, who is the Head and
Shepherd of the Church. The Second Vatican Council used this phrase to make more
precise and complete the expression in persona Christi. It is in this quality that the
priest presides over the Christian assembly and celebrates the eucharistic sacrifice “in
which the whole Church offers and is herself offered [the Declaration cites in note 21:
LG no.28, PO nos. 2 & 6; 1971 Synod of Bishops, De Sacerdotio Ministeriali, 1,4;
Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 20 November, 1947, AAS 39 (1947) p.556: and in note 22:
Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 3 September, 1965, AAS 57 (1965) p.761].
For a full discussion of this, see my doctoral dissertation, Contemporary Approaches to the
Ordained Priestly Ministry in Theology and the Magisterium. A Study of Selected Writings of
Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J., Hervé-Marie Legrand, O.P., and Edward H. Schillebeeckx, O.P.,
in the Light of the Second Vatican Council and Subsequent Magisterium, vol 1-3, Rome :
Gregorian University, 1983.
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apostolic succession, that the priest relates first to Christ, Head of the Church, in
whose person he is enabled to act. Through that relationship, and because of it, he is
also able to act in persona Ecclesiae. His presiding over the Church is a consequence
of his sacramental relationship to Christ. He relates to the Church because he relates
first to Christ, head, shepherd and spouse of the Church. John Paul II, in his PostSynodal Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis, On the Formation of Priests in the
Circumstances of the Present Day, 25 March, 1992, speaks emphatically about the
priority of the priest’s relationship to Christ, a relationship that defines and controls
all other relationships, including his relationship to the Church. His “fundamental
relationship” is with Christ, the Head, Shepherd and Spouse of the Church:
Reference to the Church is therefore necessary, even if not primary, in
defining the identity of the priest. As a mystery, the Church is essentially
related to Jesus Christ. She is his fullness, his body, his spouse. She is the
“sign” and his living “memorial” of his permanent presence and activity in our
midst and on our behalf. The priest finds the full truth of his identity in being a
derivation, a specific participation in and continuation of Christ himself, the
one high priest of the new and eternal covenant. The priest is a living and
transparent image of Christ the priest. The priesthood of Christ, the expression
of the absolute “newness” in salvation history, constitutes the one source and
essential model of the priesthood shared by all Christians and by the priest in
particular. Reference to Christ is thus the absolutely necessary key for
understanding the reality of priesthood.6
And again:
In the Church and on behalf of the Church, priests are a sacramental
representation of Jesus Christ – the head and shepherd – authoritatively
proclaiming his word, repeating his acts of forgiveness and his offer of
salvation – particularly in baptism, penance and the Eucharist, showing
Christ’s loving concern to the point of a total gift of self for the flock, which
they gather into unity and lead to the Father through Christ and in the Holy
Spirit.7
The priest’s relationship to Christ is immediate. It arises from a special
sacramental configuration to Christ, the Church’s head and husband. The relationship
is sacramental. It is sacramental in its origins because there is a specific sacrament
which a priest, presbyter or bishop, receives.8 It orders and structures the whole
6
JOHN PAUL II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Post-Synodal Exhortation on the Formation of
Priests in Circumstances of the Present Day, 25 March, 1992, English version, Boston, MA:
St. Pauls Books & Media, 1992, hereafter PDV, no.12, and heading of no.13, p.28.
7
8
PDV no.15, pp.31-32.
The issue of the deacon theologically is interesting. Although he receives the sacrament of
orders, diaconal ordination does not bestow the ordained sacerdotium. Instead, the res et
sacramentum of deaconship is an ordained ministerium. “... non ad sacerdotium, sed ad
ministerium” manus imponuntur. See LG no.29. This “ordained ministry” gifts the Church
with an ecclesial order in which Christ’s headship as “Servant” is sacramentally signed and so
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Church so that, ex opere operato, the Church is in the apostolic succession and is
enabled in historical truth to claim Christ as her Origin and Lord, and so to be fully
“apostolic.” It is sacramental in its exercise because the priest sacramentally is
identified with Christ, the Church’s head and husband. Sacramentally, as he acts, the
priest, bishop or presbyter, makes Christ, his priesthood and his sacrifice, present to
the Church as its worship and its healing: “And now, I absolve you from your sins” –
“This is my body, given up for you” – “My blood of the new and eternal covenant,
shed for you and for all.” It is sacramental in its purposes. Especially, through the
Eucharist, the exercise of ministerial priesthood is constitutive of the Church. It
“makes” the Church. Once more, we repeat de Lubac’s celebrated phrase: “The
Church makes the Eucharist, but the Eucharist makes the Church.”9 Clearly, then, the
ordained priest relates to Christ, and through Christ relates to the Church. But what is
Christ’s relationship to the Church?
Evidently, Christ is head of the Church and the source of its unity [Eph 4,16;
Col 1,18]. The Church’s unity is derived. It comes from her relationship to Christ. The
Church is one because she has a relationship to Christ. But what defines the unity?
