Off-topic -- but strangely on topic. When I saw that field of green chasubles (not to mention the gold ones, the white ones, etc.), I was appalled at the waste of money in the Catholic Church. I know this is just a minor chunk of money in the church's coffers, but think of all the poverty that could solve!
30
I don’t understand why prosecutors don’t employ the RICCO statutes. The Catholic Church fits the description of an organized crime gang in just about every way. Send Cardinals to jail for being necessary accessories to child abuse and obstruction. Confíscate property of the church to pay damages.
73
On the one hand, we have unmarried celibate Catholic priests and nuns instructing their non-celibate flock on sexuality, love, intimate relationships, marriage and family.
On the other, we have married family man Ross Douthat lecturing on celibacy.
This all seems so backwards.
137
As to my recollection many years ago in the NYT with regard to celebitcy it stated that in the early year 1100 that the church chose this position not to loose control of property and money.
There we go again with thus control of money.
Find itbverbduscouraging.
35
Douthat is clearly an adroit intellect and writer - full stop. But intellectual honesty? I don't think so.
There are so many false presumptions employed by him here, one piled atop another, as the basis for torturously crafted and caveated conclusions, that I have to think he scarcely believes his own words.
It came across to me as cognizant dissonance - in service of defend-at-all-costs rationalizations.
49
The Catholic (“Universal”) Church has been a gangster organization almost since its inception. Early church fathers ruthlessly harassed “heretics” and often enforced Catholic dogma with violence. The more power the Vatican acquired, the more corrupt it became. Anyone with knowledge of Church history knows this to be true.
The recent cascading revelations of pedophilia and forced sex victimizing young men and even nuns, have demonstrated the vile depths to which the Church hierarchy sank, repeatedly, as they transferred sex offenders, covered up criminal acts, hid cash to avoid payouts, and simultaneously bashed outsiders, heterosexuals and homosexuals, who criticized this criminal behavior. The depravity of foundling “homes” where infants languished and died showed just what Church officials really thought about Jesus’s call to children.
Ross Douthat is a smart and decent believer, but his rationalizations come too late to retrieve the moral cesspool that the Catholic Church has been and continues to be. Time to revoke tax exempt status for churches that commit crimes. Also time to stop appointing Catholics to the US Supreme Court, where they enforce their own brand of Sharia Law.
53
On Ross’s contention that Jesus was celibate, I’ve been abound enough to know that when 13 unmarried men hang out together, there is a lot of hooking up going on.
26
I fell out of my chair when I read the headline in this very paper the day before the convention started in The Vatican, that in some locations of the Catholic Church "sexual abuse" was viewed as a sin, not a crime. To say I was dumbstruck does not begin to capture how I felt. But I have always felt this quote to be true. "Religion does three things quite effectively: controls people, divides people, deludes people." ~ Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
35
Consensual sex between two people is a beautiful thing. But not in the eyes of the Catholic church when it comes to their men of the cloth. Then, it's a sin. The church insists on celibacy but also regards masturbation as a sin, leaving priests with no sexual outlets. Perhaps that, at least in part, explains the covert sex they have either alone, or criminally, with vulnerable children. Even if one believes that rape and sodomy are crimes of forceful dominance and not sex, they are still sexual acts, unlike other felonies such as murder, robbery, and forgery.
17
I suggest reading Andrew Sullivan’s Friday column in New York Magazine for a more insightful view of the current situation in the Catholic Church.
19
Mr. Douthat, your columns rely enormously on hypothetical and what-ifs, spun far out into the ether. You do not reason. You imagine what the worst might be if your own ideas are not followed, and then introduce it as the only "other" game in town. Yes, you put in a few "ifs" and "could bes." This is a FOX News trick. Please stop. Please. Use logic, events, quotes, and only near suppositions with their iffyness called out in neon. This is how truth is found. You build false realities.
34
"in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life."
understandable in the case of someone who spent the last three years of his life almost exclusively in the company of twelve other men.
just sayin...
5
There’s a big difference between personally inspired and institutionally imposed celibacy though.
14
Straw man much, Ross?
Your argument distills down to “Some people forward their anti-Catholic bias through criticisms of the celibacy of priests, therefore we should not examine whether there is a link between the endemic sexual misconduct in the Priesthood and its requirement of celibacy.”
29
Ross, this was an unusually incoherent commentary.
It was supposed to be about "Why Celibacy Matters", but most of your article is devoted to a sarcastic critique of evolving attitudes toward "healthy sexuality" and to a lengthy dismissal of Martel's book.
You simply don't present a logical argument for celibacy at all! Indeed, you seem to rely on "Jesus' own example". Really? Scripture is silent regarding his sexual behavior and whether he was married. It's all added after the fact...decades to hundreds of years later, primarily by old men, some of whom castrated themselves and didn't like women very much. That was healthy...
Celibacy is not dogma. It is canon law and subject to change at any time. Why, there is an entire "Catholic" church to the East that has no difficulty with married priests. Go figure.
I was looking forward to a reasoned defense of celibacy to at least think about...and got nada.
