Vatican tamps down clamor over Benedict’s new celibacy book

VATICAN CITY —  The Vatican on Monday sought to downplay the decision by retired Pope Benedict XVI to reaffirm the “necessity” of a celibate priesthood, which comes just as Pope Francis is considering ordaining married men. Officials called his book a mere contribution that was written in full obedience to Francis.

The Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, penned an editorial that sought to put Benedict’s bombshell book in the context of a continuity between the two popes. He noted that Francis, too, had upheld the “gift” of priestly celibacy and refused to make it optional across the board.

The French daily Le Figaro late Sunday published excerpts of the book, “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” co-authored with conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah. The Associated Press obtained galleys of the English edition, which is being published Feb. 20 by Ignatius Press.

Benedict’s intervention was extraordinary, given he had promised to remain “hidden from the world” when he retired in 2013 and pledged his obedience to the new pope. He has largely held to that pledge, though he penned an odd essay last year that blamed the sexual abuse crisis on the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

His reaffirmation of priestly celibacy, however, gets to the heart of a fraught policy issue that Francis is expected to weigh in on in the coming weeks. It could well be considered a public attempt by the former pope to sway the thinking of the current one.

The implications for such an intervention are grave, given that conservative and traditionalist Catholics nostalgic for Benedict’s orthodoxy are already deeply opposed to Francis, with some even considering Benedict’s resignation illegitimate.

The book is likely to fuel renewed anxiety about the wisdom of Benedict’s decision to call himself “emeritus pope,” rather than merely a retired bishop, and create the unprecedented situation of a former pope living in the Vatican gardens near a current one, and wearing the white cassock of the papacy.

In that light, it is significant that the English edition of the book lists the author as “Benedict XVI,” with no mention of his emeritus papal status on the cover.

The authors clearly anticipated the potential interpretation of their book as criticism of the current pope and stressed in their joint introduction that they were two bishops penning it “in a spirit of filial obedience, to Pope Francis.” But they also said that the current “crisis” in the church required they not remain silent.

Francis has said he will write a document based on the outcome of the October 2019 synod of bishops on the Amazon. A majority of bishops at the meeting called for the ordination of married men to address the priest shortage in the Amazon, where the faithful can go months without having a Mass.

Francis has expressed sympathy with the Amazonian plight, though it is not clear how he will come down on the issue. Although he has long reaffirmed the gift of a celibate priesthood in the Latin rite church, he has stressed that celibacy is a tradition, not doctrine, and therefore can change.

Speaking to reporters last January en route home from Panama, he noted that theologians had debated pastoral reasons to allow for an exception in a particular place. But he said his decision at that time was to say “no.”

“I don’t feel able to put myself before God with this decision,” he said.

In his editorial on Vatican News, entitled “A contribution on priestly celibacy in filial obedience to the pope,” Tornielli recalled Francis’ words from Panama and noted that Francis didn’t refer to the issue at all when he addressed the Amazon synod at its conclusion.

The Catholic Church already has married priests in its Eastern rites, and Benedict himself made it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism — including married Anglican priests who are allowed to remain married. But he has long held that Latin, or Roman rite, priests must be celibate.

Benedict addresses the issue head-on in his chapter in the brief book, explaining in scholarly and biblical terms what he says is the “necessary” criterion for the celibate priesthood that dates from the times of the apostles.

“The priesthood of Jesus Christ causes us to enter into a life that consists of becoming one with him and renouncing all that belongs only to us,” he writes. “For priests, this is the foundation of the necessity of celibacy but also of liturgical prayer, meditation on the Word of God and the renunciation of material goods.”

Marriage, he writes, requires man to give himself totally to his family. “Since serving the Lord likewise requires the total gift of a man, it does not seem possible to carry on the two vocations simultaneously.”

The jointly written introduction and conclusion of the book make the case even more strongly. Dedicating the book to priests of the world, the two authors urge them to persevere and for all faithful to hold firm and support them in their celibate ministry.

“It is urgent and necessary for everyone — bishops, priests and lay people — to stop letting themselves be intimidated by the wrong-headed pleas, the theatrical productions, the diabolical lies and the fashionable errors that try to put down priestly celibacy,” they write.

The book is being published at a moment of renewed interest in — and confusion about — the nature of the relationship between Francis and Benedict, thanks to the Netflix drama “The Two Popes.”

The film stars Anthony Hopkins as Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as Francis — both received Oscar nominations on Monday for their roles. It imagines a days-long conversation between the two men before Benedict announces his historic resignation Feb. 11, 2013 — conversations in which their different views of the state of the church become apparent.

Those meetings never happened, and the two men didn’t know one another well before Francis was elected pope. But although the film takes artistic liberties for the sake of narrative, it gets the point across that Francis and Benedict indeed have some very different ideas.

Catholic social media was abuzz Monday after Benedict’s bombshell, with Francis’ supporters saying it showed the problems of having an “emeritus pope” seemingly undermining the current one, and suggesting that Benedict — at age 92 and increasingly feeble — was being manipulated by his conservative entourage.

“Not only there is no canon law concerning the situation created by an incapacitated pope,” tweeted Villanova theologian Massimo Faggioli. “The Catholic Church evidently also needs a law concerning the situation created by an incapacitated ‘pope emeritus’ and his entourage.”

Mark Brumley, the president of Ignatius Press, however, denounced such conspiracies and said Benedict wasn’t being used.

“Why some folks choose to interpret the new book by Pope Emeritus Benedict and Cardinal Sarah in anti-Pope Francis ways speaks volumes,” he tweeted. “Let’s pray for healing for the critics that they can rejoice in a new work from two great churchmen of our time, including a major theologian.”