There are a few things that I do every day. I brush my teeth. I drink a cup, or three, of coffee. I check my e-mail, and I kiss and pinch the cheeks of my two sons. As most parents would testify, I love my children. I love their laughs, their hugs. I love seeing them learn and watching them grow. I cherish every day with them, and I wonder how I ever lived without them. I want to take them in my arms and never let them go.
It”s times when I think about this joy that I wonder about those priests, religious, and other members of the Church who have taken a vow of celibacy. I don”t mean to make assumptions or to judge, but I wonder if it”s lonely. I wonder if they feel regret. I wonder if they feel that they are missing out by not being parents.
I get my answer when my four-year-old son opens up a new toy from his grandparents. He immediately says, “I need to show Father Kevin!” His first desire is to share the pride and joy of his new dinosaur with our parish priest. I get my answer when we are at the mall. My two-year-old sees a sister in a habit and, without ever having seen her, yells out, “Mary!” online casino He is instantly comfortable and happy in her presence, and smiles as he reaches out his hands to her. I get my answer when another parish priest wags a finger with a smile and reminds my sons not to run near the front steps of the rectory. They return the smile, and walk back to the vestibule.
I get my answer: They are parents. That”s not to say that they are parents in the same way that a man or woman who changes diapers in the middle of the night, packs lunch boxes, or spends countless hours driving to practices and recitals is a parent. These men and women, though, love immensely. They nurture, teach, and admonish. They pray for and provide guidance for countless children, youth, and adults. They care for others in any way that is needed. They are called to love in ways that are motherly and fatherly. Just like any parent, their presence is irreplaceable.
Those who are called to celibacy are not exempt from parenthood, and in some ways make the greatest parents. They are, perhaps, best equipped to be parents because they are conscious of a fact that I know I overlook all the time: My children are not my own. My children do not exist for the sake of my personal fulfillment. Their lives are not meant to serve my own desires. My call as a parent is to protect and nurture a soul which belongs to God, so that soul might remain in the presence of God for all eternity. My vocation is to love immensely and to let go with trust.
Those who are celibate display true love and abandon. They love and are loved by God so dearly, and have abandoned themselves with complete trust in God”s will. Who better to help me return my children to God than those who have given themselves to Him in such an intense way? Who better to remind me of my call to love with abandon and to return to the Lord every gift I have been given, including my children? I hope, in my life, to express true gratitude for those celibates who have vowed to love all the sons and daughters of the Church as their mothers and fathers. I hope to learn from them how to be a great parent.
8 thoughts on “Celibates Make Great Parents”
Thanks for your great article as a person who is newly promised as a celibate this past Saturday (May 31). It has often been said that if one wouldn’t have been a good husband and father, then he probably shouldn’t be in the seminary. You touch on the spiritual motherhood and fatherhood of religious, consecrated, and ordained. –Deacon Edward Looney
I love this post. As a single gal, I remind myself that I do have a role in children’s lives and it does ‘take a whole village’. I am part of that village to my 17 nieces and nephews, the children I’ve taught and my friend’s kids as well. It is a joy to help raise children, even if it is in the littlest of ways. Thank you for recognizing this with our religious brothers and sisters.
Great post – I have learned so much about what it means to be a good Catholic parent from the example of our parish’s (now retired) Pastor! God’s love is a marvel indeed, whether it is shared by a natural parent, or a spiritual one!
As a divorced parent, there is no question I’m a better dad to my two kids by being celibate. Parenting is a vocation, and not one I take lightly, nor one I’ll abandon simply because our marriage failed. I owe it to my kids, and God, to see parenting through before I reengage in any kind of serious relationship that might pull me away from them.
I hope that this explains why half of my time as an usher at mass is spent dealing with strangers’ small children wandering over to say hello, waving and chattering at me, or actually coming to give me a hug — and I’m not even in any sort of vocation, I’m just a 34-year old lifelong celibate layman (looking to get married, but I’m that bad at dating) who lives in “uncle-mode”!
It’s nice to see this. Most of the time it seems like parents dismiss single people by saying “you don’t have children so you don’t know anything about anything to do with them.” That’s not true and it’s actually really rude and hurtful. It does get lonely being single so it is nice to be told you are a good influence on children and they can learn from you (it’s true). Thank you.
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Yeah, this article is kind of flat. I agree with the author basically but I think she should also mention, for clarification purpose, that a parental family structure, namely a father and a mother, serves as irreplaceable to the health growth of a child. A celibate priest or the parish community obviously cannot offer certain basic things to child that is required for his proper growth.
This may sound a little bit harsh: if the celibate priest and parish community can be equal to parental love, why should not the Church allow homosexual couples to adopt children.
In other words, despite the value and beauty of priestly celibacy, it must be acknowledged that it cannot love as a parents to a child. I do not expect my priest to love me like his own child as my parents do to me. However, a particular commitment to a child as absolute necessary to him or her growth cannot be obviously demanded of a priest or a community.
I can see that fatherhood and motherhood of religious, but the definitions of fatherhood and motherhood cannot mean the exact same as the fatherhood and motherhood of a parental structure of a family. The religious have them, but they cannot offer the same degree of fatherhood and motherhood of a family.
I think that to elevate the value of celibate life like as the article has suggested actually can do some harm to the belief in the traditional structure of the family as the Church teaches. Family, having a father and mother, has something that that a priest or parish cannot offer at all, period.