Celibacy

Celibacy is a morally and religiously significant phenomenon only and especially because those who are otherwise able and willing to marry renounce the fundamental human virtue of marriage for the sake of God and his service. If the group of celibates were just a club of old bachelors, it would be worthless. It only becomes important by the fact that people, for the sake of the Lord and in order to provide a shared symbol in the Church of their hope in the Lord, give up that which they otherwise would not give up, were this shared and public symbol not to provide them with a new mission and a new way of fulfilment. […]

The fact that there are fewer “vocations” than in your and my generation does however not lie in the fact that God cares less for the Church or that he has thought out something else for her, but rather in the fact that the Church has grown tired and does not let him in. How can a young person decide on the eschatological adventure of celibacy if the Church herself does not seem to know any more whether she still wants it?

In the drama of decision, every word sways, and it is all too easy for someone to pull the rug out from underneath them in heartbeat; that which decides definitively yes or no, which decides on the strength of persistence or the impotence of withdrawal. […]

Of course, there are transgressions in celibacy and adverse psychological effects when it is approached with the wrong suppositions. But one cannot hide the fact that marriage is in no way immune from similar dangers. Amidst the negatives, we should not forget how many mature and great figures have grown up in the school of the Catholic priesthood; if they had not existed, none of us would have found our way to this venture which is anachronistic, yet precisely because of this, so contemporary.