The background of celibacy: there are said to be 50,000 children of priests around the world

The first part of the extremely telling French documentary series about celibacy as the calvary of the Catholic Church was shown on national television, and Father Karel Gržanwho asked him about celibacy Marcel Štefančič. In just four days, 100,000 people watched the documentary through the eyes of a murderer online – after 27 years, he spent 12 hours in freedom Ladislav Žagarwho murdered the pastor in Kamnik. The priest allegedly sexually abused him as a nine-year-old boy for half a year.

The authors of the French documentary series Celibacy of Priests: The Calvary of the Catholic Church already in the first part have strung together more than enough stories that testify to the fact that celibacy is not for everyone. To put it very, very mildly. The first to speak is a priest who became one at the age of 27. When he expressed this wish to his mother at the age of 17, she was not very happy. In fact, she broke down and revealed to him a family tragedy that he did not know about: his biological grandmother was a nun and had a child with a priest. At that time, the diocese had a system in place for such cases – children conceived in this way had to be put up for adoption. The born girl, the mother of this priest, was sent to a Catholic educational institution, she was separated from her mother. The priest understood the mother’s plight, as she probably did not like that her son would join an institution that causes so much misery to people. After 17 years of service to God, he renounced his priesthood because of – a woman. Because he didn’t want to live a lie anymore. It is typical for the Church, he says, that they initially want to keep such priests and refer them to psychological counseling. “As if love is some kind of psychological imbalance.”

Living alone is hard

The second example is from Germany, it shows the story of a same-sex couple – one of them was a Catholic priest. Later, because he didn’t want to live in a lie any longer, he renounced his priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church and exchanged one thaler for the Protestant one. Ter married his love.

The third ex-priest tells how he became close to a woman, with whom he then no longer wanted to hide (he already has two daughters, because of whom the bishop wanted to send him to the other side of the world, or at least the country). He confided in his spiritual advisor and instead of finding a solution, he learned that he too had a “girlfriend”. “Priests soon find that they give a lot and get little – and it’s hard to live in such isolation,” says the former French priest, adding that priests receive many offers. From women, of course.

A fourth ex-priest, Pierre, resisted temptation for 25 years: such discipline plunged him into severe emotional distress. The lack of physical and emotional contact caused him suffering. He realized that he was by no means the only one at one of the meetings with other priests. He was deeply moved by the realization of how desperate they all were together. Pierre got married after ten years of a platonic relationship with one of the believers. She turned to him one day in her distress and he was the first to listen to her without judgment.

40 years of a secret life

Marie-Laurence Brunetwho loves a priest, they later lived together, is the president of the association Dan – this unites the partners of priests. Together they create an environment where they can share their stories – about their endless loneliness. Some of them have been hiding for 42 years! The bishops are happy because many of them are so faithful, because when the priests get old or sick, their wives take care of them. But the bishops have one less worry.

Not only women and men, but also the children of priests suffer. There are many of them: in France there is an association of these children – they are called Children of Silence. There are 4,000 sons and daughters in France who were neither known nor raised by their fathers, there are around 3,000 such children in Germany, and 50,000 in the world.

The girl, whose story we learn in the documentary, was able to call her father in the shelter of her father’s home. When she got to the street, she was no longer allowed to recognize him. It left a terrible mark on her, an unbearable pain.

The guilt of these men, ex-priests, is a heavy burden, the guilt was also placed on the shoulders of their wives – they are ashamed to have got involved with them, through their narration the whole range of suffering that they went through is reflected – until the happy ending , when they can live with their love. But even in sincerity, some are not safe from condemnation and some particularly controversial and offensive visit of a church dignitary in a high position, who came for his shepherd and sings to the Levite woman who lives in sin. Love for a woman cannot be a reason for the Church to lose priests. Well, them. Apparently a lot.

The norm of celibacy destroys people

The norm of celibacy is unsustainable, it destroys people, it was established by the Church and it can also be abolished, he says in the documentary Marie-Jo Thielprofessor at the Catholic Faculty in Strasbourg. He believes that celibacy should not be compulsory.

