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	Analysis: Celibacy under Threat By Ruth Gledhill The Times March 11, 2010 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7058376.ece The Jericho-style walls around the citadel of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church might not yet be crumbling, but the ground beneath is shifting. It is easy for conservative Catholics to dismiss the likes of the academic and writer Hans Kung when he challenges priestly celibacy, as he did in last week’s Tablet. His official teaching licence was removed three decades ago for questioning Papal infallibility, so while he might carry weight with non-Catholics, to many Church members he is an extreme liberal whose views must therefore be discounted. But the intervention of the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna is of a different order altogether. His office was quick to deny that he was questioning the celibacy rule when the Cardinal Christoph Schonborn said the Church should examine the causes of child abuse including the question of priestly celibacy. But the Cardinal, a respected conservative theologian, has form in this area. He is ordinary, or bishop, to Austria’s Eastern Rite Catholics, whose priests are allowed to marry, just as priests in the new Anglican Ordinariates being set up around the world for ex-Anglican clergy will also be allowed to marry. And last year in Rome, Cardinal Schonborn, who has always been close to Pope Benedict XVI, also presented a petition signed by leading Austrian lay Catholics calling for the abolition of the requirement for priestly celibacy. Cardinal Schonborn told Vatican Radio that he did not agree with the petition’s conclusions, which included also a demand for women deacons, but added: “It is important for someone in Rome to know what some of our lay people are thinking about the problems of the Church.” Insiders often say discreetly of the Catholic Church in Britain that a number of priests and bishops and many more laity would support a relaxation of the celibacy rule. Most would support the idea of a vocation to celibacy, but consider it should be optional. Few however link priestly celibacy to child abuse. Claims of such a link are tenuous and not backed up by empirical evidence. The severe and growing shortage of priests is the issue that is bringing this debate to the fore. It should not go unnoticed that most of the abuse cases coming to light now are historic. The new standards of child protection imposed in dioceses worldwide mean that, ironically, the Church is a far safer environment for a child than many families. Less well-ordered institutions than the Church can still guard their malign secrets. But even if separated from the abuse scandal, celibacy remains an issue that has to be addressed. The imminent arrival of increasing numbers of married Anglican clergy into the Catholic Church via the new Anglican Ordinariate serves only to emphasise the unfairness, even the cruelty, of the requirement that those who were Catholics from the start should not enjoy the comforts of the marital bed. It is rather like the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son. The reformed sinner is served a feast, while the lifelong goodness of the perfect son is taken for granted. This parable is of great comfort to the sinner, but holds small consolation for he who has forsaken the pleasures of the flesh for the sake of a Gospel believed by diminishing numbers of people. Cardinal Schonborn, in raising this issue, has made the walls outside the celibacy citadel just a little less stable than they were. Another parable the Catholic Church might wish to heed is of the wise and foolish virgins. The Church does not wish to be like the virgins who fail to prepare for the arrival of the bridegroom, or Christ. The internet, the blogosphere, the entire realm of modern communications, has meant the era of cover-up is coming to an end. St Peter himself was married. St Paul was not, but advocated marriage for those who couldn’t control themselves. The Church is foolish indeed if it does not prepare itself and its virgin priests for the reckoning that surely awaits.
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