Archbishop Aguer: Celibacy is not the reason why we’re suffering a lack of priestly vocations

Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a multi-part series addressing the decline in the number of Catholic priests and seminarians worldwide. Click here if you missed Part 1.

(LifeSiteNews) — One of the most damaging achievements of the so-called “spirit of the Council” has been the denigration of the Church. Forgetting the profession of faith that proclaims her to be holy, it sought to blame her for the division of mankind. Such holiness is not only reflected subjectively in the holiness of so many of her members, but it also shines objectively because she is the Body of which Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the Head, because she possesses in an infallible and indefectible way the revealed truth and the Eucharist, that is, the Most Holy and source of all holiness, which is communicated in the other sacraments as well.

The deviations of those years rejected the absolute character of Christian truth. Pluralistic ideology ignored the words of Our Lord that “he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Mt. 12:30). The attack on Christian truth, which the Church possesses as a grace and communicates with love, is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (cf. Mt. 12:31 ff.).

The “spirit of the Council” implied that any priest who invoked it could do whatever he wanted, e.g. in the liturgy. Not only individual bishops but entire episcopal conferences were allowed to disagree with Rome, as had happened in the case of Humanae vitae. Texts of “neo-Catholic” theologians – to give them a name – circulated in the seminaries and among the faculties of theology, leading to great damage that can be statistically proven: thousands of priests all over the world abandoning the ministry. A situation analogous to that of the first years of the 20th century took place in sinu gremioque Ecclesiae, in the depths of ecclesial life, which St. Pius X described and condemned in Pascendi dominici gregis, a encyclical against the movement of Modernism.

The progressivism of the years of Vatican II, whose repercussions continue to endure, has the same roots. Bishop Gijsen of Roermond, a man who remained faithful, pointed out that the Church in the Netherlands was distinct from the Roman Church – in other words, there were different “types” of Catholicism. Paul VI spoke of the self-demolition of the Church, the House of God into which the smoke of Satan had entered, and of the harsh winter that came instead of the expected spring. The dogmatic, moral, liturgical, and spiritual crisis has become a permanent state. It is no longer a krisis; it is more appropriate to call it a decay. We do not need to invoke the “spirit of the Council” nowadays; there is no need to do so. However, some are advocating “another” revolution in the Church, suggesting that the work of Vatican II was already a revolution. I cannot evaluate this suggestion as anything other than criminal folly. Will we now begin to speak of the “spirit of synodality”?

Some sectors propose giving the Church a “polyhedral” identity to accommodate diverse expressions, i.e., alternatives to Catholic unity and its demands. This pretense makes a political movement of the Catholic Church, just like the Peronist movement that has endured for 80 years in Argentine politics, and whose current president seems to be the Roman Pontiff.

Several authors sounded the alarm a year after the conclusion of the Council. Among them was Jacques Maritain (the “last” Maritain, who returned from some of his previous stances) in the magnificent book The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time. Myths return periodically and take on new value along with other formulations. This is how the Church in our days should shudder with joy to be “on the move,” be the protagonist of the “culture of encounter,” and to place herself on an equal footing with other religions to promote “universal fraternity,” even if, as I have already mentioned, “the spirit of the Council” is no longer mentioned. These fallacious, mythologized slogans conceal the opposite and spread confusion among the faithful.

What should seminarians learn?

In a basic sense, candidates for the priesthood should prepare themselves to live in familiarity with the Triune God and forge a special friendship with Jesus, to whom they will one day be conformed in the priesthood. It is a matter of living secundum formam Evangelii, according to the form of the Gospel. Let us think about the meaning of “form” in terms of hylomorphic theory: the notion indicates the soul; to be grounded in faith, hope, and charity to attain the spirit of prayer, the vigor of the other virtues, the zeal to win all men for Christ, and, of course, to venerate with filial trust the Blessed Virgin, whom the Lord has left us as our Mother. Spiritual formation entails an ambition of totality; nothing must be left half-finished. The total exercise of love extends from Christ to the Church, which is inseparable from Him. As St. Augustine teaches in his Commentary on the Gospel of John: “one possesses the Holy Spirit to the extent that one loves the Church of Christ” (Tractatus XXXII.8).

