Diocesan priests take only one vow on ordination: the vow of obedience to their bishop. Chastity and poverty are taken, as vows, by the religious congregations. Monks and friars, unlike diocesan priests, are bound to live in a convent, community, obedient to his or her superior, and bound by a vow of obedience to his or her superior, chastity and poverty.
Jokingly we say that “they” do the vows and we diocesan priests live them! I find the vow of obedience, chastity and poverty very demanding. Looking back on these 40 years of my priesthood I can vouch that sometimes these vows are too heavy. Without God’s grace, prayers and support of loving people around me I would not have made it.
Yet, I have full respect for priests, monks or sisters who discover God’s will, who move on, enter new commitments, leave the priesthood or the convent to build their own family and have their own children. I admire them for their courage and the beautiful families they have.
One needs a determined personality to change the horses in mid stream. What is important is not to remain a priest or nun or religious but to do God’s will. Ignatian rules of discernment give inner freedom, strength, and a vision to choose God not the things of God. The consecrated life is a means to an end, not the end itself.
We were 50 priests when we were ordained together 40 years ago. Of these 50, seven died and seven left the priesthood. They are my friends and still very dear to me.
Sometimes, not to have a wife or children of my own is one thing I find very difficult to live with. Yet, I do believe that celibacy has its own witness as Jesus Himself chose to be celibate. Those who think it’s always easy don’t know what they are talking about.
Once my superior sent for me to inquire why I said publicly that I miss a wife and children. Unfortunately, we lose very good persons who have a vocation to the priesthood and renounce their call because they want to marry, have a wife of their own, children of their own, form a family of their own.
Sometimes, not to have a wife or children of my own is one thing I find very difficult to live with
The normal vocation of every person is to marry not to live alone. One needs a special call to live otherwise.
Again Pope Francis comes to my rescue.
Asked in a La Repubblica interview about the celibacy rule for priests, Pope Francis recalled that it was adopted 900 years after the death of Jesus Christ and pointed out that the Eastern Catholic Church allows its priests to marry.
“The problem certainly exists but it is not on a large scale. It will need time but the solutions are there and I will find them,” he said.
What I feel perturbed about is not that a priest or a sister decides to leave his or her vocation. I know several priests and sisters who now form wonderful exemplary families. I find it difficult to accept how, as happened to me in Italy, a nun living in a community of love and prayer would not find, not even one sister, to talk to about her pregnancy.
Indeed, to be celibate does not imply to renounce to a tender loving family – that’s why some convents are becoming bare and turned into museums.
Love, even if celibate, makes the world go round – even within the Roman Catholic Church.
Fr Colin Apap is co-founder of Moviment Era Ġdida.