50
"The sexual ethic on offer in our own era should make Catholics particularly skeptical. That ethic regards celibacy as unrealistic while offering porn and sex robots to ease frustrations created by its failure to pair men and women off. It pities Catholic priests as repressed and miserable (some are; in general they are not) even as its own cultural order seeds a vast social experiment in growing old alone. It disdains large families while it fails to reproduce itself. It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman".
"In the name of this not-obviously-enlightened alternative, Catholicism is constantly asked to “reform” away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life".
In the congested universe of Douthat straw man arguments, the above is particularly glaring. At least tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused by priests in a fairly consistent pattern during just the past 100 years, and those priests were known and protected by the church hierarchy in a fairly consistent pattern over that same period, And this is all Douthat has to offer against the arguments of those who question the Church's celibacy requirement for its clergy. Unbelievable.
16
Mr. Douthat
Read Alice McDermott’s excellent op-Ed piece.
7
Celibacy is a false structure imposed on Catholic priests. It does infinitely more harm than good.
13
The Catholic pedophile church and its enablers along with the Baptist denominations guilty of some of the same abominations have allowed these amoral practices to go on for centuries. What Mr. Douthat fails to understand is that practicing religion begins within oneself, being cognizant of those less fortunate, and attempting to help them, being courteous, truthful, moral and ethical. All of these traits have nothing to do with going to and abetting churches that glory in how much funds they can amass to practice their evil. Religion is the cause of most, if not all of the wars worldwide.
12
Obviously priests are not celibate. The are having sex with kids, nuns, seminarians, and who knows who else. I remember three priests associated with my high school. One died of AIDS--I don't think he was a drug addict. I later heard one of the others also was ill with hiv. So why all this talk about celibacy? Apparently these vows are taken very loosely, perhaps with no intention of honoring this commitment. So why should the whole future of the church turn on something that is apparently a type of spiritual chimera? Is ordaining women any crazier than pretending priests are celibate? One point in this article seems to be priests would like to be celibate but no one is perfect. Sounds kind of lame to me. Apparently a large body of admittedly spiritually imperfect males, including child rapists, are still preferable to ordaining women.
25
Nesting season is approaching Migratory birds will be flying north to nest.Long term mates, such as the Oystercatcher couple who nest on the beach near me, will fly in together, mate and scrape out a nest,The female will lay eggs. The male and female will take turns incubating the eggs.f all goes well, chicks will hatch close to a month later. One parent will shelter the babies, as the other goes to the ocean to probe for food. to bring back to their babies. The parents spend months guarding and feeding their chicks, teach them how to crack open bivalves, and to extract the meat. The parents will protect their babies with their lives.
In the spring , all birds of mating age will mate, lay eggs, incubate them, feed them, and protect them with their lives,
Humans are biologically driven to mate and procreate,
just as birds are.
The leaders of the Catholic Church demand that priests and nuns deny what they must believe is a God given drive to procreate.
To those who say that the Catholic Church can not be questioned, I say :Who are they to question the God of their belief, whom they must believe instilled the drive to mate and procreate ?
Those who invented the requirement for celibacy have defied the God of their belief.Those who say that the Church's requirement of celibacy can't be questioned, are worshipping man, and not God.
7
Saint Paul taught that you judge the tree by its fruits, in this case it is clear that an exclusively male priesthood coupled with celibacy and lack of accountability to lay Catholics has created a breeding ground for pedophiles and hypocrites. Ideals are well and good but the inability of the Church to open itself up to the realities of human nature are doing far more damage that married priests, women priests, and openly gay priests could ever do.
12
The changing nature of “healthy sexuality” doesn't mean that it's false -- it means that it's dynamic. The Catholic Church's indoctrination is antithetical to both change and “healthy sexuality.”
11
Mr. Douthat:
So ...,the only valid criticism of the Catholic church can come from ... Catholics? Quite a non-starter for actual intallectual discourse. I might point out that there are many words you might have chosen to characterize the actions of the wayward
clergy on matters of sexual abuse. You chose "disgraceful". To fall from grace is to enter the realm of another word you chose to avoid: sinful.
5
There are thousands of married Catholic priests in the eastern rites of the Catholic Church. Although eastern rite Catholics make up only 3-4% of all Catholics, eastern rite Catholics are part of the same holy Catholic and apostolic church that the rest of Catholics belong to, and are under the jurisdiction of the Pope. Pope John Paul II even canonized a married Ukrainian Catholic priest. Will someone please come forward and explain to me an apparent double standard regarding Latin Rite Catholic priests (no marriage for them) and Eastern Rite Catholic priests (allowed to be married at the time of their ordination)?
9
Celibacy has some merit. Christ
was not married. Buddha was married
and had a child. But he abandoned
them believing too much distraction
in the pursuit of salvation. In these
days of helicopter parenting: kids
soccer, baseball, schooling, music and
dance lessons ,saving for college so
the children can do good on wall street,
high tech or Washington establishment,
are serious burden. How can you serve
the lord with all these burdens of family
life. Secular men didn't acquit themselves well as we know from the
exposure of their predatory behavior.
