Marriage & celibacy
- Those who have received the order of deacon, even those who are older, may not, in accordance with traditional Church discipline, enter into marriage.
If married, should his wife predecease him, he should be willing ... to remain celibate for the rest of his life
- Should the deacon’s wife predecease him, the widowed deacon must be helped to discern and accept his new personal
circumstances, which in normal circumstances precludes remarriage in accordance with the constant discipline of the Church in the East and West.
- “Those who have received the order of deacon may not enter into marriage”. The same principle applies to deacons who have been widowed. They are called to give proof of human and spiritual soundness in their state of life.
- His vocation to marriage comes, at least chronologically, prior to his call to the diaconate.
This area raises no difficulties within me, but as someone not called to follow this course I can imagine other voices saying “Well, he would say that wouldn’t he!” But even without a vocation to the diaconate, why, as a widower, should not I and any other man be able to follow a similar course – remaining unmarried and celibate for the remainder of our life – simply (and this in no way in a comparatively unimportant or un-influential sense, but in the way of being overridingly authoritative in its simplicity): simply as the result of having loved, having been married to and having made our life with the right person; an irreplaceable and unrepeatable blessing?
One can never know how one will feel in such situations until they become a personal reality, but saying that “the widowed deacon must be helped to discern and accept his new personal circumstances” hints at the underlying meaning being “You are ours completely now; you are not going anywhere.” He will surely need help but not in the way described; he will know only too well what his “new personal circumstances” are, and accepting them will be dependent on a great deal more than any well-meant but mostly restrictive guidance received from within the hierarchy.
Likewise, why are widowed deacons “called to give proof of human and spiritual soundness in their state of life”? – and why is entering into a new marriage not compatible with giving such proof?
If remarrying is not “acceptable” for a permanent deacon, then, by implication, the suitability of all married candidates for the permanent deaconate, in the eyes of the hierarchy, must be, at root, highly questionable. It could never even be whispered of as a necessary “evil”, but is there not at least a suggestion of its acceptance being a reluctant compromise? One that is seeping round the edges of the other half of the equation: a hierarchical requirement for increased numbers of orthodox, ordained and obedient members of the clergy? Increased numbers, not in real terms, but at least making some small contribution to the stemming of the tide: the phenomenal losses in numbers coming forward with a willingness to follow their calling and a desire to cross the threshold.
I say again – I firmly believe that those who are so called will grow into that willingness and that desire. It is the calling itself: the vocation, in the shape and form that is still expected to be as it used to be, that is missing. Do we or do we not believe that people, in numbers, are still being called into the Church? If they are, where are they, and how are they being called? Some of them are married permanent deacons, but is that the extent of the calling for all of them? Some of them would make wonderful priests.
There are women who would make valuable deacons; and what exactly are the grounds we would use to deny the fact that some of them too might make equally effective and inspirational priests? I do not exclude those among them who feel themselves to be called in that direction from that possibility; but I am sure they are not among those who, like myself, are plainly called to remain with both feet planted firmly among the laity; to what end is not likely to become clear without our obedience to that seemingly negative and superficial calling.
I can hear sounds of “Shhhh!” ... “Think it, maybe, but don’t say it out loud.” ... “Not where others might hear.” ... “One day perhaps, but not in our lifetimes.” But tomorrow will become today, just as today will slide into yesterday without any help from us; and the status quo, regardless of any protest or determination to maintain or change it, will ultimately be governed by callings and directives from beyond all worldly authority and outside our merely human control. That which is truly right will continue to be; that which is wrong will be made right. We are powerless against it, though its influence seems far from apparent and a long time coming.
The Ordinariate is the most recent proof of the fact that the Catholic Church can never again say that she has no married priests. They are among us, and have been ordained as Catholic priests while already married men.
What happened to any women priests, married or not, who might have applied to join us as part of the Ordinariate?
Whatever adjective others might use to describe that question, it is a question nonetheless, however obvious the answer, and however plain that the main reason for ordained Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church at this time is a profound distaste for the acknowledgement and advancement of women to the level of equality in the denomination they have now left.
“Shhhhhhhh ! ...”
I had not intended to ask such questions here, as they steer me away from the intended purpose of these pages. That I have done so points to the fact that I have other subjects on which I need to dwell and ponder if I am to find out my deepest and real attitudes toward them. Doing such things has become very much part of me; not essential to life, but important to me: in some way relevant to my being here. It is how I find out what I really do think and feel about things, as opposed to what I merely think I think, and feel that I feel. From such time spent comes part of my ability to remain content whatever my real thoughts and beliefs turn out to be. The greater part of my contentment, however, comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life and my world, and my awareness that Jesus walks with me still, un-sensed but no less believed in for that.
I wrote earlier, that I would return to a particular point in this section: namely that, ‘the deacon is ordained to radical availability’ … ‘to devote himself to the Church by means of complete availability’.
‘Diakonia’ cannot exist without availability, and the indispensability of it as the framework on which all other facets of a deacon’s life of service are unfolded is undeniable. The fact that the spouses of married deacons will have been required to confirm, in writing, that they were fully supportive of the intended ordination, makes clear that this is more than being there for one’s neighbour if and when required. This is, as stated above, a ‘radical’ – a ‘complete’ availability; and not only to those who live next door, but to the Church itself, which means to everybody.
The actual limits and results of this availability will be governed and directed by the bishop and the priests to whom the deacon is responsible, but the truth at the heart of availability and the spousal support that makes it possible is that this is as close as one can get to a real “job-share”.
The promise of obedience is entwined with this, and family and home are thus regarded as secondary attachments and less important calls on the deacon’s time, affections and loyalty. From the Church’s viewpoint, in the eyes of the hierarchy, and in their perception of reality, this is not simply how the situation is seen to be, but is, in fact, how it is and how it is expected to remain.
Once again, my reactions are those of one who is not called to the diaconate, but I can envisage no genuine call of God that would allow me, let alone expect me, to turn away from my family with a conscious expression of my acceptance and belief in the rightness of their no longer being my first priority in life.
If members of the hierarchy regard marriage as a vocation and a sacrament – and written evidence declares that they do – how are they able to dilute its importance and validity, as far as they are able, when seeking candidates for the permanent diaconate?
The one part of this section which I would have turned into a real difficulty, had I been looking for one, would have been the last of the listed gleanings from my reading: that the deacon’s “vocation to marriage comes, at least chronologically, prior to his call to the diaconate.”
“At least chronologically” ?
There is much that concerns me concealed behind the inclusion of those three words.
Words of men!
Not of God.
