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Love that satisfies

The law on priestly celibacy as approved by the Catholic Church is inspired by the biblical verse from Matthew 19:10. I think the Church’s problem on priestly celibacy will be resolved if they will allow priests who cannot continue with vow of chastity to get married. (V.P.)

The norm on ecclesiastical celibacy is not an absolute one. In fact neither is the celibate himself absolute; only God is absolute. And God reveals himself as the fullness of love, so much so that he can fulfill a human being. As the fullness of life, he enables his creatures to generate other children of God. Along both ways, virginity and matrimony are two paths to fullness of life. Jesus spoke of virgins “for the kingdom of Heaven”.

Celibacy undertaken for the sake of ministry and not for this “kingdom of heaven”, even a noble ministry, makes no sense. Up to now, the Roman Catholic Church prefers to choose her ministers from among those who can be celibates, as a free choice on the part of the candidate even though some consider it as necessary condition. Jesus was a celibate by free choice and the person who is called by God to be a priest of the Catholic Church has the freedom to become ordained or not.

Today, as in the past, this entails the rediscovery of matrimony, as well of virginity, as a vocation. The choice to be married in the Church means that the love for one’s partner takes off from the love that God has for us and the choice of becoming a mother and father comes from the maternity-paternity of God. We should be able to say about matrimony that which we can say about celibacy: matrimony “for the kingdom of Heaven.”

One does not become a virgin only in function of the ministry. He must be able to say: “I made a choice of virginity for God, and thus I am available for the ministry” to participate in the spiritual life-giving maternity-paternity of God. His renunciation exists, but what gives fullness to a life, is the discovery of a Love without which even human love cannot be satisfied. It is from the person who gives him/herself to God, either in virginity or in matrimony, that the more genuine answers to the vocational crisis that we face can come.

Fr. Tonino Gandolfo with Fr. Am Mijares

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