I WANTED to be a priest.
Even before the caton, that is the Spanish phonetics, at age 4, I was already being instructed in the catechism of the Catholic Church, had memorized the Ibpa Mi, Bapung Maria, Gloria, the Credo and the penitential rites of Acung Palpikasala. All courtesy of my maternal grandmother, Apung Rita Canlas vda. de Zapata, whose life revolved around the church, and her elder sister, my spinster grandaunt Apung Mameng, lifetime devotee to St. Anthony of Padua and the Lady of Mount Carmel.
I was not even seven when I had my first communion, sans the usual fanfare of immaculate white togs, candle in hand and the perfunctory photograph with the image of an angel holding a ciborium.
My elementary days started at 5 a.m. with the recitation of the Holy Rosary with Apung Rita, moving on to Mass where I served as altar boy and from where I got my 10 centavo daily baon from the kindly Fr. Quirino Canilao.
I wanted to be a priest.
Even if I had to lose one year in high school – my first year at the then Jose Abad Santos High School – I transferred to the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary where I was promptly reverted to Infima Class, first year anew..
The following year, in Media Class, I stumbled into Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In Suprema Class, Lenin butted in and by my Poetry Class, I was caught in the whirl of the Marx-Lenin-Mao axis.
Still I wanted to be a priest.
No heresy but a new-found belief was the Red trinity, even melding it – ah, so vainly – with the old faith whence arose a pseudo-dogma: Christ was the first communist. Notwithstanding the Marxist diktat on religion as the people’s opiate.
So heavy with “social conscientization” plodded seminarian me through Rhetorics at the San Jose Seminary but got stalled at the very gates to Philosophy.
So what was my stand on celibacy, my spiritual director asked me in the entrance interview. My response, most practical, least ecclesial, was for celibacy to be made optional. Let priests who wanted to marry do so, let those who wanted to remain celibate do so too.
I wanted to be a priest, whether married or not. Alas the priesthood did not want me.
Through the ages since its institutionalization in the Second Lateran Council in 1139 – where for the first time was introduced a general law of celibacy, requiring ordination only of unmarried men – priestly celibacy has wracked the Catholic Church. The volume of violations – not the least of which were the sexual excesses of the Borgia pope – made the vow observed, nay, dishonored, in its breach rather than honored in its practice.
The defiance of the clerical vow of celibacy has been both open and hidden. But a few years back, the scandal of two priests in Panay Island officiating their own marriage in priestly vestments rocked the Philippine Church. Then, there were the priests, even a bishop from Pampanga exposed in the media as having sired children.
No surprise then to the cry from clerics and laity alike to dispense with celibacy. It is not natural for man to be alone. Hence celibacy is not in the nature of man. So it is reasoned. So I subscribe to.
And then I read about the Italian priest who served as main preacher at the recently concluded National Congress of the Clergy II, the Franciscan Capuchin Fr. Raniera Cantalamessa.
“Man is not determined by nature alone…We are determined by our vocation.” Preached Cantalamessa, who is the resident preacher of the papal household in the Vatican, saying “celibacy is closest to the final vocation, which is union with Christ.”
“We don’t bring offspring into the world but ours is a fecund and fertile state of life. We enhance the quality of life. Celibacy gives us wings to fly, it should not be a burden. Celibacy is not just a counsel, it is a charism, a gift we have received,” went the good father as he cautioned his audience of over 5,000 priests and bishops, “Celibacy is not an act of renunciation for priests to feel proud about but something exercised with humility, freedom and joy.”
Cantalamessa exhorted the priests “fast from images,” as he cited the Internet and television as threats to celibacy, that can be triumphed over if priests see the world with the eyes of Jesus Christ.
“God created the eyes, but he also created the eyelids to cover them,” he reminded everyone,
For his part, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales sermoned on priests as “creatures of the Spirit.”
“Like cows, we have been branded. We have been claimed. Once anointed we belong completely to God. There is no transfer of ownership. We cannot lend ourselves to someone. Our fidelity should go beyond observance of law and duty.”
I wanted to be a priest. Lacking in fidelity, the priesthood did not want me. I can only pray for priests. To be ever joyously faithful in their observance of law and duty, in their practice of celibacy, continence and chastity.
