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Dear Father Bellon,
I have been following your column for some time and I do not deny that your answers have many times been a source of refreshment for me in the agonies of my Faith. Having said that, I would like to ask you some questions:

1-Very often, in discussions with university colleagues and other friends of mine, I am attacked when I defend ecclesiastical celibacy. That is, I am told that it is a rule invented by Saint Gregory VII for political reasons and that it should be applied only to religious priests (and not to secular ones). I reply by saying that Christ was celibate and that the priest must be an image of Christ the Lord and this opens the second question;

2-When I point out that the priest is an image of Christ, I add that this is also the reason why the Catholic priesthood is reserved for males only and is closed to women.Good Heavens! In addition to the usual anathemas (Chauvinist! Sexist! etc…), I have been told (once) that if the priest has to mirror Christ, then he needs to be Jewish, because Jesus is Jewish (therefore I am accused of being incoherent and a hypocrite). I explained that ethnicity and sex are two completely different issues, but ideology closed the ears of my interlocutors.  
3-The archaeological heresy, i.e. the fact of considering “true Christianity” only that which refers to the period of the earthly life of Our Lord, and therefore considering everything (from Saint Paul onwards) as rubbish and counterfeit, in my opinion is the basis of these objections that are moved to me.

In conclusion, I ask you how to respond to these objections. Let me just highlight that these objections are made to me by self-styled “Catholics” (not that I have the presumption of being a true Catholic, in fact quite the opposite), and this causes me a lot of pain.

I thank you and assure you of my prayers.

Kind regards.
Mattia

Priest’s answer

Dear Mattia,
1. it wasn’t Gregory VII (XI century) to establish the celibacy doctrine, but rather the Council of Carthage in 390.
In turn, the Council of Carthage claims to be linked to the apostolic tradition: “It is fitting that those who are at the service of the divine mysteries are perfectly continent so that what the apostles taught and which antiquity itself maintained, we also observe” (t.n).

2. Pope Emeritus Joseph Ratzinger links ecclesiastical celibacy to the practice of frequent or even daily Eucharist which was soon introduced into the Church (see At 2,42).
If the priests of the Old Testament were required to sexual abstinence when they celebrated worship, and this rarely happened because there were 1000 priests for each of the 24 priestly classes and whoever was drawn once no longer competed in the draw to give others the opportunity to be drawn, all the more the priests of the New Testament should have been required to practice sexual abstinence.
“With regular and even daily celebration of the Eucharist now essential for the Church, “their [priests] entire life is in contact with the divine mystery. This requires on their part exclusivity with regard to God. Consequently, this excludes other ties that, like marriage, involve one’s whole life. From the daily celebration of the Eucharist, which implies a permanent state of service to God, was born spontaneously the impossibility of a matrimonial bond” (41). Sexual abstinence that was functional transforms into ontological abstinence’’
In this way, its motivation and its meaning were changed from within and not in depth.
Today, however, the objection immediately arises that it would be a negative judgment of corporeity and sexuality. The accusation that an image of the Manichean world was the basis of priestly celibacy was already made in the 4th century, but it was immediately decisively rejected by the fathers and then ceased for some time. A diagnosis of this type is incorrect simply because, from the beginning, in the Church marriage was considered a gift given in heaven by God. But it absorbed man in his entirety and service for the Lord equally required man entirely, so that both vocations did not seem feasible together. Thus the ability to renounce marriage to be totally at the Lord’s disposal has become a criterion for the priestly ministry.

Regarding the concrete form of celibacy in the ancient Church, it should also be noted that married priests could receive the sacrament of Orders if they committed to sexual abstinence, therefore to contract the so-called ‘Marriage of St. Joseph’. In the first centuries this seems to have been absolutely normal. (R. Sarah with Joseph Ratzinger Benedetto XVI, From the Depths of Our Hearts, pp. 39-41).

3. You responded well by saying that there is an essential difference between ethnicity and sexuality.

Sexuality does not simply consist of something of a morphological and external nature such as ethnicity, but touches the intimate core of the person.

Beyond the theological reasons, there is the fact that Christ chose the apostles only  among the males.

The Church has done the same thing from the beginning with the presbyterate.

For this reason, John Paul II, when the discussion arose on the extension of the priesthood to women, stated:

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. (Ordinatio sacerdotalis, 22 May 1994).

4. “Definitively” means that the affirmation is not subject to discussion. Roma locuta, causa finita (Rome has spoken, the discussion is over).
Therefore, from the tone of John Paul II’s declaration it can be deduced that this was Christ’s will.
Even if we can offer plausible reasons for extending priesthood to women, the fact remains that Christ did not do so.

And not because he was a victim of the culture of the time, because he himself is the lord of the time. But much more because in the pagan world there were priestesses.

5. Regarding the so-called archaeological heresy, it should be remembered that the Sacred Tradition expressed through the preaching of the apostles and in the events of the life of the primitive church is prior to the Gospel itself. It is from Tradition that we have received the Gospel. 

If the value of Tradition is disqualified, the value of the Gospel is therefore disqualified.

This is why the Second Vatican Council rightly stated: “It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls” (Dei Verbum, 10).

6.Your friends judge by their whims and according to their feelings, forgetting that the Church is the kingdom of God established by Christ and that we cannot tamper with its divine constitution. If its constitution were human, we could change it at will. But since Christ is God, his structure is divinely constituted. It is our particular duty to respect his very wise designs.

As I thank you for the prayers you have assured me, I urge you to persevere in your beautiful testimony.

I wish you a happy continuation of the Christmas holidays, I bless you and I gladly remember you in my prayers.

Father Angelo