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Both Marriage and Celibacy EndangeredBy Fr Oskar Wermter, SJThe breakdown of traditional cultural values and practices, and a media that extols the virtues of promiscuity, have turned sexual relations into something trivial and cheap. They have also put much pressure on clergy, religious, and lay married and single people who are struggling to follow the Church's teachings on sexuality.Every culture has an elaborate set of rules, customs, rituals, and taboos regulating the relationship between men and women. Initiation rites for young men and women, and guidance by elders, used to serve this function in Africa. Many of these traditional rules and taboos have broken down in Africa today. Men, separated from their wives and families by the obnoxious "migrant labour system," now consider extra-marital affairs as being normal. The traditional expectation that a girl should be a virgin when she enters marriage is regarded as a quaint old custom, now obsolete. Western non-governmental organizations rigorously propagate the view that early sexual experience for both boys and girls is a "fact," and are hostile to any moral guidance. Family planning services work tirelessly to make contraceptives and abortion available to ever-younger girls. In the context of AIDS, this defies all reason. The message "abstain, be faithful, or else use condoms" is highly ambiguous and therefore ineffective. Despite daily deaths from AIDS, there is no recognisable behaviour change. Sex has become a casual consumer good. Truck drivers "pick up a woman" at every other stop, and business executives treat "casual sex" as one of their perks. Just as you "pick up a sandwich" or "have a beer, a cup of coffee or a cigarette," so you "have sex." While the Church considers the intimate union between husband and wife as precious, even sacred, today's society has turned it into something trivial and cheap. Pleasure without regretsSelf-control and self-discipline are essential in turning human sexuality into a positive creative force. Unfortunately, popular opinion has it that control of one's sexual desires is repressive and stunts human growth. Almost every music video, commercial advertisement, and soap opera repeats this message. The "contraceptive revolution" that began in the 1960s seemed to have freed people once and for all from the moral demand to exercise sexual self-control. The link between sexuality and procreation, between love and life, was cut, at least in the mind of this age. Love is no longer life giving, but is mere "pleasure without regrets."This massive pressure of public opinion has a strong impact even on people in the Church. A faction believes, and says openly, that the Church's teaching on sexuality is flawed and wrong headed. This faction is very soft on "sex before marriage," opposes the ban on contraception, and forever questions celibacy. During my student days, I remember "progressive" Catholics debating whether or not a priest should be sexually intimate with a woman "when that was pastorally required" (even though it is strictly unethical in any caring profession for the caregiver to be sexually intimate with the client!). All traditional wisdom was thrown overboard. Now people are shocked by sexual scandals in the Church. The inevitable publicity does enormous harm to the Church in general, and to young people in seminaries and religious communities in particular. Traditionally, the reaction to scandals has been to keep quiet about them. This has done even more damage to the Church than the scandals themselves; the offenders actually feel protected by this official silence. Public opinion, supported by some people within the Church, offers a simplistic antidote to sexual misdemeanour: abolish celibacy and let them all get married, and the problem will go away. This is naive and uninformed. There is no doubt that Scripture gives strong support to celibacy as a way of life for those called to it (Mt. 19: 1-12; 1. Cor: 7), just as it honours marriage. Christ restores the broken relationship between man and woman. He lived a celibate life Himself while relating to women in a liberated and liberating, non-exploitative way. Celibate Christians have been trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ ever since. Innocent until proven guiltyClergy and religious who have failed in this endeavour are given much public attention. For more than 100 years, Zimbabwe has benefited from the work of priests, brothers and sisters who served the people as teachers, nurses, and pastoral and social workers. Yet, their dedicated lives and work are forgotten, since the focus of the media is habitually on vice rather than virtue. A sister told me that she could no longer travel by commuter transport without being jeered at because of certain wild allegations in the press. This is sheer cruelty. A person is innocent until proven guilty. Like everyone else, priests and sisters have a right to have their good name and reputation respected.If celibacy and consecrated chastity are in a crisis, so is marriage. Many seminarians and young religious come from broken homes. Marital infidelity is widespread and not unknown even among married clergy of other churches; their divorce rate is quite high. More and more people shy away from a life-long marital commitment and opt instead for forms of concubinage. The media celebrate casual sexual relations and promiscuity. Posters and billboards urge young people to evade the consequences of their sexual irresponsibility by using prophylactics, not to stop their irresponsible behaviour. It is within this general atmosphere - thoroughly hostile to chastity and a responsible attitude to sexuality - that young men and women are expected to live lives of complete sexual continence. Undoubtedly, most struggle to live their commitment faithfully with the spiritual support of the Church, and for that we must be immensely grateful. Neither laxity in sexual matters nor witch-hunting of real or presumed offenders will help us. The cure for the disease that affects both the married and celibate is found in Jesus Christ, His life and teaching as reflected in Scripture and the teaching of the Church. The Church does not have to apologize for what is teaches about sexuality. It is not marital fidelity and celibacy that are killing us, but sexual promiscuity. Marriage and consecrated chastity are complementary. They are meant to support each other. Faithful celibates will normally be the children of faithful parents. Promiscuity is essentially exploitative. Sexual intimacy should be the expression of mutual self-giving in life-long faithful love. "Casual consumption" destroys its meaning and sacred character. Formators of future priests and sisters must judge whether the young people in their care have this gift of celibate love or just accept it as a price to be paid for their chosen career. Celibacy is meant to free a person for the love of God and his people, especially the otherwise neglected, underprivileged, and unlovable. Celibacy lived faithfully in today's world is a sign of hope that, with spiritual support, our sexuality can be redeemed and liberated from selfishness and sin. It is a sign our world needs very badly. Selfless, self-giving love is not popular in today's world. Using the "partner" for maximum pleasure is. Christians, both married and celibate, have to have the courage once more to be "signs that will be contradicted." To do this they need to be able to withstand the pressures of a contemporary, oversexed culture. Until recently, Fr. Oskar Wermter, SJ, was social communications secretary of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference. The article that appears here is an edited version of an earlier article, titled, "Casual Sex destroys Marriage and Celibacy", which appeared in the Tuesday, 24 July 2001 edition of The Daily News in Harare, Zimbabwe.
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