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Venezuelan cardinal to priests: protect the treasure of celibacy
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During an ordination Mass for two priests and a deacon on Aug. 18, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas, Venezuela urged priests to value and protect the gift of celibacy given by Christ.
“It is essential that, like Jesus, we fully live out our love for the Father and for humanity,” Cardinal Urosa said.
“In this way, we can understand and live our consecration to the Lord and to the Church in priestly celibacy, which is a treasure we have received from the Lord himself, with joy, fidelity and abundant fruit.”
During the Mass at the Basilica of St. Theresa, the Venezuelan cardinal noted that celibacy is a gift to “show to the world that ‘God is love’ and that love for God is more sublime and fulfilling than any other kind of love.”
In this sense, he recalled, the “path to happiness is not spiritual tepidness or greed or lust, but rather love of God and neighbor.”
“In the document on the ministry and life of the priest, the Second Vatican Council teaches us that pastoral charity is precisely the unifying element of all the tasks that we are to carry out in the diverse ministries entrusted to us,” Cardinal Urosa said.
“It is essential that people see us as men full of the fire of God’s love and who consecrate ourselves in service to him for love of God and love of neighbor.”
Priests are cooperators with their bishops, he noted, and they are called to nourish themselves continually with the word of God and the Eucharist in order to be good shepherds who guide the faithful towards happiness amidst the difficulties of life. [More]
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6 Comments
If we look at history, the early church, both East and West, priests were married. The celibacy law came into the Western church law in the middle ages over realistate. The institutional church wanted the property of the clergy not left to the the wife and children of the clergy. In Europe the Eastern-Catholic clergy marry. Are they less priests because they are married? By the way, they are not allowed into the united states or Canada because the celebrate clergy will flip out. They were all sent back to europe in the 1920s. The orthodox clergy marry. Very few men are entering into the priesthood, but many men are becoming married deacons as they are clergy, can administer many sacraments, preach and really have the best of two world.
Florian,
do you have something you want to tell us?
We live in an age where the majority of priests, and their bishops, are in fact non-celibate. And the pope protects them all. Human nature being what it is, enforcing the Law of celibacy availeth not. What we desperately need to protect is the treasure of human sexuality, a mission which confused celibates simply can’t handle.
None of us are just human; at baptism we have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. CCC1265
RC — while Jesus was 100% God, He also was 100% human — an impossibility, of course, but that is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, calling this reality the hypostatic union. So, Jesus was FULLY man — He didn’t have His divine nature to assist him in his battle with sexual temptation. Only by HIS grace can a priest be celibate; but, by His grace he can indeed be so.
Jesus led a celibate life because he was divinely born to a uniquely special mission – to save man from his sins; the ordained men who have come after him hardly fit into that same category. They are not divine; they are human, and thus should be allowed to marry and come back to work in the church as pastors we need.