Affective Maturity and Priestly Celibacy: When Love Is Rightly Ordered (Part One)

Now seems the acceptable time for the Church to clarify further the meaning of “affective maturity” in seminary formation, given the widespread confusion over what it means to be human. 

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Cor 13:11) 

Toward the end of his familiar and beloved hymn to charity, St. Paul writes something about himself that seems unremarkable: the boy became a man. The passage suggests, however, that the Apostle wishes to tell his reader (recall the audience in Corinth, a city known for self-indulgence) something about how a boy becomes a man: not in the obvious physical or even psychological sense, but about how a Christian matures in charity, whose qualities Paul has just been describing. 

Cardinal Newman wrote a sermon—“Christian Manhood”—about the verse quoted above, in which he refers to Christ’s encounter with the rich young man. Jesus showed that young fellow the path to become “a man, and not a mere child in the Gospel,” in Newman’s words, and if he “would be perfect,” in the words of the Master (Mt 19:21). In the power of the Holy Spirit, a well-formed, mature man detaches himself from a “love for the pleasures of life,” Newman says, and so elevates his heart to the God-Man raised up on the Cross, who during His time on earth, had “nowhere to lay His head” (Mt 8:20).  

Where perfection in charity lies commands the attention of these two great teachers of the Faith, and that of a third: Pope St. John Paul II. For each, the model is Jesus Christ, who, by recasting the second part of the great commandment of love, sets a higher standard for us so that we might be more fully united with Him: “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

In the case of John Paul II, I refer specifically to his 1992 post-synodal exhortation about the formation of priests, Pastores Dabo Vobis (hereafter, Pastores), and I admit, in part, for personal reasons. My entrance into the seminary coincided with the publication of Pastores, which for good reason was frequently cited in that era. That remains true today, when I am now engaged in the work of priestly formation, but from the other side. 

Pastores covers much ground and emphasizes the indispensability of human formation—for both seminarians and those entrusted with this sacred task—as the “basis of all priestly formation.” John Paul introduces the phrase “affective maturity” to develop and to enrich the Church’s teaching on how men grow in Christian manhood and in the charity of Christ, by loving others for His sake and with His Sacred Heart. This is the perfection in charity toward which the priesthood is oriented.

The Pope describes affective maturity in a method similar to the way St. Paul describes charity, by outlining its attributes, and the two texts clearly align in terms of the theological virtue. Both assist formators in their work through their description of charity in plain and compelling terms. Our interest here, however, considers something more specific, something that has become more urgent for the documents guiding priestly formation to address, and for the reason John Paul gave for writing Pastores a generation ago: “the circumstances of the present day.”

Given the radical and regrettable changes in how many now understand what it means to be human and to act in a human way, this essay proposes that we need a more detailed account of the content of affective maturity, consistent with the complementarity of the sexes. In particular, I will suggest that we look to the Gospel to examine how Our Lord formed the Apostles, first as men and brothers, in preparation for their spiritual fatherhood as priests, and how He formed them to include their mission to govern, as well as to teach and sanctify. An integrated masculinity—the result of good human formation—finds its fulfillment in fatherhood, which embraces the capacity for leadership, shaped by all the virtues, especially charity.

In recent times, no doubt in part as a response to feminism, the magisterium has helpfully considered the gifts of women and their role in the Church. During this same interval, we have seen manhood and fatherhood widely and routinely disparaged and attacked in society. We have also seen how distortions of masculinity, in reaction to feminism, have become prevalent. For these reasons, it would seem timely to address more precisely what affective maturity looks like for a man preparing for priesthood.  

Esto vir

To begin, we consider two episodes from the Old Testament, both from the first book of Kings. In the first, as David approaches death, he tells his son Solomon, “Be strong and show yourself a man” (I Kings 2:2). A man, the king tells his heir, proves his manhood mature by his fidelity to God’s law and to His will. In turn, the Lord will keep His promise to the House of David: if David’s sons remain faithful, “there shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel” (I Kings 2:4). 

The second, one chapter later, recounts the familiar, edifying story of Solomon’s response to God’s invitation: “Ask what I shall give you” (I Kings 3:5). To which Solomon replies, “Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this thy great people?” (I Kings 3:9).

