This special gift
Like Andrew Hamilton (Summa theologiae, September–October 2005) I am reluctant to be the fool who rushes in, especially as his column is the first thing I read in each issue, and I am conscious also of Henry Beard’s warning, Et casu Latine loqui cum sodale societatis Jesu ne umquam conaris (May you never try out your Latin [or anything else] on a Jesuit).
Like Hamilton, I have some questions to ask of Jan Anderson’s report of her research in her book Priests in Love. They are centred on the theme of justice. I am deeply sympathetic to the plight of those men who, in good faith, answered a call to ministry and find themselves unable to meet the celibacy conditions. Sometimes this is the result of some very unenlightened training processes in days gone by and lost opportunities to begin the development of a mature personality, or of heavy demands made and not supported. I am conscious, too, of how easy it is to practise self-deception in these circumstances. In particular, I am conscious that the partners of the priests in this study are vulnerable because of the inequality of their positions and the impossibility of public recognition.
While Anderson and her interviewees address these issues and she accepts that the committed relationships are responsible, I believe the issues must remain relevant. The thrust of her argument, it seems to me, is that these priests and their partners do not simply see themselves as victims in a sad tale, as Hamilton puts it. They have taken responsibility to maintain their commitment to ministry and also to follow a path to becoming authentically human; in other words, to find a solution to the problem. (It is difficult to consider these untested ideas without resorting to cliché.)
Hamilton makes it clear from the beginning that he is responding to an argument about compulsory celibacy for Catholic priests. Anderson and her interviewees also make it clear that the gift of celibacy can and has been a source of grace for the Church over its history, although they also make the point, I believe, that the two calls, to ministry and to celibacy, are not necessarily tied together. They also draw on the human history of the Church to suggest that compulsory celibacy has a non-graced story as well.
Hamilton is correct to point to the deep earthing of clerical celibacy in Catholic history. I believe