Aba A. Luke

As Ro­man Catholics in T&T and the rest of the world com­ply to the ob­ser­vance of the Lenten pe­ri­od, many ar­eas of the Ro­man Catholic way of life are brought in­to fo­cus.

Their be­liefs have held strong sig­nif­i­cance for the greater part of the re­li­gion's ex­is­tence, which dates back some 2000 years, how­ev­er in the past few years, the Catholic way of life has been crit­i­cised to some ex­tent, with the ex­po­sure of al­leged acts of sex­u­al mis­de­meanour among mem­bers of the cler­gy both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Iron­i­cal­ly, Ro­man Catholic priests and oth­er mem­bers of the high­er or­der of the re­li­gion are sworn to a life of celiba­cy from the mo­ment they re­ceive, what is called the Sacra­ment of Or­ders. Celiba­cy is de­scribed as a freely cho­sen state of be­ing un­mar­ried and prac­tis­ing sex­u­al ab­sti­nence, so with a se­ries of al­le­ga­tions cit­ing sex­u­al scan­dal with­in the Catholic priest­hood, ques­tions now loom as to whether the celiba­cy re­quire­ment is re­al­is­tic and whether lo­cal priests stay true and if so, how.

No celiba­cy for dea­cons

In Feb­ru­ary, 20 reg­u­lar men from var­i­ous walks of life here in T&T, were or­dained per­ma­nent dea­cons. Among the 20, was for­mer Ra­dio Vi­sion CEO, Lennox Tou­s­saint. Serv­ing the parish of St Ann's, Tou­s­saint says his role, as a per­ma­nent dea­con of the Ro­man Catholic Church is mere­ly to work with the peo­ple of God in T&T, the wider world and be­yond. Tou­s­saint is in fact mar­ried with three adult chil­dren and ex­plains that the celiba­cy re­quire­ment does not ap­ply to dea­cons. He how­ev­er says, "of the 20 dea­cons or­dained on Feb­ru­ary 6, one was a tran­si­tion­al dea­con who chose to take the vow of celiba­cy as he plans to move on to the priest­hood." Tou­s­saint be­lieves in life there are var­i­ous stages, and for mem­bers of the high­er or­der of the Ro­man Catholic re­li­gion, the prac­tice of celiba­cy is mere­ly one stage that is ad­hered to. He says, "All re­li­gions have laws of prac­tice that they op­er­ate by. In the Ro­man Catholic re­li­gion, celiba­cy is just one such law." When asked whether he be­lieves the prac­tice of celiba­cy among Catholic priests as­sists in any way, via their teach­ing to the young and im­pres­sion­able as it re­lates to the prac­tice of ab­sti­nence, Tou­s­saint said, "with God all things are pos­si­ble."

Two decades

spent celi­bate

With some 20 years of ser­vice to the Ro­man Catholic cler­gy, Mon­sign­or Cuth­bert Alexan­der who is the parish priest at St Pe­ter's in Care­nage as well as the head of the Catholic Me­dia Ser­vices Ltd in Port-of-Spain, ex­plained that celiba­cy is in fact, a gift from God. He says mar­riage is al­so a gift from God but adds that not every­one is called to serve the Lord in the way that priests and mem­bers of the high­er or­der are. "The priest­hood can on­ly be ap­proached with deep faith and a zeal to serve," says Mon­sign­or Alexan­der. "Celiba­cy is not for every­body and it does not mean that when one is or­dained, temp­ta­tions go away." He said that as with any­one who has blood flow­ing through their veins, priests and oth­er cler­gy­men are tempt­ed just the same. "Re­sis­tance of such temp­ta­tion is mere­ly a dis­ci­pline that is ap­proached through prayer," ex­plained Alexan­der who has been a part of the Ro­man Catholic faith all his life.

So­ci­ety's ap­par­ent be­lief that it can do what it wants, when it wants is a taint­ed and mis­guid­ed di­rec­tion, ac­cord­ing to the Mon­sign­or. "The re­al truth of liv­ing to­day is that one must dis­ci­pline one­self. If there is no dis­ci­pline there will be ru­in." He added that Priests and oth­er mem­bers of the cler­gy do not have to do what the youths are do­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly reach them, even as it re­lates to sex­u­al prac­tices. "Christ was celi­bate," says Alexan­der. The Ro­man Catholic faith be­lieves that when mem­bers of the cler­gy are or­dained, they are mere­ly con­fig­ur­ing to Christ's stan­dard of liv­ing. "One as­pect of the priest­hood is about con­fig­ur­ing one's life to Christ. When we speak of Christ, we speak of him as our Lord; he frees us and leads us in­to sal­va­tion. He leads us in­to the full­ness of life," he ex­plains. Mon­sign­or Alexan­der be­lieves that if a cler­gy­man's faith dwin­dles, prayer some­times de­creas­es, lead­ing to the rise of temp­ta­tion's abil­i­ty to over­pow­er faith. "It's not mag­ic, there is al­ways temp­ta­tion, it's a dai­ly thing." He how­ev­er as­sures that with faith in God, prayer and fo­cus, celiba­cy is main­tained and one of the key prin­ci­ples of the Ro­man Catholic faith is of­ten up­held in the most ho­n­ourable way.