We want to avoid a superficial reading of these passages, but we wish also not to lose their plain meaning. Fidelity to the Commandments (virtus) and wisdom make the man (vir), whose masculinity (virilitas) shows itself in integrity of life, and in leadership and in the protection of the common good, for the love of God. 

If there is such a thing as “manly virtue” that can be distinguished from human virtue more generally, then Our Lord’s example in the Gospel says something helpful about how and why men look to other men to learn the way of virtue.

The Vulgate crisply renders “show yourself a man” in the imperative, esto vir. G.K. Chesterton quipped—with much wisdom—that we do not have to slap a crocodile on the back and tell it to be a crocodile. Due to the legacy of Original Sin and personal weakness, however, we do slap men on the back and urge them, with a smile, to “be a man.” Though such encouragement may sting, men know the truth and charity behind the slap. (Interestingly, Scripture contains no complementary exhortation for women, though not because they do not suffer the effects of concupiscence. More briefly on that later.)

Pastores instructs the reader (approximately 40 times) that Holy Orders configures the priest to Christ, the head and shepherd of the Church. Sacramentally, the priest participates in the threefold munera of Christ: priest, prophet and king. Within the context of its topic of priestly formation, Pastores describes affective maturity (eight references) as “the result of an education in true and responsible love” (par 43), which will show itself, inter alia, in the munus regendi, the leadership of the priest.

Pastores does not explicitly define or specify affective maturity for man as vir (male) as distinguished from man as homo (human being). Doubtless the saintly Pontiff believed this distinction was obvious enough, and in a former time, that may have been true. The circumstances of our own age, however, require that we highlight this distinction, which does not imply two human natures or two separate anthropologies. Man and woman share one human nature. Vir identifies the specifically masculine way a male person receives, embodies, and is called to perfect that common humanity. 

In my days as a seminarian, some seemed to interpret “affective maturity” to mean: “being comfortable in your sexual skin,” so to speak, and in whatever way someone perceived this. To accept that reading would reveal a grave and still prevalent error in anthropological and moral reasoning—the primacy of subjective “lived experience” at the expense of objective truth and virtue—which the Pope did confront in Veritatis Splendor. Indeed, if there is no other criterion than one’s own experience then it does not make sense to speak of affective maturity as a universal good to be sought.   

Of course, John Paul II would not allow for such an interpretation, were we able to ask him, nor does a sincere reading of Pastores in the light of tradition permit it. The axiom agere sequitur esse—action follows being—tells us something vital about the moral universe God created: anthropology precedes and informs morality. “Who am I? What am I? Why am I?” are the decisive—and vexed—questions of the moment, none of which is, strictly speaking, the purview of moral theology. Controversies about morality often follow from mistakes about identity. To label myself or someone else wrongly, for instance, especially according to the modern idiom, may trap the person in a false story about himself, and that would fail both truth and charity.

Only the truth liberates and fulfills, as Jesus made clear. To live a happy and good life begins with embracing one’s sexual identity, first in nature and then in grace, as the sacred writer indicates: male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 now ranks among the most contested lines in the Bible, a self-evident principle suddenly no longer recognized by some. Yet along with the doctrine of Original Sin (cf. Rom 7:19), the natural moral law—with its twofold expression of the sexes—explains us to ourselves. Logically, the particular—a given man or woman—needs the universal—our humanity—to understand himself or herself. And because the law of our nature transcends us, it also unites us, while preparing the ground for the Incarnation, since grace perfects nature. 

Thus, specifically framing the human formation of men in the context of man as vir, not just as homo, will help clarify confusion, and preserve the bond between mature masculinity and the priestly leadership and governance in the Church that exemplify the priest’s pastoral charity, i.e., his spiritual fatherhood. 

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

As many others have observed, in a former era we wrestled with substantive theological questions, e.g., “Who is Jesus Christ?” and “What is the Church?” Today, we have slipped backwards, and worse, we have lost our confidence that we can answer these questions: “What does it mean to be human and to act in a human way?” Or, framed from a theological perspective, does human nature carry the imprint of divine wisdom and love? Vatican II wisely warned of the danger to humanity from the loss of the sense of the transcendent. But if we lose the correct understanding of human nature, can we find our way to God? As both John Paul II and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn reminded us, the question of man is a question of God. 

