I read a very interesting book over Christmas called Why Catholics Are Right. It’s written by Michael Coren and, yes, the title is a bit off-putting. But, a title’s there to get your attention, and it got mine. And Coren does think Catholics are right about almost everything. He’s a rare bird these days, even among Catholics. But in spite of its title and narrow point of view it is, as I say, a very interesting book: readable, well argued, never boring. And, given the title, it is surprisingly gracious, and never gratuitously offensive.
One reason I enjoyed the book is that, as a Catholic, I was raised on his arguments. It’s fun to hear them all again, remember how I used them myself, and how I eventually came to reject many of them. They’re good arguments, well reasoned and intricately honed over decades, even centuries of debate. But, as my perspective changed, I found that, good and interesting as they were, they became irrelevant.
For example, Coren’s defence of an all male, celibate priesthood is based on the fact that the Old Testament priesthood was all male, and that they were required to abstain from sexual intercourse during their term of duty in the temple. Thus, he points out, in the biblical tradition priests must be male, and since Catholic priests are always on duty, they must always abstain. This presupposes, of course, that Christ ordained men to carry on the Old Testament office of priest, but, being an Evangelical, I no longer believe this.
Evangelicals embrace the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, which maintains that Christ’s priesthood is one of the things he shares with all of us. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood,...” Interesting that it was Peter (according to Coren "the first Pope") who said that, in 1 Peter 2:9. If this is true the pastor of a Catholic church is, indeed, a “priest”, but only by virtue of the fact that all believers are priests. And it means that we have always had male and female priests, married and unmarried.
Coren further argues that there are practical reasons for priestly celibacy, and I fear these arguments are more to the point. As he suggests, it is theoretically easier for the church to direct the lives of unmarried men, less expensive to support a man with no family, and easier for the church to accumulate and manage property when the clergy have no families to bequeath it to. But besides being a bit too self-serving for comfort, these arguments ignore a number of very serious concerns:
1. What is the ultimate cost of rejecting for pastoral ministry all men who need a sexual partner? (Surely the vast majority of men.)
2. What of the problems of dealing with men who, after they are ordained, realize that they need to be married?
3. What about the consequences of creating an entire clergy structure composed of men who have neither wife nor children? (I believe the consequences of this include, among other things: an unbalanced and unnatural leadership structure; some very unhealthy attitudes toward marriage, sex and family; and an old-boy’s network like few institutions have ever known.)
4. What, finally, of Paul’s vehement condemnation of those who “forbid people to marry”? He says such people are “hypocritical liars” who “abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons”. (1 Timothy 4:1-3)
In the next while I’ll say more about these things, and about other things Coren says concerning: the recent abuse scandals, the Church and science, life issues (abortion, birth control, euthanasia), homosexuality and marriage, the wealth of the church, etc. In the meantime, however, if you’ve ever wondered what the Roman Catholic church is all about, and why Catholics do, think and say the things they do, think and say, give it a read. I got my copy from the North Bay Public Library and it's in all the bookstores, so you can probably find a copy somewhere.
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