Newsweek's Lisa Miller is the magazine's go-to secular scribbler when it comes to matters religious. Whenever I gloss over her predictable articles on religion, I'm left with a feeling of "sigh" or, to quote Reagan, "There you go again.". For her latest piece, it is sufficient to read the title and subtitle to catch her drift: The Trouble with Celibacy: In Africa, Catholicism's best growth market, many priests have little use for Rome's chastity mandate.
As noted in the article by George Weigel a few posts down, celibacy has nothing to do with the scandal. The statistics demonstrate this convincingly. Miller's screed is nothing but a hackneyed, misleading hit piece launched at the Church in a time of vulnerability, when cheap shots are easy. Like many of her myopic peers in the media elite, Miller is incapable of discerning anything worthwhile in the celibate life. She is your typical, dry secularist feigning erudition, yet whose mind is congenitally incapable of expanding beyond the boundaries of the rehashed liberal talking points of the day.
Joining the priesthood is a choice made by the individual responding to a call from God. He takes a solemn vow of celibacy, and does so before God. If he fails in adhering to the requisites of the vow, that is solely his problem, not the Church's. A man who violates a vow has his own set of problems. Miller should at least acknowledge this before wasting ink on her pre-packaged and premise-errant commentary about celibacy. The Church doesn't force anyone into the priesthood. But once someone decides to commit, it is his duty to follow through with the stipulations. It's not all that complicated, really.
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