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No 1 • January 2020 Published eight times per year
www.acnmalta.org “The demand for the abolition of celibacy is linked to a mindset that would turn the priest into a kind of social worker with predominantly secular duties, thereby shifting the focus of the Christian life away from eternity and onto the things of this world.”
With an undivided heart: devoted from now on to God alone (Lumen Gentium, 42).
Father Werenfried van Straaten
As we look towards the New Year 2020, what is it that actually motivates people? All our music, films and art seem to be dominated by the theme of earthly love. Over and over again, in song and image, it is romantic, physical, free love which is presented as the most powerful driving force. Christianity, by contrast – at least according to Friedrich Nietzsche – has poisoned “Eros”, and while not actually killing it, has thereby distorted it into a vice. This is also a widespread view in today‘s society – that the Church is hostile to the body and sexuality. Continence makes people neurotic, they say; celibacy is something perverse and hypocritical and must therefore be abolished. Undoubtedly, the Christian understanding of love and the Church’s view of sexual morality are “a stumbling block” for the world. And yet, among the early Christians it was their brotherly love and moral purity which particularly impressed the pagans and moved them to conversion. They saw the Christians’ way of life as something “extraordinary and incredible”, something they had hitherto
thought impossible. And indeed, these early Christians were truly inspired by the ideal of celibacy and virginity, an ideal that was likewise a great incentive to marital fidelity and the recognition of the equality of man and woman. This new way of living was in total contradiction to the ancient customs.
God and of eternal life. We live in an age characterised by such slogans as ‘demythologisation’ and ‘desacralisation’ and by the tendency to reduce the whole of Christianity to a mere matter of interpersonal relations.”
Of course, the Church has always stood for charitable service, for human compassion. But this has always “Celibacy is a sign that the gone hand in hand with the witpriest is called above all to a ness of the martyrs, and likewise particular personal imitation with the “white martyrdom” of celibacy. Celibacy is a sign that of Christ.” the priest is not simply called to The real “logic” of celibacy, and of marriage fulfil a given task, a given function, but too, rests ultimately not on pragmatic argu- above all to a particular personal imitation ments but on God himself, who is Love and of Christ, so as to “represent” Him as Head who also reveals himself as the true essence and Spouse of the Church. The personal of love. This is a love which gives itself fully self-giving, the “sacrifice” of oneself to God and perfectly, a love which is always there. – who is the true Love which moves and perfects all things – is the real meaning of Whoever does not believe in this total love celibacy. will have difficulty understanding celibacy – and indeed marriage as well. Back in 1968 Dear friends, may our first and deepest mothe theologian Karl Rahner accurately ob- tivation spring always from pure love. served: “The current crisis of celibacy has many reasons… But unless we wish to deceive ourselves, we have to admit that the deepest reason for this crisis lies in a lack of faith. We are living in an age in which people Father Martin Maria Barta find it hard to comprehend the reality of Ecclesiastical Assistant 1
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