Catholic Diocese Of Oyo at Jubilee House, P. O. Box 1480, Oyo, Oyo 10002 NG - CELIBACY IS INHUMAN

To say that Celibacy is inhuman will actually confirm the word of St. Paul that it is the teaching of the demons.  If that were the case, St. Paul himself will be one of those demons and make God the first Demon.  That becomes a serious problem!  It will be better for them therefore to say Celibacy is not Human other than Inhuman. This is because GOD Himself is the First Celibate: He has no wife and He is never with a Woman.  And this is why the Muslims will denounce the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Since the beginning of the World, God has ever remained Celibate and all his Archangels and Angels Celibate.  Therefore, in creating man in his own image and likeness, God created Adam Celibate (Gen. 2:7) – God put the man He had created and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard and keep it (Gen. 2:15) – God made him the master of all that He created (Gen. 1:29-30).  But then came a problem, Adam was lonely.  He had everything to himself but none like him.  Every other thing was created male and female but not man.  When God saw that Adam was becoming very lonely and probably depressed – not happy, God said it is not good for Adam to be Celibate.  Why? Simply because, Man is not a Spirit like God and the Angels – he was made from the DUST (FLESH) and gave him His Spirit Gen. 2:7.  In a way then, one can say that the Flesh made it very difficult for Adam to be celibate.  To solve this problem of Adam, God formed a Woman from Adam.  Seeing this, Adam’s loneliness disappeared, he became very happy and out of joy he exclaimed “This at last is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…”(Gen 2:23) but not the spirit from my spirit. For this reason “a man shall leave his father and mother and shall become united and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) but not one spirit. – So institution of MARRIAGE was the solution to Adam’s problem of CELIBACY.  From that time – being blessed by God to multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28) – there was nothing like CELIBACY. 

But then, in human history, men out of their wickedness, returned to the practice of Celibacy.  This they do by castrating the slaves who work in the Kings’ Palaces – most especially those who work in the presence of the Queens.  Not only that they were made incapable of sleeping with or making any attempt to rape the queen, they were equally denied of any form of union with a woman or to take part in the process of reproduction.  This, one can call INHUMAN.  For example, these people were then referred to as EUNUCHS (2Kg. 20:18; Is. 56:3-5; Acts. 8: 27).  Apart from this practice of castration, some people were born incapable of marriage – just because they were born impotent.

But it is surprising that the very solution to Adam’s problem of Celibacy, in itself became a problem.  People are marrying and yet many are not happy with their marriages and not only that many are not faithful to their marriages.  There comes the problem of sexual immorality at different levels.  Is it incest, adultery, fornication, masturbation, homosexualism, lesbianism, beastialism – mention it – even as far as in the Old Testament era.  You can read Lev. 18: 6 - 24).  To crown it all, people started to divorce their wives or their husbands. This is against the intention of God who is a Living Witness at every union contracted.  Thus the Lord God said in Malachi 2:16 “I hate Divorce”.  Among the people of Israel, this issue of Divorce became a very disturbing problem that in the Mind of God as expressed by Jesus Christ, “whoever divorces his wife (or husband) except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matt. 19: 9).  And at that time, the only solution the Apostles could think of was CELIBACY.  MARRIAGE WAS A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF CELIBACY AND CELIBACY THE SOLUTION TO MARRIAGE PROBLEMS. The disciples of Jesus said to him, “if the case of a man with his wife is like this, it is neither profitable nor advisable to marry”(Matt. 19:10).

That is a hard suggestion or proposal, isn’t it?  I think it is and Jesus Christ himself understood that it is a hard saying.  But then, he had to teach them and I want us to learn together from his teaching about this complexity in Matt.19: 11-12

1.       Jesus admitted that Celibacy is a hard thing – Not everyone can accept it.: - That is the truth – there are good thoughts and ideas as well as evil thoughts and idea – whichever it is, all men cannot accept it.  To whatever idea you have, you will always have a supporter.  So, for Jesus in that passage – it is a perfect idea – why? He too is CELIBATE – and that makes him committed to His Father’s Work undistracted. But then, he recognized that no two persons are the same. And no two persons feel the same way about the same thing.

2.       Jesus recognized that being Celibate is not Natural but a Special Gift from God Himself – so he replied his disciples saying, “it is not everyone who can accept this except for those to whom it has been given”.  Who are these – the priests?  Definitely not!  To those who owe their birth neither to bloods nor to the will of the flesh nor to the will of man but to God; those who are worthy of the name – Children of God (Jn. 1: 12- 13), the Children of the Kingdom of God - those who live not in the flesh but in the Spirit (cf. Jn. 3: 3-8).

