“Call and Crisis in the Priesthood”

by Bruce J. Johnson

April 28, 2002

I was ordained to Christian ministry on June 15, 1973 at the church of my childhood, the First Congregational Church in Branford, just a couple of weeks shy of one year after Lois and I were married at Rooke Chapel, on the campus of Bucknell University. In September of 1973, I started here at First Church as Pastor/Teacher. At the time, we lived in a church owned parsonage which was located on Nathan Hale Drive but when Lois and I learned that our first son, Tim, was due sometimes in February/ March, we asked the church to allow us to purchase our own home. We kinda didn’t want to raise a family in a fishbowl. The church was very supportive. Both Tim and Peter enjoyed their childhood at 73 Barnsbee Lane. Peter’s only complaint is that he has never understood why he wasn’t the first and therefore the oldest!

As I look back over these years, it has always been about balance, about connection and about shared experiences--- marriage and ministry; about budgets and bills; about child care, lawn care, self care; it’s been about family, friends and community. I can’t imagine my life without each of these components.

We have been blessed.

I guess that this is one reason why I have followed closely and not without some shared pain the scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the United States.

My boys, along with others, call me a CNN junkie. Throughout this week, the network, with Connie Chung as its spokesperson, has had a show each evening, reporting from Rome the latest news about the tragic, if not criminal, scandal in the Catholic Church. And, they have expanded that show into an examination of various aspects of what the network has called:

“Crisis in the Priesthood.”

There are more than a few ecclesiastical scholars who think that this is the greatest crisis of the Catholic Church since the Reformation in the 16^th century.

It may well be and one of things I have been thinking is that the crisis has something to do with the fundamentals of what we all may understand as our “Call.”

Ellen Goodman, the popular syndicated columnist from Boston, did a nice job with her piece on Friday’s op-ed page in the Hartford Courant. She wrote:

“The issues facing the Catholic Church have been divided into at least two parts. One is simply and horrifically, criminal abuse of minors by a growing roster of priests. The other is a hierarchy that protected itself rather than its children, forwarding danger from one parish to another. The first debate is about broken vows, the second is about a closed circle. But the matter of a celibate priesthood may link these two.” (Hartford Courant, p. A15.)

The issue of celibacy and the debate around it is not only interesting but provides us Protestants a unique opportunity to explore and deepen our understanding of who we are and what we believe and why.

Harry A. Walsh, in his article titled “Mandatory Celibacy and Sexual Ethics in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, traces the development of it as policy. Of course, we know from scripture that in both the Hebrew tradition and biblical Christianity there is no such thing. The priests of the Temple married and had families and in fact, the priesthood was passed on by blood, from one generation to another. We know too that Peter was married. Jesus healed his mother-in-law of the fever. It is, of course, tough to get at Jesus and how he felt and what he believed. It is clear though that he was no John the Baptist and liked wedding feasts! Marriage, therefore, was somewhat of an obligation and procreation along with it for the good of the community. (We learn that in Genesis—“Be fruitful and multiply!)

Wherever the advocacy of celibacy and chastity do occur, it is understood, as Goodman also rightly notes, as something counter-cultural in nature, sometimes even labeled a subversive alternative. (Essenes, Nazarities, Shakers)

The movement toward a mandatory celibate priesthood began in the fourth century but is not instituted until the 12^th. When it does happen, in large part, there are no lofty ideals connected to it. It is all about power and property—priests were wealthy landowners, controlling enormous holdings. Marriage meant heirs and inheritances were kept in the family. Little by little, power in the church became more centralized in Rome and in the hands of the Pope. In 1139, at the Second Lateran Council, Pope Innocent the Second pronounced all clerical marriages invalid and the children of such marriages – illegitimate. Done Deal! And it has been in place ever since for the Catholic Church.

When the Reformation and the birth of our Protestant tradition comes about in the 16^th century. The issue of celibacy and chastity, marriage and family for the clergy are central issues for the reform movement, which of course, involved the reaffirmation of the primacy of scripture, justification by faith not works, the sale of indulgences, etc. etc. (Now mind you--- it is not a pure debate. The reformers themselves have their own agenda). The reformers do, however, take on the issue and they actually move to redefine the nature of the church and the role of the priesthood for it. Relying upon their understanding of scripture, today’s lesson from First Peter, being an important one, they begin to talk about the church, not as “the clergy and the laity” but as the

“priesthood of all believers.”

The author of 1 Peter, writing to a congregation of Gentile Christians in Asia Minor (Turkey) says it this way, after admonishing them to live noble and moral lives, he writes:

1. “Come to Him, to that living stone, rejected of men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood. (1 Peter 2: 4-5)

2. “… you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people.” (1 Peter 2: 9-10)

His point, of course, is that all are called to a holy and royal priesthood, to share in the ancient covenant that God has with His people and to share in the church’s mission in the world…. to make plain and available to everyone the grace we receive in Jesus Christ.

Our church literature talks about it in the following language:

“All members of the United Church of Christ are called to minister to others and to participate as equals in the common worship of God, each with direct access to the mercies of God through personal prayer and devotion.”

Recognition is given to those among us who have receive special training in pastoral, priestly, educational and administrative functions, but these persons are regarded as ministers--- servants--- rather than as persons in authority. Their task is to guide, to instruct, and to enable all Christians to do the work of ministry rather than do the work of ministry for us.”

(“What We Believe”—United Church of Christ)

How different!

Goodman mentions a book by Eugene Kennedy, a former priest and author of The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality. Kennedy says that celibacy was and is part of a philosophical view of humanity that divides people into lower and higher parts, the physical and spiritual. And the church talks about a priest being called to a ‘higher life’ --- away from the desires and needs of the ‘lower’ body. Len Gillon dropped off another book – this one by Gordon Thomas, Desire and Denial: Celibacy and the Church. Inside the jacket, this question is asked: “How far can Pope John Paul II justifiably claim that celibacy represent the highest form of Christian perfection?”

Moreover, some would also say--- priests are married to the mystical body of Christ rather than the physical body of Christ which is, of course, the ‘lower’ laity. Now I know that that’s not the way it is for so many priests but it certainly does seem to be the case for an arrogant hierarchy!

Indeed, in this morning’s paper alone there are two articles on this very subject. One is front page—lead article: “This crisis will change forever the relationship between clergy and the laity and it’s about time.”

The second is on the front page of the ‘Life’ section—also emphasizing the need for reform.

We need to pray for our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, who are Catholic, for the church and their clergy--- that the crisis will bring about change that enables the focus to shift from ‘crisis’ to ‘call.”

Goodman ended her column in a neat way, saying:

“I am told that ‘holiness’, ‘wholeness’ and ‘health’ all come from the same root word. Maybe we need to redefine holiness as a wholeness of spirit and body,” I would that holiness in the church may also mean a sense of unity and equality between and among between clergy and laity.

So, this morning, let us rejoice in our calling--- a call issued to each of us as equals--- into a holy and royal priesthood of all believers--- or if you prefer, a church of ministers--- ministering one to another--- in faith and in hope and in love--- and of course, the greatest of these is---LOVE.

AMEN