Priestly celibacy is entirely natural, argues Simon Rowe- despite what we now know about Fr Michael Cleary and others priests and bishops
As sure as day follows night, each time a clerical scandal erupts in this country there are calls for a relaxation or abolition of the Catholic Church's rule on priestly celibacy. With the monotony of an Irish winter, headlines are dusted down, the usual suspects are rolled out, and the same tired debate takes place - with no real advance ever achieved.
The past week has proved this to be true once again with the showing of RTÉ's documentary At Home with the Clearys. As an exercise in laying bare the double life of a celebrity priest, it was without compare. As a sociological commentary, it was, arguably, even more shocking for what it revealed about ourselves.
The programme was a vivid portrayal of how a malevolent clericalism was allowed to flourish here unchallenged in a torpid atmosphere of criminal deference and acquiescence.
That, surely, is a major part of the narrative of this and other clerical scandals in Ireland. Yet, one can't help observing an unhealthy desire to elide this fact, of how lay people contributed - by acts of commission or omission - to letting the charade continue for so long.
As an aside, it was interesting to observe this past week the reaction of those born after Fr Cleary's death in 1993. Most ask, "Who was Fr Michael Cleary", and, "Why all the fuss about something that went on between two consenting adults?"
If last week's programme was a vivid history lesson that left few untouched by blame, what does it have to say about us today, to those old enough to remember Fr Cleary?
We first must identify correctly what the problem was in the first place before setting about radical change.
Writing here last week, Gina Menzies hoped the RTÉ programme would promote robust debate regarding the church's rule on priestly celibacy. In her view, it is this rule, and the church's lack of understanding and teaching on human sexuality that was, and is, to blame for clerical scandals.
She is confident that the central problem is celibacy. Not clericalism, arrogance or human weakness. In her eyes, it is the church and its blind adherence to an "inhumane" rule on mandatory celibacy that led the likes of Fr Cleary and Eamon Casey to live double lives.
There is a danger in holding to this view, however. Firstly, it lessens the culpability of both Fr Cleary and Phyllis Hamilton, and Dr Casey and Annie Murphy. For how can the church be held accountable for a situation where consenting adults are involved, albeit involving professed celibate priests?
Secondly, it gives an intellectual justification to those priests who have a wrong personal understanding of their own human sexuality and vocation, and who lead a double life as a celibate and as a sexual partner. As long as this view is given succour, they can rightfully argue, with the support of theological cheerleaders, "I moved with the times, but the church has failed to."
As Menzies suggests, a robust debate on clerical celibacy is timely. But for a proper debate to take place, it must allow room for an alternative viewpoint. One viewpoint is that the church's rule on clerical celibacy is consistent with its entire teaching on human sexuality and has some merit. Can this point be ventilated without one being branded a "conservative"?
Gina Menzies falls into this trap by demanding that the primary context for debating the issue is that mandatory clerical celibacy is wrong, unhealthy and needs relaxation or removal. The supreme irony is that Menzies demands the church provide a "new theology of the body" when in fact, the church has been promoting such a theology for 20 years.
Surely, Menzies hasn't overlooked John Paul II's massive contribution to this debate with his Theology of the Body series of talks and collected writings. John Paul gave a catechesis amounting to 129 addresses on the topic from 1979 to November 1984. A rich stream of Catholic teaching now draws heavily upon these talks. More recently, Pope Benedict XVI in his first papal encyclical God is Love wrote at length on the value of "erotic love" in human sexuality.
Where have theologians such as Gina Menzies been during all this time? Why does this seam of Catholic theology remain one of the church's best-kept secrets? In these writings is found the "informed theology of relationships" so demanded by Menzies.
The church has been at the vanguard of this debate, so to accuse it of stifling debate is a tad hypocritical. Even a cursory reading of any of these documents sheds light on the church's understanding of human sexuality within marriage and in priesthood.
Crucially, though, celibacy is not the price paid for being a priest, just as sex is not the prize won in marriage. Unfortunately, this wrongheaded view of human sexuality still holds sway.
Celibacy is consequent to an ordained life that wants to give itself in total self-giving to others. Similarly in marriage, where two people commit themselves to exclusive, mutual self-giving, sex is a natural consequence of this love; the body language, so to speak, of self-giving.
Yet, when marriages break down, the public does not rush to call for the abolition of marriage. We don't argue that marital fidelity in marriage is too difficult and should be abolished. Why do we treat priesthood differently?
Yes, clerical celibacy is mandatory in the church, but men freely choose the priesthood - they are not forced. Just because some find it difficult to live up to the demands of their freely chosen vocation, and perhaps leave as a result, does not change the fact that they exercised their choice in full freedom.
Gina Menzies lets the cat out of the bag, however, when she objects to women's exclusion from the "powerhouses" of the church. What she wants, I suspect, is a new form of clericalism. A feminine clericalism, but clericalism all the same.
But priesthood is not about "power", it is about selfless service. Confusing "power" with "priesthood" leads to moral corruption and hypocrisy on a grand scale.
The priesthood is there to serve the church, the people of God, not the other way round. As history shows all too well, when this relationship is inverted, the church is on the road to scandal.
Simon Rowe is a former editor of the Irish Catholic