Sex is a physical need driven by hormones. True believers can overcome
physical need as, for example, muslims
do fasting without food and water in
hor weather. In case of Catholic church
it is not clear what percentage of
priests have indulged in predatory sexual behavior. Some cases have
received lot publicity but idesn't
extrapolate to all priests. How truly
celibate priests manage to overcome
their sexual desires? Are they true
believer of church teachings and the
predators are just masquerading as
priests?
1
"Jesus was gay" Google it. I wish Douthout would do that. Jesus was not married....that may be later interpretations. I think he was gay (read the passages on the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of Thomas). In any case, sexual relations between men at the time were just a behavior a pro-natalist society frowned on, not a grave sin. The patriarchs wanted every sex act to be open to leading to a pregnancy. They still want this. My point is, we have to accept what we now call "gay" as a normal behavior in our time and in that time as well.
Douthout is defending the indefensible. He's lost his case long ago and yet he keeps making it.
8
It's hard to make a clear argument for something that's absurd.
Remind me, which other religion has its clergy routinely abusing children?
5
Celibacy and chastity are not synonyms, as any dictionary will confirm. Clear that up, then let the debate proceed.
4
I can't tell if this is a rationale for celibacy or a preoccupation with homosexual fetishes. The western Catholic church did not take a firm stand for celibacy until the second Latern Council in 1139, and reconfirmed at the Council of Trent in 1563 - sorry, but the church was way over a thousand years old before this was adopted. The main reason had nothing to do with religion or Jesus, but to avoid priestly offspring from making claims and inheriting the church's riches. Somehow, the eastern Catholic Orthodox churches have never got their shorts in a bunch over celibacy, and don't seem to be the worse for it. I really expected more from Ross on what should be a more informed discussion.
10
Do Protestant clergy have the same systemic problem of child sexual abuse? This needs to be determined, if it hasn't already. If they don't, then the problem of child abuse in the Catholic Church is indeed due to celibacy.
6
"And now, in our own age of sexual individualism, Catholicism is mostly just accused of a repressive cruelty, of denying people — and especially its celibacy-burdened priests — the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs."
When it comes to sex, Catholicism is guilty of more than just repressive cruelty, unless you focus on its doctrines and ignore what's been happening since its inception.
3
The critique remains the same because the critique is correct. Leaving your moral leadership to "celibate" men does not by a thousand years of tradition lead to moral leadership. That is what the history of the Catholic Church shows. And those who can't learn from history....
The only defense is one of bigotry and tradition which is the the one that Mr Douthat sputters out without any reason beyond his faith.
Further, Mr Douthat's desire to demean everyone who is not Catholic reducing them to "porn and sex robots" does not portray world outside of catholicism with anything close to an honest representation. He wishes to present everything outside as the great Satan, and frankly it isn't. Anymore than it would be wrong to state that every individual Priest in his faith is a pedophile. Mr Douthat knows better, but when he has no argument, sputtering with spite and bigotry against gay men is all he has left.
His church is even better than that.
4
Anti-Catholic bigotry is rampant in this comment section. Douthat isn't helping. Insurance companies do not charge a higher liability premium for Catholic parishes for sexual abuse than they do for any other congregations. Why? The rate is about the same everywhere. If this were about celibates and all-male institutions, then explain why the rate of sex abuse against minors happens at a higher rate in schools? Teachers are mostly female, and female abusers in classrooms have racked up quite a count of their own. The rate of abuse is around 4%, meaning the number of students abused in coed environments is between three and four MILLION. Where is the uproar? Isn't that just as much a violation of sacred trust? Look, you won't get an argument from me about including women in the clergy. Roll back celibacy. I would support that. But nothing will change. Willie Sutton robbed banks because that is where the money is. Abusers will be where the children are.
4
RD ignores the basic human insight: not enough people [even were women included] are called to celibacy to provide ministry.
I'm a cradle-then-agnostic-then-Spirit-hijacked-back Catholic who believes in the Mystery of Love, and at almost 73 knows that few have a true vocation to eschew sex. The Orthodox reserve the position of bishop to celibates -- they know the percentage of the super-holy-on-sex is small.
Celibacy is too rare, so those who cannot uphold the ideal tend to be more cracked than the ordinary earthen vessel.
5
As a historian of the medieval church, there are so many things wrong in this article.
The critique of the allegedly suppressed libido among priests and monks did not originate with the Reformation. Various scholars have uncovered myriad accounts of confessors who manipulated married women into sex through blackmail. The Fabliaux are filled with stories that start with priests having sex with married women.
The Catholic western church didn't move to a celibate clergy until after the Gregorian reforms. In part, the church didn't want married clergy to pass church property to their children; in part, they hewed closer to Jerome's notions of chastity as more pure. However, we have ample documentation of priests who engaged in routine concubinage in Spain, sending their families to other villages when the Inquisitors came to check. And of priests' girlfriends living as housekeepers.
The issue isn't that chastity is impossible. It's that the role of a priest, who is often unsupervised with vulnerable people and can groom victims without getting caught, attracts pedophiles. Vulnerable and dependent women in the church become ideal victims, particularly when they believe their abuser is a beloved of Christ and his representative on earth. And it's that the church itself ignores the issues long term.
