Celibacy a gift that ‘fulfils’ priests, says theology professor

In a debate replete with nuance and counterintuitive turns, a woman who teaches philosophy to Catholic priests-in-training makes the case for clerical celibacy.

‘Spiritually speaking, priests are married to the church,’ says professor Renee Kohler-Ryan. Picture: John Feder

It might “go against the grain” outside the church but Renee Kohler-Ryan insists there is a strong case for Catholic priests to stay celibate.

As national head of the School of Philosophy and Theology at Notre Dame University Australia, she teaches young men who aspire to a life in the priesthood with all the worldly sacrifices that entails.

Yet there’s another side rarely brought out: what they gain in the process.

“Spiritually speaking, they’re really married to the church,” Professor Kohler-Ryan said.

“They’re giving their whole lives to this vocation and I think we’re not good enough, generous enough, as a society in realising what a special relationship it is.

“To be a priest is to be serving and giving one’s whole life like Christ gave his whole life. So that’s what I see in these young men … there isn’t a sense of loss for what they are forgoing, it’s more a sense of fulfilment.”

This discussion is replete with nuance and counter-intuitive turns. If the five million Australians who identify as being Catholic, without necessarily attending mass, are part of a universal church, there are striking differences in the recruitment rate of new priests across the country.

Take Sydney, where Professor Kohler-Ryan lives and works: the Seminary of the Good Shepherd at Homebush inducted 17 trainees this year in one of the biggest intakes for years, attesting to the strength of the local archdiocese.

In Brisbane, however, the graduating class of 2023 from the Holy Spirit Seminary profiled in the current edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine numbered three.

Brisbane Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge. Picture: David Clark

As Professor Kohler-Ryan noted: “I think the numbers in Sydney give cause for hope. I saw analysis in the last few days of census data showing that in Sydney … we have pretty high rates of young people who are highly engaged with their faith … but I know in other areas of the country the situation is quite dire.

“Overall, it really does look like we’re not replacing priests at the levels we would need to sustain the parish levels we have right now.”

A practising Catholic, she is a member of the nine-strong Australian contingent to attend a potentially watershed summit on the future of the church in Rome this October. This Synod on Synodality will examine priestly celibacy alongside other hot-button issues for Catholics such as women in the clergy and outreach to the LGBTQ+ community.

While the number of seminarians undertaking the testing seven years of training has stabilised nationally at 304 as of 2021, the cohort of priests in Australia is 2900, down from a peak of 3895 in 1971.

Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge has said the existing model of a “priest in every parish” was unsustainable and has flagged an eventual phasing out of compulsory celibacy as “very likely” and there was a “glimmer of a possibility” that women could be ordained as deacons at entry-level in the clergy.

Professor Kohler-Ryan had reservations on both options. Opening the Catholic deaconate to women could prove “confusing” given it would raise the question of why they couldn’t become priests.

“I know this is something that not everyone – and certainly not every woman – would agree on but I think it’s theologically significant that Christ became human and became male,” she said.

“It’s not something we can brush over.”

Professor Kohler-Ryan acknowledged that priestly celibacy was a “church discipline matter” rather than doctrine, given there was no mention of it in the Bible.