Let’s start with one striking example of how society’s approach to the subject of human nature has changed over the past generation. While the political concept of same-sex marriage was looming as a danger during JPII’s pontificate, the Supreme Court decision confirming it as civil law in America came a decade after his death. Though he gave us the comprehensive Theology of the Body, John Paul wrote very little about homosexuality, per se, unlike Pope Benedict XVI, who had to write and say more about this topic.

The widespread acceptance, also among Christians, of homosexuality and the embracing of same-sex marriage are but two related signs of the problem. Contemporary society gives witness to a plethora of others: “transhumanism”; a loss of the proper distinction between sex and gender, their supposed “fluidity”, and the idea that they are simply “social constructs”; the widely embraced notion that men and women are virtually interchangeable in all aspects of the human endeavor; fewer and later marriages, with the accompanying decrease in births and family size; the rise in single parent homes; the absence of a father in the life of a child; the plagues of pornography and loneliness; the isolating and alienating effects of technology and social media and other ambiguous, if not harmful, influences of “smart phones” and “artificial intelligence”; the exchange of the concepts of “self” for person and “well-being” for a virtuous life; the disparaging of fatherhood in media; a growing number of children who, as adults, deliberately cut themselves off from their parents; a marked societal androgyny in advertising, etc. Taken together, these indicate how much popular thinking and behavior have migrated further from objective truth and goodness since Pastores was published only some three decades ago.

Men who are seminarians today have come of age when these ideas and practices have dominated Western society, and these ideas can bleed in the minds and hearts of those striving to be good disciples. While a man develops his character and—please, God—matures through his choices, human nature remains constant, as John Paul reminded us in Veritatis Splendor. Even so, self-understanding may be impeded or distorted, possibly without our awareness of what is happening. And where self-knowledge falters, so will self-possession and self-giving…and the love that St. Paul lauds in I Corinthians 13.

Can we distinguish between masculine and feminine expressions of human nature, or more precisely, of virtue, and not simply in stereotypes, but in archetypes, in a manner useful for priestly formation, and indeed, Christian formation more widely? In principle, the answer seems easy: yes. Holy Matrimony, “the partnership of the whole of life” (CCC 1601), rests on the capacity for self-gift, union, and fruitfulness arising from the fact that men and women share a common nature, but in different, complementary forms—and not limited to the corporeal—in the mind and teaching of the Church.

Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. (CCC 2333)

The Catechism does not elaborate on the specifics of the moral and spiritual difference and complementarity of masculinity and femininity. The logic of the Catholic Church’s theology of creation and of her sacramental vision of this world, however, requires that these things are real, and therefore sensible, and that they can be learned and lived. The idea that “man is made for woman, and woman is made for man” can only be true if men and women differ in the manner they express their common nature. 

In another time, a formerly self-evident principle (the will and the passions may be impeding the intellect from grasping the same principle in our day) taught us that the telos of masculinity is fatherhood, both in nature and in grace, and that leadership and governance are integral to fatherhood, whether in the biological/familial or the spiritual/ecclesial context. Though widely dismissed today, the teleological design of creation and the classical understanding of formal and final causality remain keys to see reality, and therefore—per agere sequitur esse—to safeguard and promote the fulfillment of the human mind and heart. And that remains as true in the relationship between the sexes as anywhere else. 

God’s Wisdom and Love in the Created Order

Before continuing this line of thinking, it may be helpful to say something else about our humanity, an idea we see developed in the writing of Joseph Ratzinger on creation. The primary truth of our human nature is that we are dependent on God, and so in turn, on each other. We are dependent because we are relational creatures. For created beings, love means dependence, but the Christlike charity of those in authority protects dependence from being harmed by selfishness. Love transforms dependence into freedom, rightly understood as freedom for and in truth, virtue and grace. 

Here, I must briefly mention two additional thoughts which really deserve a fuller treatment because of their importance to the theme of this essay: how a man exercises masculine virtue in his love for others, and, particularly in the supernatural order, in priestly service to Christ and His Church. The first is that our dependent nature logically implies hierarchy, as the virtue of the fourth commandment, pietas, confirms. Hierarchies, then, are integral to the three societies to which all the baptized belong: the Church, the civitas, and the family. 

