Above: Mike, Dan, Steve & Joe seek to decide between celibacy in the Catholic priesthood or married life as laymen.

Tonight, I caught the third episode of of the A & E miniseries/documentary, "God or the Girl." The series follows four single young men for a number of weeks as they wrestle with whether God is calling them to the priesthood or to a life of marriage. I'll admit that upon hearing about "God or the Girl," I was a bit biased. I assumed that the subject would be approached from a highly sensationalistic viewpoint. Would the young men commit themselves to God, only to have the producers parade a number of scantily-clad young women before them? What's it going to be--GOD? Or the GIRL?

Perhaps the show would have been like that if it had been produced for Fox TV. Fortunately, this is an A&E show, and I found they treated the subject matter and the faith of these young men with the utmost respect. I felt for these young men. They all take their faith very seriously. They want to be true to the call of God on their lives. Joe stated a number of times, "I just want to be 100% sure." Well... good luck with that.

Look, I know what it's like to struggle with God's call upon my life. Such things should be taken very seriously. I never really felt called to celibacy though. Okay, I'll be honest... I don't think I ever even PRAYED about that one. But you've got to admire the folks, regardless of denominational affiliation, who take a vow of singleness/celibacy.

The Apostle Paul seems to exalt singleness above married life:

“I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

If anyone is worried that he might not be acting honorably toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting beyond the usual age for marrying and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better."
(1 Cor 7:32-38, TNIV)

I feel for the young men's struggle as it's depicted in "God or the Girl." I regret that for them and their denomination (the Roman Catholic Church) that it's an either/or proposition to begin with. Although my own denomination probably incorrectly downplays a call to single life, we don't make our seminary students choose between ministerial service and family life. In fact, married life is generally encouraged for the sake of propriety.

I know I run the risk of offending my Catholic friends, but I honestly believe that the continued requirement of the Catholic Church for their priests not to marry is a mistake. Although there are some very good, capable and qualified priests in the Catholic Church, I believe that by continuing this nonbiblical requirement, they unnecessarily exclude a large number of extremely gifted and otherwise qualified men who could be priests. And, although I don't want to pursue the subject further at this point, I believe that some of the recent problems with pedophile priests stem from this mistake. Further, the Catholic Church is having more and more difficulty finding young men willing to "forsake the world" in surrender to the priesthood. Allow these priests to have families and the shortage of quality candidates will disappear.

The truth is that there was no requirement forbidding priests to marry in the early church. It was not even an issue until maybe the 4th century with Augustine, who greatly struggled with sexual desire before his conversion and Jerome who took a low view of both sexuality and women in general. But such ideas are neither biblical nor Christian, although they've been mistakenly taught at times in the history of the church. And priests were not strictly forbidden to marry for at least the first 1,000 years of church history, if not longer.

Again, I feel for Mike, Steve, Dan, and Joe. Their sincere desire to please God is admirable. However, I hope that eventually the leaders of their denomination will have the wisdom to rethink their traditions, especially in light of biblical teaching on the subject.

Tags: television