Counter cultural

In a report on the recent Synod of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, the ABC this morning presented a report on celibacy, one commentator said:

The gift of priestly celibacy, and that’s one of the terms I like to use, ‘gift’. It’s a reminder to the church of our essential purpose to bear witness to the kingdom of heaven, that even though we’re part of this world and we love this world and we’re here for the sake of the world in a certain sense, it’s ultimately our true homeland in heaven that we’re aiming for, and that’s why celibacy is a counter cultural sign of witness to the eternal things. Some think that by ordaining married men and allowing them to remain married as priests, that the shortage will be alleviated, now in the short term that may be the case, I don’t know. But I think in the long term there would be real positive things which are present in the church now, which could be lost through the loss of the compulsory celibacy of the clergy in the West.

In a rather old-fashioned view of celibacy, I think....that of it being a sort of superior state to matrimony...the notion of counter culture is simply inadequate. One would have to say for example, that the notion of faithful marriage is deeply counter-cultural too...and in many way more so than the ease of celibacy. Is it pushing the envelope too far to also suggest that same sex unions or marriages are also counter cultural?
We live, after all, in a world in which sexual fidelity is demeaned and anything, it seems to me, that promotes commitment and faithfulness should be seriously examined as potentially "bearing witness to the kingdom". It is too limiting to think that only celibacy can do this.
It is normative, it would seem to me, to see that this is what marriage is about. It would be delightful if the minefield of same-sex relationship could also be given the same opportunity to bear witness to the kingdom.....some will not agree with me.

In reality, we witness to the values of the kingdom where we find ourselves to be and in the state to which God has called us. We should be cautious about promoting one state over another with a sort of superiority that smacks more of us than it does of God.
We should be cautious about taking a gift of God, such as priesthood, and using that to validate our limited views. Who, after all, are and have been the key promoters of clerical celibacy? The celibate clergy themselves!....more