Cardinal Piacenza on Priestly Celibacy, Part I

In the context of a three-day conference (24-25-26 January 2011) on Priestly Celibacy, organized by the Society of John Mary Vianney and the Shrine of the Holy Curé at Ars, His Eminence, Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, delivered an address entitled: “The Teaching of the Pontiffs From Pius XI to Benedict XVI.” I will present excerpts from Cardinal Piacenza’s address over the next few days, adding a few comments of my own in italics.
1. Pius XI and the Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii

The genuine passion that Pius XI had for priestly vocations is well illustrated historically, as is his indefatigable work for the building of seminaries in the whole Catholic world, in which the young might receive an adequate formation to prepare them for the sacerdotal ministry.

Within this frame of reference the Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii of 20 December 1935, promulgated on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the Pontiff’s priestly ordination, must be adequately understood. The Encyclical is made up of four parts. The first two are more specifically dedicated to the foundations, from the first title, “The sublime dignity: Alter Christus and the second, “Radiant Jewel”, while the third and the fourth are of a more normative-disciplinary character and concentrate their attention on the preparation of the young for the Priesthood and on some characteristics of spirituality.

Priestly Chastity

Of particular interest for our subject is the second part of the Encyclical, which dedicates an entire paragraph to chastity. However, this is found in the second part just after the paragraph that speaks of the priest as an “imitator of Christ” and of “priestly piety”, showing in that way how Pius XI’s concept of the priesthood was – as the Church always holds – that of an ontological-sacramental character.

From this derives the need for the imitation of Christ and of the excellence of the priestly life, above all in the order of sanctity. In fact, the Encyclical states that, “the Eucharistic Sacrifice in which the Immaculate Victim who taketh away the sins of the world is immolated, requires in a special way that the priest, by a holy and spotless life, should make himself as far as he can, less unworthy of God, to whom he daily offers that adorable Victim, the very Word of God incarnate for love of us” (n.35), and again: “And since the priest is an ambassador for Christ, he should so live as to be able with truth to make his own the words of the Apostle: “Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ”; he ought to live as another Christ who by the splendour of His virtue enlightened and still enlightens the world” (n.38).

The priest is called to a holy and spotless life precisely because he daily offers to the Father the Immaculate Victim, who, by the shedding of His Blood, takes away the sins of the world. Offering the Holy Sacrifice daily, the priest enters upon a life-long identification with Christ, Eternal High Priest and Immaculate Victim. From one Mass to the next an almost imperceptible but real transformation takes place: the indelible character of Christ’s Priesthood in the soul of the priest becomes more resplendent and more beautiful, shining more and more in the sight of God and of His Angels with the purity of the Immolated Lamb.
Solid Priestly Piety

Immediately prior to considering chastity, as if to underline the inseparable bond between them, Pius XI emphasizes the importance of priestly piety, stating: “the piety of which We speak is not that shallow and superficial piety which attracts but does not nourish, is busy but does not sanctify. We mean that solid piety which is not dependent upon changing mood or feeling. It is based upon principles of sound doctrine; it is ruled by staunch convictions; and so it resists the assaults and the illusions of temptation” (n. 39).

From this one can see how the very understanding of Holy Celibacy is close and profound relation to good doctrinal formation, faithful to Sacred Scripture, the Tradition and the constant Magisterium of the Church. It is likewise in related to the practice of an authentic piety, which today we would call an intense spiritual life that avoids either sentimentalist tendencies, which can easily degenerate in to subjectivism, or the much more widespread rationalistic tendencies, which can produce a cynical critique that is a long way from an intelligent and constructive critical capacity.

The very word “piety” has, in some circles at least, a tainted connotation. Derived from the latin pietas, the true meaning of the word is extraordinarily rich. It expresses both the utter devotedness of a loving father to his children, and the dutiful tenderness which characterizes the devotedness of a child to his father. The piety of the priest is a manly devotedness to God, informed by Sacred Scripture, by the Sacred Liturgy, and by familiarity with the Fathers, Doctors, and approved mystics of the Church. There is nothing in a healthy priestly piety that does not square with the sound and luminous doctrine of the Church. While rich in sentiment, such a piety is not sentimental. While giving scope to the expression of emotion, it is not given to emotionalism.
What are the assaults and illusions of temptation with regard to the piety of a priest? The first diabolical assault, it seems to me, seeks to direct the priest into a piety that is exaggerated in one direction or another. Some priests are tempted to minimize their personal piety. They would reduce its expression to the barest minimum and pooh-pooh even the tried and tested Catholic devotions practiced by the saints: Eucharistic adoration and visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament; lectio divina; the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Way of the Cross; pilgrimages; and the veneration of relics and sacred images.
Other priests are tempted to exaggeration in the opposite direction. They lay heaven burdens upon themselves, adding quantities of litanies, novenas, “acts,” consecrations, and other vocal prayers (usually chosen in moments of emotional fervour) to the stable daily discipline of the Divine Office, Eucharistic adoration, lectio divina, and the Rosary. The Evil One delights in seeing a priest stagger beneath the weight of self-imposed devotional obligations. He knows full well that, with time, the priest will grow weary and, in a moment of disgust for all things spiritual, will cast off the burden of such obligations. More often than not, in such a crisis, the essential elements of priestly piety are thrown off together with the accumulated non-essential elements into which the priest was lured.
What does this have to do with chastity? Quite a lot, actually. The priest content with a minimalistic piety will, sooner or later, be content with a minimalistic chastity. The priest burdened by a quantity of non-essential devotional exercises will, sooner or later, cast them off, placing himself in a perilous state of spiritual unbalance. In such a state the priest risks falling prey to the imperious solicitations of the flesh. This, I think, is why Pope Pius XI, so emphasizes the importance of a priestly piety that is, as he says, “based upon principles of sound doctrine and ruled by staunch convictions.”
Cultic Purity and the Imitation of Christ