What also applies here is growth in a fuller maturity associated with the mastery of body and spirit, and as a consequence the perception and enjoyment of the Evangelii beatitudinem – the happiness or joy the Gospel provides. The priest must be a full man, a master of himself. Self-control and maturity are equivalent to stability of mind under the rule of charity, a tempering of character which will enable the correct use of freedom and a sincere, unreserved pastoral experience.

It is important to point out that the concepts of maturity should not be restricted to the psychological dimension alone. Certainly this must be assured, with the help of professional recourse when necessary, but here we are dealing above all with a spiritual realization of the person, of the natural and supernatural order, which includes intelligence, affectivity, will, and the healing dynamism of grace. Who fully reaches this maturity? I think the saints do. The rest of us – at least I myself – are moving toward this goal, at times painstakingly, climbing the hill and advancing gradually. The joy that is proper to hope alleviates fatigue (from which no one is spared) and sustains us in moments of discouragement.

I have known young people who matured at an early age, as well as old people who were fools. The psychologistic reduction of the concept of maturity, which is stripped of a natural and supernatural breadth proper to Christian anthropology, was and still is very frequent. Maturity invites us to think about freedom: the sign of authentic maturity is a healthy and prudent exercise of freedom. The seminary must be a place of formation in freedom and for freedom.

Ddiscipline – external order – is indispensable in the seminary, but it must become an internal aptitude, an inner conviction to embrace order for supernatural reasons. Discipline should not be dispensed with – as was done in many places in the crazy postconciliar years – since it is a necessary instrument. It is the art, method, and rule of the disciple’s life, but care must be taken not to reduce it to mere external, pharisaical observance. Today in some places it is abused by despotic progressive superiors to silence or crush the spontaneous inclination of numerous seminarians to live in accord with the great ecclesial Tradition. They may end up expelled, or having their ordinations canceled or postponed indefinitely, for “being structured and rigid,” “not fitting the profile,” or “not being sufficiently pastoral.” These are untenable arguments that only speak of ideology, pure and simple.

Right now it is fashionable to wax lyrically about joy, but very little is said about the Cross, penance, and mortification – or rather, there is no talk about them at all. The contagion of “successism” makes us forget the demands of the Gospel, when in reality it is only through acceptance of the Gospel that we can attain the beatitude it offers. Many want a Christ without the Cross. This is not the first time in Church history that people have exploited this distortion of the truth about the Christian life, which expressly contradicts what St. Paul teaches in his letters and what the lives of the saints testify to. In some cases the old heresies of Gnosticism and Messalianism are reemerging.

Celibacy and chastity

Through the gift of celibacy, which is at the same time a continuous task, the priest gives to the Lord an undivided heart to love everyone as He loves them. It is necessary to ask for it humbly and always. Those responsible for formation should not be silent about the difficulties the candidates will have to face, but they also should not focus almost exclusively on the dangers. The renunciation of marriage is done for a greater love, and with a view to the kingdom of heaven. According to the conciliar documents, there are risks that threaten the priest’s chastity “especially in today’s society.” This was said 60 years ago! What would we have to warn today, after decades of “sexual revolution,” about a society that so shamelessly displays, through popular individuals, its taste for fornication and even for what is completely unnatural?

The question of celibacy is taken up in Presbyterorum ordinis. In n. 16 we find a very eloquent expression of the value and excellence of celibacy through the use of five comparatives: facilius, liberius, expeditius, aptiore, latius – four adverbs, one adjective. Celibacy is embraced to unite oneself more easily to Christ without competition; to dedicate oneself more readily to the service of God and of men, because one gives oneself more freely to the Lord; and to be more suitable to receive a broader paternity in Christ.

If this argument was not necessary in the context of a culture strongly marked by Christianity, despite the fact that there was no shortage of deviations and sins, it has now become necessary to strengthen convictions, overcome doubts, and respond to criticism. The theological reasons for priestly celibacy refer to the profound unity between the mission of the priest and the mission of Christ: to raise up a new humanity through the work of the Spirit and to give life to the universal family of God’s children, born not of flesh and blood but of the divine Spirit (cf. Jn. 1:13).