Even before the caton, that is the Spanish phonetics, at age 4, I was already being instructed in the catechism of the Catholic Church, had memorized the Ibpa Mi, Bapung Maria, Gloria, the Credo and the penitential rites of Acung Palpikasala. All courtesy of my maternal grandmother, Apung Rita Canlas vda. de Zapata, whose life revolved around the church, and her elder sister, my spinster grandaunt Apung Mameng, lifetime devotee to St. Anthony of Padua and the Lady of Mount Carmel.
I was not even seven when I had my first communion, sans the usual fanfare of immaculate white togs, candle in hand and the perfunctory photograph with the image of an angel holding a ciborium.
My elementary days started at 5 a.m. with the recitation of the Holy Rosary with Apung Rita, moving on to Mass where I served as altar boy and from where I got my 10 centavo daily baon from the kindly Fr. Quirino Canilao.
I wanted to be a priest.
Even if I had to lose one year in high school – my first year at the then Jose Abad Santos High School – I transferred to the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary where I was promptly reverted to Infima Class, first year anew..
The following year, in Media Class, I stumbled into Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In Suprema Class, Lenin butted in and by my Poetry Class, I was caught in the whirl of the Marx-Lenin-Mao axis.
Still I wanted to be a priest.
No heresy but a new-found belief was the Red trinity, even melding it – ah, so vainly – with the old faith whence arose a pseudo-dogma: Christ was the first communist. Notwithstanding the Marxist diktat on religion as the people’s opiate.
So heavy with “social conscientization” plodded seminarian me through Rhetorics at the San Jose Seminary but got stalled at the very gates to Philosophy.
So what was my stand on celibacy, my spiritual director asked me in the entrance interview. My response, most practical, least ecclesial, was for celibacy to be made optional. Let priests who wanted to marry do so, let those who wanted to remain celibate do so too.
I wanted to be a priest, whether married or not. Alas the priesthood did not want me.
Through the ages since its institutionalization in the Second Lateran Council in 1139 – where for the first time was introduced a general law of celibacy, requiring ordination only of unmarried men – priestly celibacy has wracked the Catholic Church. The volume of violations – not the least of which were the sexual excesses of the Borgia pope – made the vow observed, nay, dishonored, in its breach rather than honored in its practice.
The defiance of the clerical vow of celibacy has been both open and hidden. But a few years back, the scandal of two priests in Panay Island officiating their own marriage in priestly vestments rocked the Philippine Church. Then, there were the priests, even a bishop from Pampanga exposed in the media as having sired children.
No surprise then to the cry from clerics and laity alike to dispense with celibacy. It is not natural for man to be alone. Hence celibacy is not in the nature of man. So it is reasoned. So I subscribe to.
And then I read about the Italian priest who served as main preacher at the recently concluded National Congress of the Clergy II, the Franciscan Capuchin Fr. Raniera Cantalamessa.
“Man is not determined by nature alone…We are determined by our vocation.” Preached Cantalamessa, who is the resident preacher of the papal household in the Vatican, saying “celibacy is closest to the final vocation, which is union with Christ.”
“We don’t bring offspring into the world but ours is a fecund and fertile state of life. We enhance the quality of life. Celibacy gives us wings to fly, it should not be a burden. Celibacy is not just a counsel, it is a charism, a gift we have received,” went the good father as he cautioned his audience of over 5,000 priests and bishops, “Celibacy is not an act of renunciation for priests to feel proud about but something exercised with humility, freedom and joy.”
Cantalamessa exhorted the priests “fast from images,” as he cited the Internet and television as threats to celibacy, that can be triumphed over if priests see the world with the eyes of Jesus Christ.
“God created the eyes, but he also created the eyelids to cover them,” he reminded everyone,
For his part, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales sermoned on priests as “creatures of the Spirit.”
“Like cows, we have been branded. We have been claimed. Once anointed we belong completely to God. There is no transfer of ownership. We cannot lend ourselves to someone. Our fidelity should go beyond observance of law and duty.”
I wanted to be a priest. Lacking in fidelity, the priesthood did not want me. I can only pray for priests. To be ever joyously faithful in their observance of law and duty, in their practice of celibacy, continence and chastity.
