Supernatural Fatherhood through Priestly Celibacy: Fulfillment in Masculinity: A Thomistic Study

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"Two authors, however, merit special mention for the place that they hold in this dissertation." (ref:5.34):

• Thomas E. D. Hennessy, O.P., The Fatherhood of the Priest
• summary: “The Fatherhood of the Priest.” The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 10, no. 3 (1947): 271–306,

which delineates 5 types of fatherhood (PDF p. 7):

1. divine fatherhood within the Godhead
2. fatherhood of divine adoption
3. God's fatherhood of natural creatures
4. human fatherhood
5. fatherhood of human adoption

and

• Timothy Paul Fortin, “Fatherhood and the Perfection of Masculine Identity: A Thomistic Account in Light of Contemporary Science” (Romae, EDUSC-Edizioni Università della Santa Croce, 2008),

which argues that fatherhood is essential to masculinity.

ref:6.31:

some have extended Aquinas’ thought to argue that masculinity and femininity are part of the imago Dei in which human beings are created. Aquinas himself never actually makes this claim, and in fact limits the imago Dei to man’s intellectual nature. Thomas Weinandy, however, suggests that it is the logical conclusion of human hylomorphism. By restricting the imago Dei to the intellect, Weinandy argues, St. Thomas “forgets [!] that it is the whole human person, body and soul, that is made in the image of God and not merely that part of him that is rational, for human rationality is itself dependent upon the bodily senses and the human brain.”

ref:6.59: on how the conjugal act even among sterile couples is still receptive to God's action:

since God is the primary cause of human offspring, the parents are in the posture of active receptivity. Active, because parents possess the dignity and freedom of true generators; and yet receptive because, strictly speaking, they alone “do not generate the new human person, but rather actively receive him from God as a gift freely given.”110 [Asci, ](javascript:void(0))[The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act](https://isidore.co/calibre/#panel=book_details&book_id=9009)[, 189. Asci remarks that Mary's active receptivity ot the will of God is "the form that a couple's cooperation in the transmission of life should take" and, in fact, is the model for all human cooperation with God (p. 190).] The receptive modality of the couple clarifies why the marital union of sterile couples or couples practicing periodic continence is still “procreative” since they “engage in the conjugal act in a manner suitable to and worthy of human nature” as they “cooperate with God in the transmission of life and accept his design for human sexuality...Procreation, understood as the human role in the transmission of life, transcends the notion of conception and is present in every conjugal act, whether or not the act bears its full fruit.”111

PDF pp. 169-71 are on the "Fatherhood of Angels"; he cites Sup. Eph. cap. 3, l. 4, on Eph. 3:15 ("Of whom all paternity (πατριά) in heaven and earth is named"):

It is asked whether in heaven, that is, in the angels, there is any paternity.

To this I reply that paternity exists only among beings who live and who know. But life is twofold: it is either actual or potential. To possess the vital activities in potency is to be potentially alive; for example, a person who is sleeping is said to be potentially alive in regard to external actions. But when someone actually performs the vital activities, he is alive in act. Thus, not only he who transmits the potency to life is the father of him to whom he gives it, but also he who communicates an act of life can be called a father. Therefore, whoever stimulates another to some vital act, whether it be to good activity, to understanding, to willing or loving, can be given the name of father. For if you have ten thousand instructors (παιδαγωγούς)in Christ, yet not many fathers (πατέρας) (1 Cor 4:15). Likewise, in the hierarchical acts by which one angel illumines, perfects, and purifies another, it is evident that that angel is the father of the other—just as a teacher is the father of his disciples.

Sed quaeritur utrum in caelis, id est utrum in angelis sit aliqua paternitas.

Ad hoc dico quod paternitas est tantum in viventibus et cognoscentibus. Est autem duplex vita. Una secundum actum, alia secundum potentiam. Vita quidem secundum potentiam, est habere opera vitae in potentia. Unde dormiens quantum ad actus exteriores, dicitur vivere in potentia. Vivere autem secundum actum est, quando exercet quis opera vitae in actu. Sic autem non solum qui dat potentiam vitae, pater est eius cui dat; sed qui dat actum vitae, ille etiam pater dici potest. Quicumque ergo inducit aliquem ad aliquem actum vitae, puta ad bene operandum, intelligendum, volendum, amandum, pater eius dici potest. I Cor. IV, 15: nam si decem millia paedagogorum habeatis in Christo, sed non multos patres , et cetera. Cum ergo inter angelos unus alterum illuminet, perficiat et purget, et isti sint actus hierarchici, manifestum est quod unus angelus est pater alterius, sicut magister est pater discipuli.

PDF p. 176 (p. 179) "3.4.1. Father as Provider": "this fundamental duty [of a father's providing for his family] is what often gives meaning to a father’s professional work that otherwise may provide little personal satisfaction." [Steichen, Ungodly Rage , 383.]

PDF p. 276 (p. 280) n64 is a good summary of St. Thomas's view that sexual differentiation is to free men and women for contemplation:

Aquinas viewed virginity as more desirable than marriage, which entangles a person in the affairs of the world and withdraws him from heavenly things, and in which the vehemence of sexual activity clouds the use of reason.64

64. On the solicitude for temporal concerns that dominates the married life, see ST II-II.186.4; SCG III.136.10-13; and De Perf. cap. 8. On the impediment that sexual passion presents to the exigencies of contemplation, see in addition SCG III.27.10; ST Supp. 41.3 ad 2 and ad 6; Sent. IV, D. 26, Q. 1, A. 2, co.; Sent. IV, D. 33, Q. 3, A. 1, co. [II-II q. 152 a. 1; Quodl. VI q. 10 a. 1; ref:21.142]; and Sup. Gal. cap. 5, l. 6. […] Toon, “The Philosophy of Sex According to St. Thomas Aquinas," […]

"5.7. Saint Joseph: Model of Celibate Fatherhood," PDF pp. 296-300, cites Filas, Joseph: The Man Closest to Jesus, Llamera, St. Joseph, and Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., "De Paternitate Sancti loseph".

In this doctoral dissertation Father Griffin proposes a theological and anthropological rationale for priestly celibacy as a privileged mode of living supernatural fatherhood and as a fulfillment of masculine human nature. Through the theological lens of St. Thomas Aquinas, it begins by exploring the phenomenon of paternity itself, beginning with the prime analogue of fatherhood in God and cascading into the biological, natural, and supernatural expressions of fatherhood in men. The specific supernatural fatherhood of the priest is derived from his ordination, by which he is configured to Christ the Head and becomes an instrument of Christ's fatherhood in the order of grace, exercising his ministry in the triple office of priest, prophet, and shepherd and fulfilling, within the plan of salvation, both the procreative and perfective dimensions of human paternity. By demonstrating that priestly celibacy is ordered to the exercise of this supernatural fatherhood, celibacy is shown to be not an arbitrary clerical discipline but inscribed with its own natural and supernatural logic, an effective way of generating life in the order of redemption and the normative mode of exercising priestly paternity. Throughout the work, counterarguments, particularly those proffered by feminist theologians, are considered and addressed. The concluding chapter considers some implications of this thesis in the life of the priest and in the selection and formation of candidates to the priesthood.