Lately there has been a new onslaught against what Pius XI called the “most precious treasure of the Catholic priesthood” (Ad catholici sacerdotii, n. 34). Now we see the mistaken purpose of ordaining married men to the priesthood, i.e., the viri probati, as an illusory solution to alleviate the absence of vocations in many places. It masks the lack of faith and serves as an expression of the ruin caused by the stubbornness of progressivism. One recent case is that of the German “Synodal Way,” as well as the numerous voices of the “Synod on Synodality.” Although these issues are of a different magnitude, allow me to point out the parallelism between the rejection of the celibacy of clergy and of Church doctrine on birth control. Progressivism also relativizes all the truths of the faith in general.

As the encyclical Sacerdotalis caelibatus teaches, a candidate for the priesthood “should be directed to help him acquire a tranquil, convinced and free choice” of the responsibility he is about to assume. Unfortunately people do not believe in the celibacy of priests, much less now in our hypersexualized culture.

In Sacerdotalis caelibatus we read:

None of the real personal and social difficulties which their choice will bring in its train should remain hidden to the young men, so that their enthusiasm will not be superficial and illusory. At the same time it will be right to highlight with at least equal truth and clarity the sublimity of their choice, which, though it may lead on the one hand to a certain physical and psychic void, nevertheless on the other brings with it an interior richness capable of elevating the person most profoundly. (n. 69)

This is a beautiful paragraph of supernatural – of Catholic – realism. The correct approach to the question of priestly celibacy requires a broader context: the vindication of the fully human value and beauty of the virtue of chastity, protected by the Sixth Commandment (“thou shalt not commit adultery”), assumed by the Gospel message, and clarified by the apostolic writings of the New Testament. The current tendency in many Church environments is to silence the Ten Commandments – so well expounded in the Catechism of the Catholic Church – especially to ignore the Sixth in both pastoral and catechetical praxis. It is unpleasant to remember that commandment in a society that has naturalized debauchery.

In recent years the case of priests guilty of the abominable crime of sexually abusing minors has given rise to new attacks against celibacy. The media is trying to generalize this behavior among clergy, but statistics show that in the vast majority of cases – more or less 80 percent – this perversion is recorded in family environments. Another problem not addressed is the spread of homosexuality among the clergy of some dioceses, with the aggravating circumstance that such people are linked to each other, and the consequences are easy to foresee. With all respect and delicacy, young men should be removed from the path to priesthood if one can see in them an undeniable impediment. Celibacy requires a full masculinity to freely renounce the beauty and richness of Christian marriage.

I have already spoken of another attack, indirect this time, against the value of celibacy: the insistence on sponsoring the ordination of married men, the viri probati, for ideological, pseudo-theological, or pragmatic reasons, such as the scarcity of vocations. There is another reason for this shortage: the already-indicated lack of appreciation for chastity. This problem extends to the family order, to the neglect of instilling conjugal chastity among Christian spouses. Martin Luther, wherever he is, will be rubbing his hands together.

In agitating for the need or opportunity to consecrate married men as priests on the basis of a presumed tradition of the primitive Church, one very important dimension of the original situation is often omitted, either through ignorance or ideological manipulation. The apostles left everything to follow Jesus; it is not reasonable to think that those who were married took their wives with them. The apostolic tradition indicates that married men who assumed the priestly ministry lived in continence, even when they lived with their wives under the same roof. This tradition acquired a canonical character in the councils of the early fourth century, beginning with that of Elvira, celebrated between the years 300 and 303, exact date uncertain. Canon 33 prescribed that bishops, priests, and deacons, or all clerics assumed in the ministry, should abstain from their spouses and the begetting of children. Whoever did not do so should be deprived of the honor of the clergy (cf. Denzinger, 119).

I have gone to great lengths to deal with this particular question because it reveals the most serious problem of the Church today: the ruin and loss of faith, only to be replaced by immanentist postures and social action. This calamity totally contradicts the mission the Risen Lord entrusted to the apostles, as we read in the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel and the appendix of Mark’s Gospel. It is surprising that we do not realize how the surreptitious attempt to alter this essential mission of the Church leads to her ruin. This is evident in the nations of the old Christendom and proven by statistics.

To be continued in Part 3…