Finally, don't use the word "gay" to talk about Calvin's thinking. He would not recognize it. This author needs to read more history before he comments on it.
11
Another bizarre article is support of a failed status quo.
Here's a true story from a dear personal friend, an Italian, from south Philadelphia, well educated, retired military officer, a pal, a mentor, of the highest morals and ethics. He said:
"I was raised Roman Catholic but left over their stance on birth control and realizing that they really could have done a lot to help the poor instead they amassed fortunes for themselves and kept people subservient and poor.
I used to be a Catholic but saw through their rules made to keep people down and the hierarchy living like kings. In my father's home town in Italy when I first visited in 1960, the church had gold inside it and the people had no running water in their homes!!"
My friend's story tells the tale of how the Catholic Church has caused millions to abandon the institution. He's now a happy Episcopalian.
The Vatican is tone deaf to the sufferings of a billion followers. This is not going to change until tens of millions of American Catholics take their money and worship elsewhere.
8
It seems to me that the problem with the church today is that it is Catholic.
Protestants have mostly solved the problem of celibacy and are working on the patriarchy problem and tendency to greed. Protestants do not need the Priest to intercede between an individual and the god-head; therefore, no need for the intermediary to be celibate or considered "pure." Also Protestants down through the ages, because they are able to form families and bear children have created and lived out observable models for everyday human families. Converting the Catholics to Protestants would be a good start toward ending the corruption found in the Vatican. But then, Luther knew that, didn't he?
1
Since celibacy was something imposed upon the clergy by the Church, and not by God/Jesus, what's your point? It's both onerous and limiting. The way that the priesthood is starting to die out means that the church will either have to allow married priests and/or allow women to be priests. I mean when you reach the point when Last Rites can be administered by a recording, what's next? An ordained version of Siri?
Plenty of other religions seem to do just fine without it. And no, I don't buy into the nonsense that RC is the one true religion.
5
In other words, Ross, every age agrees, from its own perspective, that Catholicism is unnatural. Thank you for making that clear.
4
All of those various modes of sexuality Douthat dimisses have one thing in common. They accept and accommodate sexual desire. All are healthier than denial of sexual desire on the ground that it is intrinsically sinful. The root of the problem is Paul's dictum that it is better to marry than to burn, meaning that any release of sexual desire, even within the limits of sacremental matrimony, is inferior to virginity. One wonders about Paul's attitude towards his own desires, which are, of course, unknowable, but his writing in chapters 6 throuh 8 of Romans shows that he had desires in his "body of sin" of which he was deeply ashamed. He might fit well within the modern priesthood.
3
One in four girls is sexually abused by the age of eighteen--usually by friends or family. I have not heard that these abuses are caused in large or small part by Catholic priests. So who is committing these crimes? Might some of the perpetrators be non-believers? The outrage against the cover-up of sexual crimes against children in the church is justified, but the hatred and intolerance of Catholicism evident in these comments is proof that many people in this country--or at least many readers of the Times--are not accepting of anyone who has divergent views or beliefs. Some people find solace in religion, yes, even in organized religion, and their sense of compassion for others sometimes even grows when they are on a spiritual path. Good luck to everyone who believes only in themselves, because their numbers are growing along with their extraordinary selfishness and entitlement. Catholic nuns in particular have done so many selfless deeds that one might almost wonder if celibacy allowed them to see beyond their own immediate gratification.
3
I am glad for Ross's lifting up of the countercultural impact of celibacy, its witness to another order than those of this world. What astonishes me is that he (and most commenters, from what I've read of them) don't distinguish between voluntary and coerced celibacy, and how Rome's promulgation of the latter creates the pressure cooker of sexual deviance inside of which we find ourselves today. There is nothing inherent in the practice of celibacy (or marriage, or homosexual relationship) that inclines someone to sin. Everything, though, imbues celibacy with perverse dynamics of power when it is forced upon men and their impulses, made to be part of the compulsory primal requirements for serving as a priest before God. It is ecclesiastical force, not carnal appetite, that is the prime mover of this crisis. Until we acknowledge that and reform the Church accordingly, it will ever be with us.
1
As the old wag observed, "Moderation in everything including abstinence."
1
There are many kinds of healthy sexuality. Celibacy is one, but it's not for everyone or even most people.
The Catholic Church is deeply corrupt because of the power male priest have. Celibacy may play a role, but the fact that women always are second-class members is a much bigger cause. Women and children have no power in the church, and so they are at the mercy of evil priests. Priests who do not abuse women and children (and powerless men) stand by and say nothing. I'm so glad I left the church many years ago, and I honestly cannot understand why free-thinking people stay.
To the author of this article I would ask, do you think celibacy works for the church? How many priests have remained celibate? There are other ways to be sexually healthy, and none of them are irreconcilable with following the teachings of Christ.
2
The Catholic priests should be allowed to marry.
If they are copying Jesus, perhaps they have the wrong information. The Bible does not say that Jesus was married, but it does not say he was not married. Little is related in the Bible about the personal life of Jesus as an adult.
1
"...Catholicism is constantly asked to “reform” away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life."