Father Karel Gržan also pondered why the Catholic Church insists on celibacy with Marcel: “Because that’s the easiest way to manage men, priests. If you have a person with intuition (a woman) next to you, the question is whether you will so steadfastly and unconditionally listen to the Holy Spirit that comes through the institution, or whether you will also listen to the Holy Spirit that comes through the inspiration of a woman. It can be the opposite.”
Article 24 of the Church Code states that no one has the right to introduce customs that are against God’s legal order – but this is the natural legal order. If God does not connect celibacy with a spiritual vocation, the question arises whether anyone has the right to make it an obligation, or whether it can be a choice, says Gržan, who is otherwise celibate and says that this makes it easier for him to expose himself. “Celibacy can also be a form of freedom; but the problem is if they don’t help you personify celibacy.” He also recalled that Pope Francis was in favor of abolishing celibacy, but the hierarchy in the Vatican opposed it.

“Some people can live in singleness, but others can’t. Isn’t it the sin of the one who can’t do it, the sin of the institution, which demands from man something that God does not demand? The institution does not help you personify celibacy.” added Gržan. I think that burning cases should make the Church think. Abolishing celibacy as an obligation would only be a step forward for the Church, it would breathe easier, he is convinced. “Many priests could breathe their spiritual mission with full lungs.” Man is not only a spiritual being, but his heart and body also need satisfaction.

Let us remind you that last year the bishop of Novi Sad, dr. Andrej Saje, who would think it fair to offer celibacy as a choice to priests in the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite. “This is possible because it is a church commandment. This is not God’s commandment. This is also being discussed – that a priest can also be married.”

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Less abuse without celibacy?

For some, life in forced celibacy can be distorted, and the many parallels between celibacy and too many sexual abuses by priests do not elude the Greeks.

Also Janko Heada clinical psychologist and psychotherapist who was a priest for ten years, admitted to us some time ago that he left the priesthood also because of celibacy. Celibacy was not openly discussed with the theologians, he only remembers an event in the inner circle of theologians from the same year: “We were all in a good mood, almost exuberant, when eventually a few of them just admitted that they had problems with celibacy. I listened to them quietly until they turned to me: ‘What about you, and nothing is heard about you?’ And I answered them in the same mood: ‘You know, if I really like a girl, I invite her to coffee, and that’s enough for me.’ He and his fellow theologians hoped that something would change, but Bishop Grmič told them not to count on the abolition of celibacy and to accept this fact if they wanted to become Catholic priests. For Bohak, celibacy today is one of the greatest injustices, even crimes. “The Catholic Church, as the only Christian church, commands its priests to fully control and use this most powerful human energy. You might already know that repressed and suppressed sexual energy plays a major role in sexual abuse. I don’t know when the Church will recognize this fact, because by doing so, it would recognize one more reason for the abolition of celibacy.”

Revolutionary Germany

Did you know that on May 10, 2021, Catholic priests across Germany blessed all couples who wanted it – including same-sex unions – under the slogan “let love win” (#lovewins). Thus, they expressed rebellion against the official position of the Vatican, which forbade the blessing of same-sex couples. A former German Catholic priest, who is now married to a man, said in the documentary: “If the Church denies people a blessing, then it sins against people.” When it comes to the free choice of celibacy, Germany is one of the most vocal countries.

Pope in Belgium: scandal after scandal

During a recent visit to Belgium, the Pope met with a group of victims of sexual violence by priests and said that abuse is a problem that the Church is tackling persistently and decisively by listening to and helping those affected and implementing prevention programs around the world, and the Catholic Church must ask for forgiveness. Long-term forced adoptions of children also echo in Belgium – from 1945 to the end of the 1980s, with the help of institutions run by nuns, as many as 30,000 children were taken from unmarried (minor) women and given up for adoption. Sexual abuse and forced adoptions strongly undermined society’s trust in the Church, and one of the German theologians said in a French documentary series that the Church had become schizophrenic and completely unreliable due to the insistence on celibacy and the denial of the real life of many priests.

When Pope Francis met with academics at the Catholic University of Leuven in Flanders, there was also a spark – professors and students rose to the occasion of the Pope’s words about the position of women in society. They read him a letter in which they asked him about the place of women in the Church, because young educated women do not want the Church to continue to see them only as mothers and wives. Later, the Pope said that women are more important than men because the church is a woman, but that does not console us too much. Actions count, women (and anyone else) have had enough of words in the past.

The program of the closing mass during the visit to Belgium had to be changed at the last minute, as the closing hymn was written by a priest accused of sexual abuse.

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