Chastity is seen as intimately associated with piety in the Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii when it says: “from piety springs the meaning and the beauty of chastity” (n.40). From that derives an attempt to provide a rational justification, according to Natural Law, when it says: “A certain connection between this virtue and the sacerdotal ministry can be seen even by the light of reason alone: since “God is a Spirit,” it is only fitting that he who dedicates and consecrates himself to God’s service should in some way “divest himself of the body” (n. 40). Following upon this affirmation – which appears rather weak to our eyes today and which is, in any case, tied to the chastity of ritual purity that would consequently tend to exclude its perdurance, if it were to be seen as linked exclusively to the times and rites of Worship – there follows the affirmation of the superiority of the Christian Priesthood with respect both to the priesthood of the Old Testament and to the natural priesthood proper to every religious tradition.

At this point the Encyclical places Jesus’ own experience at the heart of the reflection, intended as a prototype for every priest. It states, “For the Divine Master showed such high esteem for chastity, and exalted it as something beyond the common power… . All this had almost inevitable consequences: the priests of the New Law felt the heavenly attraction of this chosen virtue; they sought to be of the number of those “to whom it is given to take this word (cf. Mt. 19: 11)” (n.43).

It is possible in these statements of the Encyclical to notice that two intentions are complementary, the one to base priestly chastity on the need for cultic purity, the other, much wider in scope and better understood today, the need to present it as an imitatio Christi, the manner par excellence in which to imitate the Master, who lived in a poor, chaste and obedient fashion to an exemplary degree.

The Eucharistic Fast for all the faithful, now reduced in the Latin Church to a mere token of the former discipline, is, in some way, a derivative of the need to express the same cultic purity that, in the life of the priest, finds expression in perpetual continence. Cultic purity is less difficult to understand when one relates it to the need of the priest to hold himself in readiness, from one day to the next, to ascend the altar of Christ’s sacrifice. The “ritual purity” of the priest derives from the Most Holy Eucharist and is ordered to it. The priest stands, at every moment, as he would wish to be found standing before the altar with the Body of Christ in his hands.
The second motivation for priestly chastity in celibacy is the priest’s desire to imitate Christ, his Teacher, his Friend, his Redeemer. The priest can better probe the desires and thoughts of the Heart of Jesus by keeping his own heart pure of all disordered carnal affections, and by reserving himself, with all his vital energies, for the unique participation in Christ’s spousal love for the Church, that is his by virtue of his ordination. The Face of Christ is reflected without distortion or shadows only in the face of the priest who is chaste.

Pius XI does not fail, indeed, to quote dogmatic pronouncements regarding the obligation of chastity, in particular the Council of Elvira and the Second Council of Carthage, which, albeit in the fourth century, testify distinctly to a much more ancient and consolidated practice that, furthermore, may be carried into law.

With an extraordinarily modern accent, in the sense that it is immediately accessible to our mentality, the Encyclical speaks of the freedom with which the gift of chastity is to be received, stating, “We say freely, for though, after ordination, they are no longer free to contract earthly marriage, nevertheless they advance to ordination itself unconstrained by any law or person, and of their own spontaneous choice!” (n.46). We could deduce, in response to some contemporary objections about the presumed stubbornness of the Church in imposing Celibacy on the young, that the Magisterium of Pius XI shows that it is the result of freely welcoming a supernatural charism, which no one imposes, nor could it be imposed. Above all the ecclesiastical norm is to be understood as the choice of the Church to admit to the Priesthood only those who have received the charism of celibacy, and that they have freely chosen it.

The discipline of celibacy is the manifestation, in the Church and for her greater joy, of the gift (or grace) of celibacy bestowed upon those who are admitted to the priesthood. The appropriation of this gift requires a certain spiritual apprenticeship. Once received, the gift must be put into practice; it cannot be received passively. By opening himself to the wisdom of the saints, the priest demonstrates his free acceptance of the gift and his desire to see it flourish in his life. He will learn from the saints how to foster the gift of chastity in celibacy, how to protect it, and how to bring it to fruition in the exercise of spiritual paternity.

If one might legitimately sustain, taking account of the climate of the era, that the foundation of ecclesiastical Celibacy in the Encyclical Ad Sacerdotii Catholici of Pius XI is placed above all on reasons, still valid, of cultic purity, nonetheless it is still possible to recognise in the same text an important exemplary dimension both of the Celibacy of Christ and of His freedom, which is the same freedom to which priests are called.

To be continued.