How comforting to relate celibacy to the New Testament when there is nothing to suggest Jesus was advocating any such thing. His disciples were married men and he had some sort of relationship with Mary Magdalene which is clearly not understood. Even if we accept the story of his life which ended at an early age, there is no telling where he would have ended up had he lived.
The Catholic Church has been all over the place regarding marriage and sexual relationships of its priests for much of its history. This is hardly a settled matter. I refer you to a "brief history of celibacy" in the church.
https://www.futurechurch.org/brief-history-of-celibacy-in-catholic-church
Interpreting what has been uncovered over the last thirty years ago, i.e. the horrors perpetuated by the church, it is safe to say that whomever God may be, the Catholic Church has been at best an unfaithful steward of his mercy. It is more accurate to say it has been primarily a steward of its own wealth and power. There are much saner ways to live a spiritual life than to give bishops, cardinals and popes anything at all, certainly not fidelity.
There are several facts that highlight Mr Douthat's hypocrisy.
A significant proportion of the Clergy do not practice Celibacy. Given the Catholic Churches cover ups, the numbers have to underestimate reality.
Entire institutions, are filled with predators and exploitation The home for the Deaf/Mute in South America is a stunning example. The Magdalene Laundries are another.
The only member who seems to have any credibility, when speaking of Celibacy and morality is the Pope. The same Pope who has been the subject of scathing Editorial comment from Mr. Douthat.
2
Celibacy ought to be everyone's personal choice, just as everyone should be free to decide what to eat, what to read, what to wear, where to live, etc. Forcing celibacy upon priests and nuns is a very strange and cruel practice that leaves its practitioners deeply ignorant of one of the essential aspects of humanity. Then they are sent out into the world to counsel others on-- among other things-- appropriate sexual behavior. Seeing counsel on sexuality from a priest or a nun is like taking your car to be tuned up by someone who admits never having looked under the hood of a car.
1
That celibacy "connects directly to the New Testament" in virtue of "Jesus' own example," has always seemed to me to be much too weak a foundation on which to build the case for excluding women from the priesthood; and the remainder of Douthat's comments are all consistent with a celibate priesthood for both men and women.
Celibacy persists because the Church considers sex to be a vice. (Hence, the Immaculate Conception.) By abstaining from sex, priests are morally and spiritually superior, so the thinking goes, and thus worthy of veneration by their flock.
Celibacy deprives priests of something more important than sex: it precludes the possibility of an intimate, loving relationship with another adult -- something that for most of us is as important as the air we breathe.
Human sexuality is the natural expression of romantic love. If forbidden, it will all too frequently manifest itself in ways that are destructive to everyone involved. That the Church has been hiding the devastating consequences of celibacy is just one more reason why in the developed world the number of its followers is plummeting.
To compensate, the Church is extending its tentacles into the developing world, fostering ignorance and the guilt of "original sin," and perverting heathy sexuality by depicting it as animal lust. It's time for the Church to be held accountable for its sins. A good start would be for law enforcement to investigate the conspiracy of its senior officials who have enabled predators to continue defiling children, sometimes for decades.
15
Mr. Douthat: The central flaw in your argument, for me, is the question: "Where in the teachings of Jesus did he demand or even recommend celibacy of religious leaders?" It is noticeably absent from your defense of the practice.
21
Celibacy was only instituted when the church became concerned about losing assets as married priests passed their land and money onto their children.
The church likes to pretend the practice has some kind of spiritual validity but as with so many things the church embraces, it's all about money and power.
15
Douthat should read a book about the Protestant Reformation, for starters. For centuries, there were movements to reform the church, to end corruption and to make all believers full participants. And at regular intervals, the church punished, excommunicated, and killed reformers -- while also accepting some reforms and making significant changes. Douthat can't accept or acknowledge that (that's why he's still fighting an 18th-century battle against the Jesuits, without really knowing why).
His willful blindness to church history means that he can't discuss Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, and Anglican priests. Their existence complicates a black-and-white picture and he simply doesn't have the theological sophistication to deal with complexity. Or rather, he believes so strongly in the social function of church theology, that he can't treat it seriously as theology. The church must make absolute rules, or it isn't the church. Discussing the reason behind the rules is inadmissable -- it suggests that anyone could challenge the authority of the church. His argument for celibacy is that it has been declared by church authority and we, as a society, need the authority of the church for our betterment. In other words, his argument isn't an argument.
12
Even when the history of 11th RCC celibacy is known, it appears from the comments, much of the interpretations of why are flawed.
It came to be because the Pope/Rome was afraid of its own "fiefdoms", dioceses and parishes, challenging their power. And for the local priests, bishops, etc from handing down their lands to their family members. To prevent these smaller dynastic dioceses from being lost to the locals.
Money and the power that holding land provides was very important to Rome. Letting their bishops hand that down to to their progeny was not in Rome's best interests. Money and power, period. Numbers one and two of Rome's top concerns.
There was nothing Spiritual in the decisions to enact celibacy. The excuse of being better set-up to serve the Lord and his charges, was nothing but the Apologetics for their new economic policy and subsequent theological interpretation. Of but two minor passages in the NT.