Second, the purpose or essence of authority (per its Latin root) is to “give increase” or to “build up,” as the author increases or builds the story. The Catechism says that the concept of authority “lies in human nature” (CCC 1898) and serves the “common good” (CCC 1898, 1903), which includes both the collective good, and the material and spiritual “good of all” (CCC 1897). In other words, authority is, by its nature, ordered to virtue, both in its exercise and its object. Otherwise, it risks becoming coercive power, detached from its nature and end. 

After Pius XII, the papal magisterium has been noticeably reserved in speaking about the headship of the husband in marriage according to Ephesians 5, which prior to the revision of the liturgy after Vatican II was the epistle for the nuptial Mass. St. Paul’s view of the sacrament is wonderfully, bracingly, Christological. Husbands must love their wives “as Christ loved the Church,” clarifying what “as I have loved you” looks like in marriage. In that sacramental covenant, charity is cruciform and—thinking again with Joseph Ratzinger—love transforms dependence within marriage and family life into freedom and into the fulfillment of the heart. Finally, to return to another classical and incarnational reality: what the Apostle describes about headship can only be possible if grace elevates and perfects what exists prior in human nature.

Said more plainly, Christian manhood includes those qualities in nature that dispose a man to lead and govern, traits that—not on their own, but guided by the virtues—help to protect personal dignity, while preserving complementarity in roles. If we accept that hierarchy and authority are woven into the created order, then virtuous leadership promotes the common good for the sake of fraternal charity…“as I have loved you.”

Along with his teaching on affective maturity, the Theology of the Body, and many other significant ideas, St John Paul II also introduced the concept of what has come to be called the “feminine genius.” Though its complement has yet to be addressed in magisterial texts, it must exist, according to the logic the Pontiff himself employs. The Church has, however, confirmed what would be incompatible with the “masculine genius.” As the feminine genius finds fulfillment in maternity, so does the masculine genius in the generative capacity of fatherhood, which, according to nature and Scripture, includes the virtuous exercise of authority in the Church, civil society and the family.

In 2005, the Congregation for Catholic Education issued the Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders. Deep-seated same-sex attraction (SSA) bars a man from priesthood because it is incompatible with affective maturity and spiritual fatherhood. Such attraction indicates a man experiences an acute discordance within himself.[1]

Similarly, an obviously effeminate (mollities, ST II-II, 138, 1) man reveals a discordance, as well, and so an incompatibility with priesthood. These negative markers imply that a recognizable, healthy standard exists for masculinity, the “matter” from which a man’s capacity for biological/familial or spiritual fatherhood springs. What might that look like? 

Pastores dabo vobis

Pastores begins with the well-known verse from Jeremiah: I will give you shepherds after my own heart (3:15). Had we been asked to choose an image for the Messiah, we might have chosen something more regal than a shepherd, whose solitary life, at the time of Our Lord, was marked by hardship and danger. But Jesus eschewed the political title of “king” in this world, preferring instead, the “Good Shepherd,” and so John Paul understandably favors it in his most comprehensive text on the priesthood (95 references). Nevertheless, we certainly can say that the shepherd-sheep analogy preserves the concept we examined earlier: the latter depend on the former for direction, protection, and sustenance. Regarding the leadership of the priest as shepherd, John Paul concisely considers that the

munus regendi represents a very delicate and complex duty which, in addition to the attention which must be given to a variety of persons and their vocations, also involves the ability to coordinate all the gifts and charisms which the Spirit inspires in the community, to discern them and to put them to good use for the upbuilding of the Church in constant union with the bishops. (PDV 26)

The Pope offers a short list of the qualities the priest must have to fulfill this role:

This ministry demands of the priest an intense spiritual life, filled with those qualities and virtues which are typical of a person who “presides over” and “leads” a community, of an “elder” in the noblest and richest sense of the word: qualities and virtues such as faithfulness, integrity, consistency, wisdom, a welcoming spirit, friendliness, goodness of heart, decisive firmness in essentials, freedom from overly subjective viewpoints, personal disinterestedness, patience, an enthusiasm for daily tasks, confidence in the value of the hidden workings of grace as manifested in the simple and the poor (cf. Ti. 1:7-8). (PDV 26)

Given the length of Pastores, we see John Paul II decided to address these topics in a thoughtful but modest way. Interestingly, Pastores does not use the phrase “spiritual fatherhood,” though the Pope did so in subsequent writings on the priesthood. While surely respecting the Pope’s prudential judgment and while gratefully receiving the wisdom of Pastores’s scope and emphasis, perhaps we can say that the text could not cover each aspect of the threefold munera equally, and so it graciously leaves room for a fuller treatment of some facets of priestly life and work in later documents of the magisterium, as “the circumstances of the present day” warrant.