What defines the relationship between Christ and the Church?10
There is an extremely close, living, and life-giving unity between Christ and
the Church. The union between them is expressed by the Pauline imagery of “body.”
This union is more than the extrinsic relationship established between members of a
purely moral body like that of a household, city, state or nation. There, unity is
established by a common goal and the use of commonly accepted and shared means to
attain that goal, the “common good.” By contrast, the unity of Christ's body is more
than this. To begin with, it is not natural but supernatural. Christ, the Church’s head,
constantly “missions,” sends by a living breath, the Holy Spirit. to forge the Church’s
unity. “By communicating his Spirit, Jesus calls his brothers and sisters together from
every nation, and ‘mystically’ makes them his body”:
Ut autem in Illo incessanter renovemur [cf. Eph 4,23], dedit nobis de
Spiritu suo, qui unus et idem in Capite et in membris existens, totum
made operative and present in the Church. Through the deacon, Christ, the Servant, exercises
his headship in teaching and pastoral care, especially through works of administration and
practical charity, but within the defining context of eucharistic service. As for priesthood, the
deacon shares with lay people the priesthood conferred by baptism-chrismation. In this, he
shares something that deeply characterises the order of lay Christians. But he does not share
in the ministerial sacerdotium, which holy orders bestows only on presbyters and bishops.
Because of this, the deacon’s ministry is distinct from theirs. However, a deacon is also
distinct from the laity. His specific ministry, sacramentally given in holy orders, enables a
deacon to “serve” the Church in persona Christi Capitis, as teacher, pastoral guide and
minister of practical charity. On this, see MANFRED HAUKE, “Il Diaconato Femminile:
Osservazioni sul Recente Dibattito,” Notitiae 418, 37/5 (2001) 195-239.
9
HENRI DE LUBAC, S.J., The Splendour of the Church, tr. Michael Masson, Glen Rock,
N.J.: Deus Books, Paulist Press, 1956, p.77, but here, wrongly, the English translates faire by
“produce.” See my, The Church: A Holy Communion in the Lord, p.9.
10
The Church: A Holy Communion in the Lord, pp.145-150.
8
corpus ita vivificat, unificat et movet, ut Eius officium a sanctis
Patribus comparari potuerit cum munere, quod principium vitae seu
animm in corpore humano adimplet.
That we may be constantly renewed in Him [see Eph 4,23], [Christ]
gives us a share of his Spirit. He exists, one and the same in Head and
members. He gives life to the whole body. He unifies and moves it in a
way the Fathers have compared to the principle of life, the soul. What
the soul does in the human being, the Spirit does in the Church.11
All the same, we need to avoid exaggerations in the opposite direction. If the
unity of the Church is not “moral” neither is it “organic.” If it were then the Church
would be indistinguishable from Christ. It would have no personhood of its own, nor
would we. Everything would be swallowed up in Christ's personhood. Equivalently,
the Church's union with Christ would be “hypostatic” The Church, like Christ, would
form one “divine person.” The Church would be divine. Through Pius XII’s Mystici
Corporis, 1943, the magisterium warns against “organicist” exaggerations12 But,
being more more than the unity of a moral body, there is some analogy between the
unity of a “living body” and the “unity of the Church.” Like a physical body, the
Church’s principle of unity is intrinsic and not like that of a moral body merely
extrinsic. It is supernatural, but it is not hypostatic. The Church is not personally the
same as Christ. Rather, it is one with Christ in the common grace of the Holy Spirit.
This comes to the Church from Christ, the head. The Church is “Christ’s body” in the
pneumatological order. 13 It is “one body” – mia sarx – “one flesh.” It is one, visible,
11
LG no.7.
12
See DS 3809-3811.
13
We need to reflect on the implications of these words from LG no.7:
In corpore illo vita Christi in credentes diffunditur, qui Christo passo atque
glorificato, per sacramenta arcano ac reali modo uniuntur.
In that body [Church], the life of Christ is poured down onto believers. Through the
sacraments, in a hidden but real way, they are united to Christ, who has suffered and
is glorified.
The text cites THOMAS AQUINAS, Sum Theol, III, Q.62, art 5 ad 1. And the issue is not
merely an effective agency. Exemplarity is also at work. Sacramentally, morally, ascetically
and spiritually, we are to be "conformed to Christ":
Omnia membra Ei conformari oportet, donec Christus formetur in eis [cf. Gal 4,19].
Quapropter in vitae Eius mysteria adsumimur, cum Eo configurati, commortui et
conresuscitati, donec cum Eo conregnemus [cf. Phil 3,21; 2 Tim 2,11; Eph 2,6; Col
2,12 etc.]. In terris adhuc peregrinantes, Eiusque vestigia in tribulatione et
persecutione prementes, Eius passionibus tamquam corpus Capiti consociamur, Ei
compatientes, ut cum Eo conglorificemur [cf. Rom 8,17].
