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Question 58.
Dear Fr Christopher, your blessing.
Some people claim that celibate priests are not capable of giving advice
on issues regarding family and relationships since they do not have
relavant personal experience. Could that be true?
Thank you for your assistance,
Eleftheria
Answer to Question 58.
Dear Eleftheria,
As a rule most celibate priests are monks and live in a monastic
community, although there are few who have opted for the celibate life,
but live as parish priests in town. On the matter of spiritual fathers,
we cannot say that all monastics are incapable of giving spiritual
advice to married persons just because they do not have the relevant
personal experience and neither can we say the all married priests (who
have this experience) are therefore proficient on issues regarding
family and relationships. There are good and not so good spiritual
fathers from both walks of life. What makes a good spiritual father is
his spiritual understanding and love. What often makes a bad spiritual
father is inexperience and a fanatical and often narrow minded
understanding of life and spiritual matters.
We use the name Spiritual father rather liberally, but not every priest
who has the blessing to hear confessions is also a spiritual father. The
Church is a hospital for sick souls, Christ is the Head Physician and
the Priests are his many doctors specialized in many fields of spiritual
ailments. But just as there are good knowledgeable and experienced
doctor and others not so experienced, so too are there good experienced
priests and others inexperienced. A spiritual doctor like a physician
must have many years of studying, training and experience, not
necessarily a university graduate, but a graduate of the spiritual
university, knowledgeable through his own spiritual struggles in how to
subdue the passions and overcome temptations. One doctor might prescribe
one medicine for an ailment and another might give you something else or
another might rely only on homeopathic medicines. It doesn’t matter what
each gives as long as the end result is the same. This is true of
priests. Not every priest gives the same advice, one will tell you to
fast another to read, another to make prostrations, and another will
keep silent. Each person is an individual with different needs so there
cannot be a fixed rule or general medicine suitable for everyone. The
experienced Priest will know which medicine (spiritual advice) will best
help to lead the person to salvation, which is the only important thing
in life.
Ideally monks/priest serve the needs of their monastery and married
priests serve the needs of their parish. In recent years we have seen
more and more people turning to monasteries for their confession because
they feel that monks are more spiritual and that they would be given
better advice. Another reason is that they are embarrassed to go to
their local Priest because he knows them and feel that he will judge or
lose his good opinion of them. From personal experience I have known
wonderful and knowledgeable spiritual fathers from the monastic life,
but have also experienced fanatical and narrow minded spiritual fathers
(monks) who have no idea about marital life and the problems people
face. Such experience has made me cautious and hesitant in advising
people to go to monasteries for their spiritual welfare. There are so
many good spiritual fathers among the married clergy that indeed
understand far better the problems of marital life and society in
general that I feel there is no need for people to travel to monasteries
for Confession/spiritual advice.
With love in Christ
Fr. Christopher
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