‘O Lord it is you who are my portion and cup, it is you who are my prize’ - Psalm  15 (16)

Each year throughout the Church in Australia, we celebrate National Vocations Awareness Week which promotes and fosters all vocations. This year it is from August 5 – 12. In my letter this year, I want to speak about celibacy or chastity which is so much part of the vocations to Priesthood and the Consecrated Life.

You often hear it said that “the Church should let priests get married and then we would solve the problem of the shortage”. As we know, the vow of celibacy is not essential to the priesthood. Priests in the early centuries of the Church were married; priests in Eastern Rite Catholic Churches can be married and even now in dioceses in Australia we do have priests who are married by way of a special dispensation. However, I think that it is important to reflect on the positive value of celibacy.

We need to see a vocation as more than just an individual or personal life choice. Each vocation is a call from God in the context of the Christian community and for the service of the community. If we only see a vocation from the individual’s point of view, we will find it hard to see beyond the thought that priests and religious are missing out on something if
they are not married. John Paul II reminded us that “No one is called to walk alone”. The context of a loving, supportive Christian community is important.

At the heart of the ministry of Jesus was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. In fact in his very person he made the Kingdom of God present in human time and history. Each baptised Christian is another Christ and is meant to be a sign of God’s presence in our world. But the Gospel of Matthew
tells us that some are called to be “eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake
of the Kingdom of Heaven”. (Mtt 19.12). Celibacy has the positive value of being a clear sign of the Kingdom of God. Whilst the Kingdom of God is amongst us and includes our human endeavours, we know that its fulfilment lies beyond us and only in the mystery of God and in the next life.

Celibate priests and religious are clear signs of this mystery. They continually challenge us to look beyond. You hear it said “how can priests be helpful to married people and for families if they haven’t experienced it themselves?” However, there’s a deeper way that priests and religious share in the human experiences of others and so can relate to them. It is in the experience of loss and letting go. Which is easier, to grieve the loss of one’s child as he or she moves on and leaves home or even dies, or to grieve the loss of the child that one will never have? To choose to remain unmarried means to grieve the loss of the life-time intimate spouse that one will not have.

Is there not a certain similarity when one loses one’s life-time spouse through death or separation? In remaining unmarried the celibate learns how to love freely, directly open to the mystery of God’s love. Is this not required also in different ways in every life? At weddings the priest is able to remind the couple not to expect that they will perfectly fulfil
each other. He knows that, as wonderful as marriage is, there will always be a longing and a hunger in the human heart that only God can satisfy and that will only be fulfilled in the next life. As good as human love is, it always shares in the mystery of God’s love. As Catholics we are essentially sacramental. God has become incarnate in Jesus. The values of the Kingdom will remain wonderful ideals and great in theory unless they are incarnated in the lives of Christians. Celibates are living signs of the fullness of life that is in God and that lies beyond our own efforts. More than ever in modern life when we are constantly tempted to think that life is what we make of it and that we can fulfil all our own hopes and dreams as long as we don’t give up, we need witnesses of a greater and lasting truth. When we are tempted to think that all our immediate desires and longings ought to be fulfilled here and now, we need the witness of the celibate who has been graced to direct those deepest human longings towards God.

There is a deep wisdom in the Church continuing to ask priests to be celibate and in upholding the enduring religious vow of chastity. Of their very natures, these vows only exist and are possible because of God’s grace. Let us not lose faith and confidence in the gift of this grace. Let us confidently pray for it.

Yours sincerely
Most Rev. Philip Wilson
Archbishop of Adelaide