All members are to be conformed to him, until Christ is formed in them [see Gal
4,19]. Therefore, we are taken up into the mysteries of his life. We are configured to
him, we die with him, we are raised with him until we reign with him [see Phil 3,21;
9
historical, and grounded in the mission of the Spirit. It belongs to the realm of
sacrament.14 It is also nuptial and covenantal. It results from Christ and the Church
becoming “two in one flesh,” principally through the Church’s worship, the
eucharistic sacrifice. Through the Eucharist and the grace of the Holy Spirit, Christ,
effectively – ex opere operato - is glorified as Lord of the Church and of Lord of
History. He is so through his body and his blood, offered in sacrifice and the source
of the Spirit for the Church. With the Church, Christ is one as a husband is one with
his bride. Baptism is the primordial entry into ecclesial union with Christ's glorified
body.15 The Eucharist constitutes that union.16 The Church’s eucharistic worship
creates, seals, maintains, and increases the Church’s unity because that is the
Eucharist’s “reality,” its res sacramenti – “the Eucharist makes the Church.” In that
context, Holy Order structures and unifies the whole Church. It centres it about the
Eucharist.
Holy Order sacramentalises for the Church and so makes symbolically
visible and effective within it, Christ’s own relationship of headship. But the
relationship is not a merely moral headship like the head of a business corporation.
Nor is it, strictly “organic,” like the relationship of my head to my toe. The
relationship is free and so covenantal. Under grace, we freely respond to the offer of
salvation. The Gospel is the “Good News” we freely choose to listen to and freely
decide to act upon. Forged in the history of Israel, both New and Old, yet climatically
at the moment of the Cross of Passover, the relationship is historical. It makes Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews and the Lord of History. Again, fulfilling the
relationship that God had to his People in the Old Testament, it is a covenantal
relationship which is nuptial, marital and one. Christ’s relationship to the Church is
2 Tim 2,11; Eph 2,6; Col 2,12 etc.]. While on earth as pilgrims, we follow his
footsteps closely in tribulation and persecution. We are made co-sharers in his
sufferings, like a body to its Head, so that we may be glorified with him [see Rom
8,17].
14
The invisible mission of the Holy Spirit supposes, and, in fact, builds on the visible,
"sacramental" mission of the Son. As we continually point out: "The Father sends the Son to
give the Spirit," and the consequence of both those trinitarian missions is the Church.
15
See LG no.7:
Through baptism, then, we are conformed to Christ: “For in one Spirit, we are all
baptised into one body”[1 Cor 12,13]. By this holy rite, a union - consociatio - with
the death and resurrection of Christ is represented and brought about: “For as we have
been planted together with him in the likeness of his death, so shall also we be in the
likeness of his resurrection” [Rom 6,4-5].
16
Ibid.
In the breaking of the eucharistic bread we really participate in the body of the Lord.
We are raised up to a communion with him and with each other. "Because there is
one bread, we, who are many, are one body because we all share the one bread" [1
Cor 10,17]. And so, we are all made members of that body [see 1 Cor 12,27], "each
of us, members of one another" [Rom 12,5
10
his marital headship of it. He is the Church’s only husband, faithful until death. And
the Church is his only Wife, by grace, faithful beyond death in the saints and in Mary.
One husband, one wife: in the unity of their eucharistic flesh, we, all of us are one in
Him. For this reason, the Church of East and West has from the beginning insisted on
a continent clergy. Only as continent can they appropriate symbolise the great
mystery of the unity between Christ and the Church, the one husband and the one
wife, where the “two who have become one flesh” [Eph 5,31-32. From the beginning
until now, Churches of East and West through their identical discipline of a totally
celibate episcopate bear witness to it. The Church’s visible head represents
sacramentally Christ, the one husband, related to the Church, his one wife. The Latin
Church with its discipline of totally celibate presbyters bears witness to this as do the
Eastern Orthodox Churches who require of their ordained the lesser discipline of
periodic continence. Of this John Paul writes in the Post-Synodal Exhortation,
Pastores Dabo Vobis:
The priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ, the Spouse of the
Church. ... in virtue of his configuration to Christ, the Head and Shepherd, the
priest stands in this spousal relationship with regard to the community.
Inasmuch as he represents Christ, the Head, Shepherd and Spouse of the
Church, the priest is placed not only in the Church but also in the forefront of
the Church – erga Ecclesiam.17
The will of the Church [concerning priestly celibacy] finds its ultimate
motivation in the link between celibacy and sacred ordination, which
configures the priest to Jesus Christ, the Head and Spouse of the Church. The
Church as the Spouse of Jesus Christ wishes to be loved by the priest in the
total and exclusive manner in which Jesus Christ her Head and Spouse loved
her.18
PW/Min16/22.II.2000.
PDV no.22, p.43. Cited by IGNACE DE LA POTTERIE, S.J., “The Biblical Foundations
of Priestly Celibacy,” p.27.
17
18
PDV no.29, p.56. Again cited by DE LA POTTERIE, ibid.
11