Fr. Heimerl: Priestly Celibacy is an Indispensable Gift to the Church

Church reformers have always challenged celibacy. This has not changed since Martin Luther’s time, and it is particularly true in the era of synodal aberration that the Church has embarked upon: celibacy must be abolished at any cost; that is the primary issue.

Where the Catholic faith is fading, the first thing to fade is always the acceptance of priests and celibacy; those who distance themselves from Christ inevitably also distance themselves from the understanding of the way of life that He exemplified for us. “Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12) then appears only as an outdated accessory, no longer as a core motif of the Gospel and the proclamation of the apostles (1 Cor 7:7). As a mere “law,” celibacy has long since become obsolete; although it is “appropriate” for the priesthood, it is essentially a relic of the past. Instead, married priests are to be ordained.

Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler (1910-2007) described all these tendencies in his highly acclaimed book, Der Klerikerzölibat (Clerical Celibacy), as early as 1993.

In it, Stickler makes it very clear that celibacy has never been just a hollow law that could be abolished at any time just as arbitrarily as it was once introduced; on the contrary, as Stickler shows, clerical abstinence goes back to the apostles in oral tradition and was already expected of all clergy in the early Church. Of course, most of them were married, but that did not change the fact that from the moment of their ordination, they were no longer allowed to have relations with their wives; from then on, they were to love them as sisters.

Stickler convincingly traces this practice back to 1 Cor. 9 and points to the corresponding decisions of the Councils of Tours (461), Gerona (517), and Auvergne (535). Above all, however, he makes it clear that celibacy is about much more than external renunciation or rigorous practice: it is about Christ and, with Him, the priesthood of the New Covenant; in short, it is about everything or nothing. Where faith in Christ dies, Stickler writes, “abstinence also dies,” and where heresies and schisms arise, the abolition of celibacy always appears as a harbinger. This was seen during the Reformation among Protestants, Calvinists, Zwinglians, and Anglicans – today it can be seen among the German “synodals” and their followers throughout the world.

In fact, celibacy has become a yardstick of fidelity to the Church, and because it is ultimately about Christ, the Church has always upheld it, even in difficult times, and certainly in times more difficult than today. As an example, Stickler cites the situation of the Church in France at the beginning of the 19th century. During the French Revolution, married priests had to either give up their (invalid) marriages or be removed from church service. Instead, they never agreed to a more comfortable middle ground, which would be suggested today. There were no concessions to the world, not when it came to the most sacred things and those who convey them.

But no one clings to a mere accessory or an arbitrary law for centuries, especially not when it is constantly rejected by the world. Ultimately, however, this rejection also comes from Christ and is like His seal of approval: Just as the world has always rejected Him, it also rejects those who follow His way of life and are sacramentally connected to Him as His priests.

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