To ensure our grasp of the centrality of sound theological anthropology to the joy, meaning, and peace for which the heart longs, Pope John Paul often quoted this line from Gaudium et spes: “Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (par 22). Obviously, the use of “man” here is homo not vir, as Christ confirms humanity’s identity and purpose. And clearly, the sum of Our Lord’s preaching applies to humanity in toto, as it contains God’s love, wisdom and mercy for all of His children.

With careful distinctions and attention to the context, however, we can examine the words Our Lord spoke directly to the Apostles, which therefore hold a particular emphasis for priests, both for the sake of their growth in Christian manhood and for the exercise of pastoral charity in their spiritual fatherhood. Since Christ was true God and true Man—both in sense of homo and vir—does He not also reveal men (viri) to themselves, i.e., how they are “to be” and what they are to do? Another passage from Gaudium et spes important to the Pope, and that logically follows from the one cited above: man (homo) “cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (par 24, citing Lk 17:33). Are there ways in which a man’s self-giving love may look different from a woman’s, based on our understanding of the complementarity of their shared nature?

Christian Brotherhood

It does not seem gratuitous here to note that Our Lord formed a group of men to follow Him, a group that under His care became a brotherhood, a brotherhood of priests (which here also includes the category of friendship). We cannot deny the exclusive character of Christ’s call, though these “chosen men” (cf. the rite of ordination) are “set apart” for the service in love of the whole. St. John Paul authoritatively addressed this sensitive topic in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, just two years after Pastores. “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you,” Jesus bluntly tells the Twelve, and, through the Church, their successors in the priesthood and episcopate are likewise called.

Our Lord’s choice to establish the fraternity of the Apostles may suggest something about how Jesus understood the psychology of men (viri), and in particular, about how they mature in charity. According to God’s wise design, nature provides boys with their mothers—and perhaps sisters, if they are blessed to have them—and husbands with their wives, to help them to grow in virtue and sanctity. Yet if there is such a thing as “manly virtue” that can be distinguished from human virtue more generally, then Our Lord’s example in the Gospel says something helpful about how and why men look to other men to learn the way of virtue, both moral and theological. 

Ecce quam bonum…“Behold, how good and pleasant it iswhen brothers dwell in unity!” (Ps 133:1). While this verse from the psalmist is not limited to men, it speaks particularly to the heart of a man who perceives something heroic, something dynamic, in a group of men united in a noble mission, especially if there is risk or danger involved. Scripture testifies to the distinct, perceptible and attractive character of the Twelve, as a group:

Now many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high honor. (Acts 5:12–13)

When men conduct a noble mission in a common way, not just as a collection of individuals, we discover a pivotal message for diocesan priests today, for whom any type of common life can seem but a notional, if not unrealistic, good. Nevertheless, does not a man’s desire to join a virtuous group of men form part of the same psychology of men that helped to shape the brotherhood of the Apostles, as Our Lord formed them? 

Brotherhood (or friendship) serves first as a safeguard against a man’s tendency to selfishness, e.g., to stand apart from the group in a self-centered way. The Gospel reminds men of this danger, in the story of James and John, who early on, think of their own glory, rather than the glory of God. Yet do we not later see a change in John, who defers to Peter at the empty tomb, as indeed do all the Apostles come to acknowledge Peter’s authority, given to him by Christ, when they have embraced what Jesus taught them: that authority is directed to service and sacrifice, and that rivalry must give way to fraternity.

It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:26–28)

The distinctive school of fraternity that forms men in the order of Christian love is first the seminary and then the rich network of friends who equip and accompany each other in their apostolic mission. To this we turn in Part Two.