3.       Jesus Christ continues to say that Celibacy is not a new thing or a new way of life and there is nothing special about it at least “there are eunuchs (celibates) who have been born incapable of marriage (impotents, morons, insane); and there are eunuchs who have been made so by men (slaves, punished by castration) …” But then, “there are those who have made themselves incapable of marriage” not for any other reason but “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven” (CF. Is. 56: 3-5)- that is what makes the difference: they are naturally and biologically capable but refused to, so that they may have time to always be with the Lord and always in Union with God who himself is Celibate.  This is why St. Paul said “the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord – how he may please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly matters – how he may please his wife and he is drawn in diverging directions…”(1Cor. 7:32-34)

4.       Even though born in the Spirit, Jesus Christ respects human free will.  It is not compulsory for anyone – for if all remain celibate and no reproduction, how would we fulfill the blessing of multiplication or reproduction?  Jesus Christ therefore added, “Let he who can accept this accept it”.  In other words, it is not by force or compulsion – if you are married, you have not sinned and if you are celibate, you have not sinned either.  Sin is upon you only if you are not faithful to the life you have chosen by yourself .

That is the teaching of Jesus Christ when his disciples proposed Celibacy as a solution to the marriage problem of divorce.  However, it is noteworthy that the early Christian did live celibate life.  In Corinth for example, there were many Christian brothers and sisters without wives or husbands.  But then as Christian brothers and sisters, it is a shame to hear that some of them were unfaithful to this practice they have chosen by themselves that it became a big problem among the community in Corinth so they wrote to St. Paul to come and address this issue of Celibacy.  In fact, for the Corinthian Community, Celibacy should be forgotten or cancelled and everyone to get married.  You see again, marriage as the solution to the problem of unfaithfulness in the practice of celibacy.  St. Paul in response to this wrote, “Now as to the matter of which you wrote me.  It is well (and by that I mean advantageous, expedient, profitable, and wholesome) for a man not to touch a woman (to cohabit with her) but to remain unmarried.  But because of the temptation to impurity and to avoid immorality, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband”(1Cor. 7:1-2). And that summarizes it all.  You can read the whole passage to discover the whole teaching of St. Paul about this.

Soon, it became the tradition of the Church that if you must be a priest, you must be celibate so that you will have a whole time to serve God and His people.  This did not come to play until the third Century.  You can imagine the first Pope with a Wife (Peter had a wife – cf. Matt. 8:14ff) and some of the apostles too have their own wives.  St. Paul however did not have a wife.  Since then till this present time, Celibacy has been facing different form of trials- and the threat that this or that Pope will change the law has been of age.  Now and then you hear about different state of abuses – priests having sexual relation with nuns, nuns and abortion, priests and sexual harassment, priests with a son or a daughter or children, priests getting married, priests sexually harassing the minor etc.  Celibacy should not be blamed for all these abnormalities. Why?  This is because they are part of human problems.  Married people are found with children outside their matrimonial homes, young boys and girls fornicate, they are involved in abortion, the married commit adultery, they are involved in incest, they are homosexuals and lesbians, they are involved in rapes, abduction, mention it!  In fact you find it among protestant and non-denominational ministers.  Why are people not faithful to their choice of life?  That is the question.

It is good to know that in our world today there are some men and women who because of the problem of divorce and alarming rate of single parenthood with their effects on the innocent children (minors), decided not to marry – to remain CELIBATE.  These are not priests or religious men or women but simple men and women.  But can they say that they are no longer sexual.  Many eventually turn out to be homosexuals or lesbians and for those who are not, masturbators.  So the problem is not whether you are Celibate or not, it is the problem of Sex.

I don’t intend to discuss Sex in this article – but just to show that Celibacy or no Celibacy, there is a problem people fail to solve – and that is the problem of SEX.  Man is a Sexual Being or say Man is sexual and that is his nature.  One must know that before anyone is a priest, he is first a human person – a sexual being – and his ordination will never change his person or humanness.  Like any other person, he is subject to temptation and as such subject to fall.  His fall does not make him less-priest yet his fall is a grave sin.  That is why he needs the prayer of his community to sustain him and to make him a good example worthy of emulation.    This in no way is an excuse for sexual harassment.  I think it is time to begin to see any priest or religious man or woman or any member of the laity or any person at all, involved in such act as not normal.  The person is sick and needs to be treated. There is a psychological disorder somewhere.  Just like a priest who sees Celibacy as a punishment or an imposition – he is equally sick – why?  He surely knows that priests are celibates before he chose to be one – celibacy should not be his problem.  He – the Priest – must also know that PRIESTLY CELIBACY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM HOLINESS AND CHASTITY; IT IS NOT JUST NOT TO MARRY BUT ALSO NOT HAVE SEX.  You are free to have Sexual Desire but it is a SIN to carry them out.  Let your priesthood be wrapped up in the SPIRIT of HIM who CALLED YOU - He who keeps telling you that MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU – 2Cor 12:9 – CELIBACY FOR YOU IS NEVER INHUMAN BUT A SPECIAL GRACE OF GOD.