Celibacy is easier than marriage
Don't take my word for it, listen to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza. Arguing against the notion that the priest shortage is a consequence of the celibacy requirement, he cites some statistics:
One qualification, as most readers have probably already spotted, is that he is not comparing apples and apples. For example, he is comparing the percentage of marriages that end in separation or divorce with the percentage of priests who are discovered failing in celibacy*. We should also insist on only looking at the failure rate for first marriages, which is significantly lower than the failure rate for all marriages, and that is an important qualification to make if we want to do an honest comparison as there is no such thing as a second priesthood. But even if we make these qualifications, we will still end up with a significantly higher failure rate for marriages; there is no denying that marriage is harder than celibacy.
And that shouldn't surprise us—there are two people in a marriage and that doesn't, as Edward G. Robinson explains below, make it twice as easy, it makes it ten times twice as hard**. Robinson is talking about committing murder together rather than committing marriage but the same level of difficulty holds, as he says, whether it is love or hate.
The other person who explains this is Jesus in an often misread section of the Bible:
WHAT!!!???
And you are thinking, why would I want to get married if it means making a eunuch of myself? Well, if you think like a child, the way Brian Wilson does, for example, you may believe that the point of marriage is to get regular sex with someone you love. But the real point of marriage is to give yourself unreservedly to another person. So yes, you do, in a sense, make yourself a eunuch for her.
Here is what happens. You give up, completely, the independence and power that goes with being a man on the prowl. And, don't kid yourself, the guy who does not surrender that does have more power over women. For a man, to get married means to give up power, and even to give up the potential to have that power.
For her part, she is giving you herself and a significant part of what she is giving you is sexual but she isn't giving you the the power to have sex with her at your willing, she is giving you her willful surrender of herself, just as you are willfully surrendering yourself to her. But what she gives is a subject I've already gone on about elsewhere
The key part here is that it isn't conditional. This isn't a contract whereby you agree to surrender yourself if she does the same. Again, if you allow yourself to think like a child for moment, you can see how that would break down; think of how many kid's attempts to end a fight founder on the reef of "You first".
Marriage is a commitment you enter with promises but no guarantees. You can see, in this, one reason why the success rate for the priesthood is higher. No man ever prostrated himself before the Bishop to become a priest without fully grasping what he was really vowing. Lots of people enter marriage thinking, "I'll hold something back just in case." But if you do that, your marriage won't even be a marriage to begin with.
* I should note that, while celibacy is a daunting requirement, it is far from the most daunting thing that a priest vows to be.
** Catholic priests may step in here and insist that their commitment is also between two persons. That is true enough but it is a commitment in which one of the persons is unfailingly compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and in a marriage between two human beings that is something we can only aspire to be.
*** The priest enters into the same exclusive commitment as a husband enters into by accepting his vocation as priest. He too makes a eunuch of himself. If a priest tried to marry to a woman as well as making his priestly vows, he would be like a man getting married to two women at the same time and that cannot be done as two vows of exclusivity (forsaking all others) cannot be fulfilled at the same time.
Don't take my word for it, listen to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza. Arguing against the notion that the priest shortage is a consequence of the celibacy requirement, he cites some statistics:
More than 40% of marriages fail, while only 2% of priests fail in celibacy. The crisis in the sacrament of marriage as one and indissoluble is obviously greater magnitude than is the decline in the number of vocations to the priesthood.The underlying claim here is true but before I get to that some qualification is necessary.
One qualification, as most readers have probably already spotted, is that he is not comparing apples and apples. For example, he is comparing the percentage of marriages that end in separation or divorce with the percentage of priests who are discovered failing in celibacy*. We should also insist on only looking at the failure rate for first marriages, which is significantly lower than the failure rate for all marriages, and that is an important qualification to make if we want to do an honest comparison as there is no such thing as a second priesthood. But even if we make these qualifications, we will still end up with a significantly higher failure rate for marriages; there is no denying that marriage is harder than celibacy.
And that shouldn't surprise us—there are two people in a marriage and that doesn't, as Edward G. Robinson explains below, make it twice as easy, it makes it ten times twice as hard**. Robinson is talking about committing murder together rather than committing marriage but the same level of difficulty holds, as he says, whether it is love or hate.
The other person who explains this is Jesus in an often misread section of the Bible:
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”Notice that, whatever else Jesus is saying here, he cannot be saying that marriage is for those who are too weak for celibacy. The bit above makes no narrative sense if you read it that way. The disciples think it better not to marry because marriage is too hard if you can't divorce. Jesus tells them that marriage is one way of "making yourself a eunuch". ***
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
WHAT!!!???
And you are thinking, why would I want to get married if it means making a eunuch of myself? Well, if you think like a child, the way Brian Wilson does, for example, you may believe that the point of marriage is to get regular sex with someone you love. But the real point of marriage is to give yourself unreservedly to another person. So yes, you do, in a sense, make yourself a eunuch for her.
Here is what happens. You give up, completely, the independence and power that goes with being a man on the prowl. And, don't kid yourself, the guy who does not surrender that does have more power over women. For a man, to get married means to give up power, and even to give up the potential to have that power.
For her part, she is giving you herself and a significant part of what she is giving you is sexual but she isn't giving you the the power to have sex with her at your willing, she is giving you her willful surrender of herself, just as you are willfully surrendering yourself to her. But what she gives is a subject I've already gone on about elsewhere
The key part here is that it isn't conditional. This isn't a contract whereby you agree to surrender yourself if she does the same. Again, if you allow yourself to think like a child for moment, you can see how that would break down; think of how many kid's attempts to end a fight founder on the reef of "You first".
Marriage is a commitment you enter with promises but no guarantees. You can see, in this, one reason why the success rate for the priesthood is higher. No man ever prostrated himself before the Bishop to become a priest without fully grasping what he was really vowing. Lots of people enter marriage thinking, "I'll hold something back just in case." But if you do that, your marriage won't even be a marriage to begin with.
* I should note that, while celibacy is a daunting requirement, it is far from the most daunting thing that a priest vows to be.
** Catholic priests may step in here and insist that their commitment is also between two persons. That is true enough but it is a commitment in which one of the persons is unfailingly compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and in a marriage between two human beings that is something we can only aspire to be.
*** The priest enters into the same exclusive commitment as a husband enters into by accepting his vocation as priest. He too makes a eunuch of himself. If a priest tried to marry to a woman as well as making his priestly vows, he would be like a man getting married to two women at the same time and that cannot be done as two vows of exclusivity (forsaking all others) cannot be fulfilled at the same time.
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