The celibacy policy is purely man-made, as it was enacted to protect what all men and their organizations most desire. Money and power.
The policies and behaviors that shuttled crime committing priests (and its not just sexual crimes that they've been doing this for) from parish to parish was always about protecting the Holy See's wealth and its power. As well as that of the Bishops.
Same old song and dance...protect the money and power.
9
All religion is man-made.
2
A thoughtful view. Why do non-Catholics care so much, despite all, envy that it has an innate, self-correcting means to continue, a demonstrated resilience over centuries. That is, Luther's protest was about changing the Church, not destroying it.
3
Clerical Celibacy in the Catholic Church is to save money. Clergy now earn about 35K a year. Imagin what they would have to pay in salary and benefits a priest to afford a wife and (large) family. That plus the number of priests would increase greatly. Diocese would be probably looking at at least double or triple their costs that they need desparately to pay for law suit settlements.
2
Celibacy didn't become a question until the 12th century, over a thousand years after Jesus. It didn't become dogma until the 16th century following the Spanish inquisition. It has nothing to do with Christ and everything to do with male dominance.
18
Douthat would do well to read noted historian Norman Cantor. He would see that his entire article is basically flawed. Celibacy is a product of the Gregorian Reforms, not the New Testament, and was enacted to prevent distant religious figures (bishops, abbots, etc.) from forming dynasties to challenge the Roman Pontiff. As is often the case with the Catholic Church, this 'law' was inspired more by temporal concerns than the teachings of Jesus.
13
Celibacy did not become mandatory until the 1100's. For the first 1000 years priest had families and were part of society to which they preached. Obviously, this demand is man made and has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ. The edict against women in the clergy is also man made as Christ welcomed the counsel of women. Today's Christianity has little in common with the teachings of Christ. None of the problems faced by modern day Christianity would have occurred if they actually followed the words of Christ.
6
Mr. Douthat seems to be caught in a tautology proclaiming that celibacy matters simply because it does. There is no divine prescription that called for followers of Christ to be celibate. The decision was an institutional mandate made, many believe, to secure the Catholic Church's considerable assets over centuries again potential inheritance claims by descendants of priests who would have fathered children if nature had been left to take its course through sanctioned unions.
Putting aside any actual spiritual value—let alone actual efficacy—of this tradition, then the real issue keeping the Catholic Church in the crosshairs is its hypocrisy. Neither Mr. Douthat nor anyone else can parse the policy of celibacy from its failed practice for the convenience of an argument. If the Catholic Church is to demand celibacy of its clergy, then it must step up unequivocally to enforce this dictum. Given its abject failure to do so for almost a millennium—demonstrated no less by the number of Popes who have fathered illegitimate children—history might suggest that Mr. Douthat's argument makes for an interesting theoretical debate, but is totally ungrounded in anything resembling reality.
6
Celibacy became a requirement of the Catholic Church in the 11th Century in order to establish separation from royal powers and to insure that parish priests did not acquire family and community responsibilities that would distract them from primary service to the church. In addition married priests would possibly acquire land and wealth, again distracting them from service to the church and placing them under the rule of the state powers.
In practice, priests have seldom lived lives of celibacy. But observing the tradition of celibacy gave the church more control over parish priests.
Priests living the monastic life, of course, would practice celibacy as part of their rejection of the world and worldly things.
3
The idea that dispensing with celibacy would somehow cure all abuse in the Catholic Church surely is simplistic. Likewise, I can understand skepticism about cavalier claims that celibacy is unnatural or psychologically unhealthy. I can easily imagine a thoughtful person foregoing sexual intimacy if it is at odds with that person's life in some meaningful way. But what is the good argument for compulsory celibacy for priests and nuns? Other Christian denominations allow their religious folk to marry. Are they missing something that Catholics understand better? There is a difference between swearing off sex for some higher purpose that makes sense and swearing off it because it is seen as inherently sinful. After all, a person who wants to be the greatest pianist in the world might live only for the piano, but with an awareness that good things are forsaken for it. That would be a different story than one that casts a cold eye on sex because of its very nature. It's hard for me to avoid the judgment that the Catholic Church's call for celibacy has more to do with the latter than the former, even if it insists that the former is the reason.
5
Douthat says that condemnation of the Catholic Church’s views on sexuality has been a consistent thing over the centuries, in spite of changing attitudes about sex. I’m thinking that this is evidence that the church has been consistently, glaringly wrong.
And by the way: there’s plenty of evidence showing that the nuns were victims of predatory priests and that the celibacy policy is a failure. Etc.
It takes a special kind of denial to claim that valid criticism based on overwhelming evidence is “anti-Catholic.”
6
If I were to write a multiple choice test question based on this concerning all the trouble celibacy has caused over the years, the right answer would be "e. all of the above." Mr. Douthat implies that because the complaints have changed over time, they are somehow invalid. My guess is that all are valid, and the issues raised are a matter of what is bothering people at the moment. How can anyone look at the Catholic Church and deny that celibacy has created a toxic brew of sexual obsession and perversion? Celibacy most often does not cause the pathology, but men of various non standard sexual inclinations are drawn to the Church as a place to hide, or for some, for the availability of targets. It's too much to expect that the Church, led by generations of men who have lived with the burden of celibacy, is suddenly going to say, "never mind", and drop it, but that's the required step.
