Celibacy makes priests attractive to women – prelate

By Manila Bulletin
Yahoo! Celebrity
May 21, 2014

https://ph.celebrity.yahoo.com/news/celibacy-makes-priests-attractive-women-prelate-000547838.html

Archbishop Oscar Cruz said making celibacy optional for priests would be very expensive because the faithful will have to support not only the priest but his family as well.

Cruz, the current head of the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal of the CBCP and in charge of the dispensation of priests in the country, was reacting to a story of 26 Italian women who wrote to Pope Francis recently urging the Pontiff to make celibacy optional and end their “devastating suffering” caused by the church’s ban on priests having sex and marrying.

The women told the Pope in a letter published on the website Vatican Insider, “we love these men and they love us. With humility, we place at your feet our suffering so that something can change, not just for us but for the good of the whole church”, adding their men would be able to serve the church “with greater passion” if they are supported by a woman who loves them and their children.

Although Cruz admired the women for the “candid expression of their option,” he said their wish will not happen. “Celibacy will continue to hold.”

“I would like to say to the Filipinos not to allow their priests to get married, not to allow their priests to be married clergy. Why? Because then the people will not only support the priest but they will support the wife of the priest, the children of the priest, the grandchildren of the priest, and that is very expensive,” he said.

“If the priest is celibate, he is the only one the faithful is bound to maintain because he is also serving the people. That is the quid pro quo,” Cruz stressed.

He adds, “If a priest is married he cannot be assigned anywhere because he has a family to think of.”

But Cruz admits there is something in being celibate that attracts men of the cloth to women.

“There is some attraction for women to be more receptive of priests. Priests being celibate, they seem to be more attractive to women. I was once a young priest. I think it is psychological. He is holy, kind. Good to have as a marriage partner,” Cruz said.

In the Philippines, Cruz admits there are priests who violated their vow of celibacy because of their relationship with women.

“There are very few priests in the Philippines who violate their (vow) by being pedophiles. There are very few cases of that. Because in tradition, custom we are more machos than anything else,” said Cruz.

What Cruz hopes to see is a change in the current formation program in seminaries to make it attuned to the signs of the times and the needs of the place, where seminarians would be taught how to relate with girls.

Cruz, a former head of the Episcopal Commission on Seminaries, is convinced that seminaries  put too much emphasis on academics.

In an interview, Cruz said “there should be emphasis on human values, courtesy, respect, good manners, and right conduct. We lack that, especially human formation on how should a priest to be, a seminarian deal with girls.”