CATHOLIC CELIBACY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 11, 30 December 1892, Page 19

CATHOLIC CELIBACY.

v (Brookljn CatkoHo Revien.) OtTE Lord demoted Hii life on earth wholly to the relief of the Buffer* iogi and sorrows of others. Bat He did not require such complete abnegation of self from all His follower!. Nor does the Catholic Church require it of all her children. If any of them abstain from marriage, that they may devote themselves wholly to works of charity, the sacrifice is entirely voluntary. For she leaves each of them to deoide for himself whether he will assume the duties and enjoy the happiness of the married state. But as the world was in our Lord's time, so it is now, There axe works of charity and mercy to be done the world over, which can never be done as they ought to be, unless some Christians are willing, like Christ, to devote their lives to them. They require more time, and more constant thought and care, than can ba spared for them by those who have families dependent upon them. They can be well and efficiently done only at the sacrifice of somebody's natnral right to the happiness of married life. To say that it is unreasonable to expect Christians to make each a sacrifice for others, it is to say that nobody need expect that any Christian will ever forget self entirely, that he may walk in the very footsteps of Jesus. Such being the actual state of the matter, it is plain that the view that a professed minister of Christ takes of celibacy, when embraced from Christian motives, is a fair test of bis faith. Unless he believes, with a liriog practical faith, that the pleasures of this life are aa nothing compared with the reward promised by Christ to those who give up wife and children and houses and lands, for His s«ke, he will reason thus. " I ought to marry. For it will make me both a happier man aod a more useful citizen. It is my duty to take my shares in the responsibilities of life. I can exemplify the unselfish Bpirit of the Gospel without sacrificing my natural rights and repressing all my natural aspirations. Tbe poor and unfortunate should not be themselves unreasonable, but should be satisfied with as much of my time and care as is consistent with my right to secure my own, and my family's welfare and happiness." But the Catholic priest reasons thus : " If I marry it will impose npon me duties that willjrequire most of my time— duties, too, that will centre chiefly in self, since a desire for my own happiness will be the principal motive for assuming them. It will compel me to make works of charity and mercy matters of secondary importance, to be Attended whenever I may have the time to spare for them. I could not live as Christ did, wholly for the good of others." We need not ask which of these two views is most in accord with the spirit of Christ. Bat let us see their practical results, by comparing the work of tbe celibate orders in the Catholic Church with that done by other churches,' Both together are not enough to meet the wants of the suffering world. Everywhere there is ignorance needing more teachers than can be found for it. Everywhere there is sickness calling for care that cannot be given it. suffering with no hand to re ieve it, pestilence putting the strong to flight, leaving its helpless victims to die alone. The world is still full of that work which Jesus left unfinished, to be done, if it is ever done at all, by His followers. Who is doing the most of it ? Those who divide their time between tbe special work of Christ and the care of wife and children, or those who, having neither wife nor child, give themselves wholly to works of charity ? This question is best answered by practical examples. When the plague broke out, a few years ago, in the South, the steamboats coming North brought ministers, fleeing with their families from the breath of the pestilence. Those going South carried tbe Sisters of Charily, They went into tbe very face of death, bravely and cheerfully, yet so unostentatiously that tbe world took little note of their going. Few have ever heard of the seventy Catholic martyrs who, in Southern homes and hospitals, kid down their lives, as Christ did, for others. And not many know that France once decorated a woman with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. She was a Sister of Charity, who when she saw a shell roll with its sputtering fuse np to the wheels of an ambulance filled with wounded soldiers under her care, sprang out and threw it over a stone wall, where it burst tbe moment it touched tbe ground. And so it is everywhere. On the battle field, in the pest-house, ft in the squalid hornet of the helplessly poor, in the school room where their children are taught without pay, and often without thanks, at every post whsre a suffering world calls for heroes and heroines to do and to die for others, there will be found the priest and the Sister. And their work is for ten times their number. It never has been, and never will be done for those whose allegiance is divided between Q-od's suffering poor aud their own dependent families.

ITproot of this is¥eeded, it may b^ToundTn th^wmtrait between the priest and the minister in the following instance, known to the writer. Daring the late war, a young southern toldier, a mere boy, was lent to a small-pox hospital, whose chaplain wii the priett referred to. He watched over the poor fellow until, by the surgeon's adTioe, he told him that he had bat a little while to lire, and then asked him if he did not want to make some preparation for deathr " > He replied that he was a Methodist, and would like to see a preacher • of that faith. The good Father went at onoe to the chaplain of a neighbouring regiment and told him that a member of his Church, was dying in the hospital of smallpox, and wished to see him. The only reply at first was a ghastly paleness that spread itself over the young man's features. At length he said :—": — " I cannot go. tarn engaged to be married, and I do not think I ought to expose my life, or ran the risk of being permanently disfigured. I owe it to the woman who has promised to marry me not to do anything to wreck her happiness." The priest went back in silence to the bedside of the dying boy, watched by it until his eyes closed in death, and then gave him decent bnrial. Yes, there is always work to be done in the world, which can be done only at the risk, of somebody's life or health. And it mutt be done, unless the world is to go back to a heartless pagan indifference to suffering, and Christianity be thereby proved a failure. Bat it will never be done by married people.