3
The author fails to make the case of the title. Why does celibacy matter? Why? Mr Douthat, why? Has there been any research that a priest or preacher with a partner serves the Lord less? And that "less" is remarkably so? I cant find any.
The study linked, re; the contentment of RC priests is of course slanted. Like any in-house atmospheric study, typically most respondents will answer in the positive. Look at employee opinion surveys in any large corporation, most often they are pencil whipped, due to lack of trust and alleged anonymity. As such they are now deemed useless by the experts.
Mr Douthat then makes absurd claims about the current offerings of sexual ethics. Porn and robots offered up as salves for the breakdown of male/female relationships. Uh, no. Porn is just porn, you either watch it or not. Robots? They basically don't exist, unless you think a $5+K lump of rubber and mechanical parts are hot sellers, which they are not.
"...other critiques of Catholicism have some correspondence to reality." SOME? Lol, I would say they are numerous, far too numerous.
Mr. Douthat, have you taken notice that other then the Pope, and a few known names among the hierarchy, there has been little in the way of apologies from the priestly rank and file! There has been little done other then duck and run.
Has there been any efforts made by a large collection of priests seeking forgiveness from the congregants?! They need not be actually guilty, other then being RC priests.
2
So you advocate maintaining celibacy as some kind of firewall albeit with numerous holes in it to prevent "the corruption, undiluted and unchecked" in the Catholic Church. Is that the best you've got, pray harder.
6
The problem is not really the celibacy, it is the perversion that results in abuse of children and nuns. The truth is that the Catholic Church has an unhealthy relationship to sex.
12
Celibacy should be eliminated.
Jewish Rabbis can marry.
Priests should be allowed to marry.
Period.
3
Of course celibacy is THE problem. It invites and encourages secrecy and shame.
The fact that literally hundreds of thousands of innocent children have been sexually abused and humiliated, and that abuse has systematically been covered up by the highest reaches of Catholic power structure is a powerful and damning reality.
It's unfortunate that Mr Douthat casually dismisses this book.
If you care to read an opposing viewpoint I suggest you read Andrew Sullivan's devastating opinion piece...
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/andrew-sullivan-the-vaticans-corruption-has-been-exposed.html
2
As usual, Mr. Douthat's black-and-white thinking defines "healthy sexuality"--which he refers to with derision--as including "porn and sex robots." He imagines that a Church without celibacy means an orgiastic priesthood! What Mr. Douthat ignores, though, is that celibacy, a practice not adopted until centuries after the Church's founding--is the principal factor in the Church's crisis in vocation. According to research conducted by Futurechurch, https://www.futurechurch.org/ there would be four times as many applicants to the priesthood if the vow of celibacy were optional. The issue needn't be so either/or: some orders could dedicate themselves to a chaste lifestyle, others could choose not to. Ending enforced chastity won't solve the sexual predation problem (as the scandals in the Southern Baptist convention and other Protestant denominations have shown), but it will go a long way toward attracting men and women of God who refuse to see conjugal sex as dirty or distracting or incompatible with a holy mission. Ask my Episcopal pastor and his wife how their fifty years of service to their flock and outreach to the community were compromised by their loving marriage. They did the work of ten priests. Of course, increasing pubic revulsion to the Church's burgeoning sex abuse scandal might well make this discussion moot.
1
The precise definition of healthy sexuality may have changed over time, but the worst forms of unhealthy sexuality have been condemned consistently. Nobody has ever believed that unstable, excessive sex lives are healthy. Mandatory celibacy cuts priests off from healthy, honest, stable relationships, and that in turn pushes many toward instability and dissolution. And it's not just those who criticize the church from outside who have noticed this. Plenty of Catholics who love the church have cottoned on to its problems, and have been doing so for centuries. Dante certainly knew what a mess his church was - half the people he meets in Hell are clergy!
The church has been a corrupt mess, on a consistent basis, for centuries. And this is because its very structure makes it inevitable that it will always be a corrupt mess. Take a bunch of men, give them lots of money and power, and subject them to no accountability from anyone except each other, and what Mr. Martel describes in "In the Closet of the Vatican" is simply the natural and inevitable result. Mandatory celibacy adds fuel to the fire, but abolishing it won't really fix the problem either. The church will never change unless it is radically reformed, and the men in charge, who benefit from the system as it is, who are having fun living in palaces, driving Ferraris, and throwing meth-fueled orgies with seminarians and prostitutes, will never undertake those reforms unless they are threatened with complete destruction.
2
Thank you, Ross Douthat. As often before on Catholic issues, you have come through. This, this, and this:
"The sexual ethic on offer in our own era should make Catholics particularly skeptical. That ethic regards celibacy as unrealistic while offering porn and sex robots to ease frustrations created by its failure to pair men and women off. It pities Catholic priests as repressed and miserable (some are; in general they are not) even as its own cultural order seeds a vast social experiment in growing old alone. It disdains large families while it fails to reproduce itself. It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman."
