OPINION: Celibate and Marital Chastity are Equally Difficult: A Response to FR Musaala’s Letter to Bishops.

Fr Anthony Musaala a Ugandan Catholic priest of Kampala Archdiocese has hit headlines in both local and international media since the publication of his letter entitled: An Open Letter to Bishops, Priests and Laity: Failure of Celibate Chastity Among Diocesan Priests.  It is dated, Tuesday March 12, 2013.

It is a very controversial letter addressed not only to Bishops and priests but also to the faithful. In other words it is written to every member of the Catholic Church in Uganda and Africa as a whole!  It touches allegations of sexual abuse in the Church, and what Musaala calls the conspiracy of both clergy and laity not to go public on this matter; and above all it reveals Musaala’s unhappiness, misery and bitter regrets for having chosen a celibate way of life which unfortunately he claims is imposed on him!  He wants to get married and at the same time remain a Roman Catholic priest.  But the Catholic faithful in Uganda whom he naively thinks are ignorant and backward have totally refused to accept his position and ideas! 

In his letter Musaala claims:

That many catholic priests and some bishops in Uganda and elsewhere no longer live celibate chastity and that some of them have children. (This is a bitter remark and very difficult to swallow!  But to make things better in our Church we have to take it into consideration and take necessary steps to remedy the situation.)

That unlike in Europe and America, the laity in Africa are collaborating and conspiring with the clergy to say nothing about the sexual abuses in the Church.

That he himself at the age of sixteen was sexually abused by a brother.  (If he truly went through this bitter and devastating experience, he deserves our sympathies, pastoral and motherly care and psychological help.)

That celibacy is meaningless, an unnecessary burden and yoke imposed upon the priests. He thus writes, “I believe that in time we will be freed from this unnecessary yoke, unhelpful as it is.”

That the root cause of sexual abuses in the Church, the unhappiness and misery of priests is because they are not married.  He thus writes, ‘’I suggest that now more than at any time we must begin an open and frank dialogue about Catholic priests becoming happily married men, rather than being miserable and single.’’

We cannot deny that sexual abuses on part of the clergy have taken place in the Catholic Church in Africa.  And as Church all of us clergy and laity should work together to find ways to tackle this enormous problem.  And to offer all necessary assistance to the victims, so they can rediscover themselves, have their inner wounds healed, and go on with their lives in peace. 

And this problem demands among other things a critical look at the training of the priests.  A priest is meant to serve and relate well with all God’s people both men and women.  But unfortunately from minor to major seminaries his trained in total isolation from women!  How do we then expect such young man in the prime of life to behave properly with women after his ordination when during his entire training he had little or no time to develop the sexual dimension of his life?

But Musaala in his letter sounds a very bitter and a psychologically troubled priest totally tired of a single and a celibate life!  He gives the impression that he wants to get married!  And he naively believes that the only way he and all other catholic priests can get out of their miseries and become happy is to drop the yoke of what he calls administrative celibacy.  And be allowed to marry without being relieved of their priestly duties. 

And in his bitterness he paints a very dark and negative picture of the Church in Africa whose bishops and priests are in general a morally rotten lot! And a Church whose laity are so ignorant and blind to see that priestly celibacy is a meaningless and an unnecessary yoke from which their priests should be freed!  I would like to tell Fr. Musaala and the whole world that regardless of our many problems, there is still a lot of good in the Catholic Church in Africa.

His efforts to convince the laity that Catholic priests should be allowed to marry have so far yielded no fruits!  The laity want the catholic priests to remain celibate! He thus writes ‘’When I ask lay people whether catholic priests should have the option to marry the answer is always NO.’’  The laity know better what they believe and the values of their Christian faith than Musaala the theologian and philosopher does! Musaala does not see any meaning in Christian or Religious Celibacy.  And this is why he has decided to call it administrative celibacy, which he conceives as a tool Church authorities use to oppress the priests!  The faithful through their Christian formation are aware that Jesus lived a celibate life and that his life was meaningful!

The Church I believe might in the future allow the Roman Catholic priests the option to marry on the ground that there is no intrinsic connection between priesthood and celibacy!  And this is the case in the Orthodox Church.  It should also be remembered that St. Peter the first Roman Pontiff was a married man! (Lk.4:38-39).   But the Catholic Church would not allow its priest to marry on the ground that Christian celibacy is meaningless as Musaala would like us to believe. Celibacy just like marriage is a Christian value!

Although Fr.Anthony gives a long list of cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Uganda, cases which for sure demand investigation and appropriate action taken, the basic point he wants to make is that he himself is tired of a celibate life he claims is imposed on him!  But the naked truth is that nobody has imposed celibacy on Musaala!

I personally know Fr. Anthony Musaala.  We played football together, ate together and took walks together in the Benedictine novitiate at Nanyuki, Kenya!  

I composed luganda songs like: Tweyagale Wama (Les us enjoy life!) and Musaala who was already a musician accompanied them with a synthesiser and we entertained people! At that time both of us were young adults in our 20s!  And we knew what we were doing!  We were not small boys!  We were responsible for our choices!  Then Musaala made a choice to leave the Benedictines and eventually went back to England where he had lived for many years. 

He then joined a Major Seminary for priestly training!  He was already an adult at this time, old enough to get married!  But he chose not to marry and opted for a priestly celibate life!  How can he then claim that someone imposed celibacy on him!  Even on the very day of his ordination to the priesthood he was totally free to tell the Bishop not to ordain him!

If Musaala had said that the celibate life he freely chose to live was very difficult for him and that sometimes he falls, I would totally agree with him.  With all that sexual energy we have at the centre of our being, boiling and stronger than the storms of the sea, only a hypocrite could claim that celibacy is easy!  Celibacy is beyond the natural order.  It is by the help of God alone that we can live it.

And Fr. Anthony naively believes that the gate way to happiness for a miserable, single and lonely priest is marriage!  Many people forget that marital chastity or faithfulness is as difficult as celibate chastity!  Since we are attracted to a limitless number of the people of the other sex and can fall in love with different people, this makes marital chastity extremely difficult!  So just like celibacy, sticking with unwavering fidelity to one partner for life is beyond the natural order!  It is by God’s help alone that married people can do it. 

And in today’s world both celibacy and marriage are in crisis!  The rate of divorce today is shocking!  And many married people are regretting why they got married and wish they were celibates just as many celibates wish they were married! 

So Musaala should know that although in the future the Church might offer Catholic priests the option to marry, we might find ourselves having as many miserable married priests as we have miserable single priests today!  Happiness does not depend on being married or not!  But on walking the unique and difficult path God has set before each one of us!

Both celibacy and marriage are Christian values and should be appreciated.  They complement each other in the Body of Christ, the Church.  Neither celibacy nor marriage is easy!  Both are lived only by the grace of God!

Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo