Click HERE if you first wish to view Fr. Beck's shocking response to Chris Cuomo when he was asked if Jesus was celibate. When you arrive at ABC News Focus on Faith, scroll down to: "WATCH: Dive Into the 'Focus on Faith' Mailbag - Chris Cuomo and Fr. Beck tackle your emails."Fr. Beck, this is in response to what you said in public regarding the celibacy of Jesus. Your statement was shocking and scandalous, and what you said needs to be corrected in an attempt to prevent further scandal as a result of what you stated. Please take it as a fraternal correction with the assurance of prayers for you.
Chris Cuomo asked you this question:
"Do we know for sure that Jesus was celibate?"
Your response was:
"We do not know for sure. There is no allusion that he was "partnered" with anybody in the Scriptures, but there is no reason to believe that he wasn't, either."
Father Beck, I must say to you that as a Catholic, I am shocked and dismayed that, as a priest of the Catholic Church who is vowed to celibacy, you could not and did not forthrightly and unequivocally denounce any notion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to have sex with His creatures. Consider how heinous and despicable it is that a father would have incestual relations with his own children, and then consider how insulting it is to the very Majesty of God for anyone, let alone a Catholic Priest, to suggest that God came into this world and may have had sex with His creatures! The sole purpose of the Incarnation was to redeem man.
The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ was like us in all things "but sin". When you stated "There is no reason to believe that Jesus was celibate" it was tantamount to saying 4 things about Jesus:
1) Jesus may have fornicated with others, which is sinful.
2) Jesus may not have been chaste in other ways, which is sinful.
3) In the context of today's cultural milieu, your use of the word "partnered" can be construed to mean that Jesus may have advocated or even lived in a same-sex relationship which you, as a Catholic Priest, should know that the Church teaches is a sinful lifestyle. The Church clearly teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman.
Furthermore, in Matthew 19:4 Jesus said:
"Have you not read, that He who made them from the beginning, made them male and female"?
And in Mark 10:6 we also read:
"But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female".
4) That Jesus lived a "secret marriage" or a "public marriage" that is not recorded in Scripture. In this, you've fallen prey to several grievous errors regarding what we know about the life of Jesus and the teaching authority of the Church itself.
a) The Church does not depend on the Bible alone for its teachings. The Bible came from the Church, not the Church from the Bible.
b) The teaching authority of the Church has always made clear that Jesus lived a completely celibate life. We see this reiteration in numerous documents of the Church, one being the encyclical entitled "Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (The Celibacy of the Priest) by Pope Paul VI, promulgated on June 24, 1967, which unequivocally states:
"# 21 - Christ, the only Son of the Father, by the power of the Incarnation itself was made Mediator between heaven and earth, between the Father and the human race. Wholly in accord with this mission, Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men. This deep concern between celibacy and the priesthood of Christ is reflected in those whose fortune it is to share in the dignity and mission of the Mediator and eternal Priest; this sharing will be more perfect the freer the sacred minister is from the bonds of flesh and blood."
c) Jesus Himself counseled for celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. In his "Decree on the Ministry and life of Priests - Presbyterorum Ordinis" promulgated by Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1965 we read from Chapter III "The life of Priests", Section II, #16:
"(Celibacy is to be embraced and esteemed as a gift). Perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, commended by Christ the Lord (33)."
And in Luke 18:29-30 Jesus said:
"Amen, I say to you, there is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake."
"Who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."
Fr. Beck, Jesus Christ raised marriage to the level of a sacrament in His Church. It is a public and communal contract that He would not be embarrassed about living in the light of day rather than in shadows if He were married, and if He had lived a married life we would know about it. And He did not bend to "cultural standards of His time". Like good Bishop Sheen said "any time the Church marries an age it becomes a widow in the next age". And so it is with "political correctness" and passing fads.
It is worth repeating to you, Fr. Beck, that Jesus was "a man like us in all things but sin", and if you wish to argue that Jesus was "human like all of us" when considering His needs, you cannot fail to make an important distinction between us and Jesus. We are not a "Divine Person" but "Jesus is a Divine person". You and I are "human persons" but Jesus is not a "Human Person". He assumed fully a "human nature" just like ours which He created and made "consubstantial" with His Divine Person, but, He was "not a human person". He is a "Divine Person only" with a human and divine nature. He is "One Divine Person from all eternity" in whom two distinct natures, though remaining distinct from each other, come together and subsist in the "one Divine Person of Jesus Christ". The claim that Jesus was a "human person" was condemned as a heresy at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.
So then, if we are to look at the "needs of Jesus in light of His Person", we do not look at Jesus as "two persons" and ascribe to Him the needs of a "human person Jesus". And this means that when you consider the needs of Jesus as a man (not human person), you do not want to fall to "Nestorianism" or "Arianism" to accommodate the notion that Jesus had "human needs" like all "human persons" because He was not a "human person". The need to sleep, to eat, and to drink are necessary for us to live, but not so with sexuality. The human nature of Jesus which would include not only his fully human body and blood, but His fully human mind and human will, were infused with grace by the power of the Holy Spirit, and His human intellect was infused by His own divine intellect which He possessed as an omniscient, divine Person. So, when considering the "needs of Jesus" in His human nature, as a priest in the Catholic Church, you do not want to consider that Jesus was anything other than a Divine Person because you would immediately incur the excommunication of "Latae Sententiae".
And to the notion that Jesus may have lived a "secret married life", any reasonable person would ask what does that mean about the life of any priest? Would that mean priests live a public celibate life but have a secret sexual life on the side derived from speculation that Jesus may have lived a secret married life? Such a notion is an insult to all priests who are committed to live the life of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom.
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