And let us not forget the contradiction that underlies most social argument in the contemporary world: Whatever and whoever is supposedly denying "my" personal fulfillment must be an evil person or institution. Yet the entire construct of *religious* celibacy is to free the individual from a more "confined" love, shall we say, to a love for all of humanity. Men who answer this call are indeed loving of the many, not the few. Yet the indulgence of the self is the modern secular compass for virtually every position and decision. It is not the Catholic Church that is narrow. I am deeply grateful for this column and your courage to write it in this environment. God Bless you.
4
"... one sexual culture overthrows another, but Catholicism remains eternally condemned."
Correct, Ross. Because pedophilia has never been accepted as normal or healthy.
Get rid of the pedophiles like Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple - with disgust and anger. "Not in MY father's house!"
Because THAT is the curse of Catholicism. Until the church fixes that, it will never regain it's credibility or acceptance in society.
3
The very existence of celibacy is perversion due to mammalian neurobiology, man, woman, gay or straight. You cannot turnoff the hormonal peptides through religion. You could use synthetic chemistry but not prayer.
4
We can flip this on its ear. The problem isn't the outside-church critique, it's the inside critique.
During my days in the seminary (decades ago), we were taught that everything was forbidden. Lots of condemnation of masturbation, for example. Little or no distinguishing between various of the mortal sexual sins.
Ordinary people would morally distinguish between a priest molesting a tweenage boy under his care and a priest having a consensual affair with an unmarried adult woman, for example.
But both were terrible sins to the church hierarchy above us, and you were much more likely to get kicked out due to an affair with a woman. As is clear from court records, molesting the tweenage boy would just get you reassigned.
1 Cor 7 basically asks us to be as good as we can, but doesn't demand that we be superhuman.
4
Ridiculous.
This is about power. Power held in the hands of old white men. Power to judge, power to punish, power to oppress. Power in the form of unimaginable wealth, in the aura of infallability, in the idea of having access to a special, mystical relationship to the divine.
This power wraps around the small group of predominantly old, predominantly white men who emanate from the Vatican to supposedly embody Christ's holiness to His people. The fact that they are human, they make mistakes, they form cliques, they backbite and lie and embezzle and, oh yes, rape, proves that they are not especially holy or knowledgeable or wise. That threatens the power, the elixir that they all worshipfully drink. 'Protect the Church' means 'protect the power', and so they keep each others' secrets, submit to each others' predation of choice, and far too many of them use these secrets and cliques as their own personal power base to protect their own interests.
Celibacy was imposed to protect the Church's assets from being drained by the families of clergy. It has morphed into an unnatural means of removing the priesthood from normal life, to designate women and children as the proof of the weak degradation of man, of making priests sacrifice so much that they are mentally more wed to their calling.
What must happen is a splintering of the power. Women must have at least half the power, all secret records must be submitted to civil oversight and all crimes to civil penalties.
6
"Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too. Imagine all the people. Living life in peace." Johm Lennon
3
The problem of the Roman Catholic Church is it is based on myth and has enshrined the idiocy of celibacy “Bride of Christ” claptrap. Sexual abuse is a common theme throughout the history of the church to include the evangelical Christian cults. The Judeo-Christian God, especially as proclaimed by the Roman Catholic Church, is a mythical god that thrives on human misery, suffering, guilt, fear, misogyny, and death! All religions are the result of myth, legends, and fables and embraced “Faith” and enshrined it as a noble human achievement and faithful believers view reality through the perverted lens of their religiosity. As Richard Dawkins stated “an excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
8
The plethora of revelations about the serial sexual abuse of children by the allegedly "celibate" Catholic priesthood, validates Frederich Nietzsche's " Antichrist ". Nietzsche described the priesthood as "parasites", the Catholic church as a vessel of "depravity", and the behavior of the church as the " ultimate corruption ". What could be more corrupt than cynically covering up the serial abuse of children?
3
The first commandment before the "Big 10" was Yahweh blasting to the cosmos, "Increase and multiple and fill the earth." Celibacy isn't of Judaism.
The RCC should solicit only asexual males for priests if celibacy is its priority. 1% of the male population is asexual. The RCC should recruit them exclusively and no sex abuse problem.
2
I can't believe Douthat seriously used the word "gaydar" in an article. That's a word even children stopped using.
1
The Apostle Peter was married.
4
even by your talley, it seems the Church of Rome has long been obsessed with sex and sexuality. perhaps as obsessed in its negativity as any sex cult. you don't have to eat Levy's rye bread to see why.
2
Dude, it's just strange and archaic with no concrete grounding in anything spiritual.
3
The Abrahamic religions have a strange obsession with how us primates play with our genitalia in the privacy of our own homes. At least it seems strange until one considers that it is all about social control, through guilt, shame and repression. Nothing good has ever come of it as far as I can tell.
3
Look Ross, I'll keep my opinions regarding the goings on within the Roman Catholic Church to myself if the Roman Catholic Church will keep their religious canonism within their Church, stop trying to inflict their views upon all the rest of us citizens of the United States. But they won't do that, they keep trying to impose themselves on the rest of us, and frankly their hypocrisy is startling. No matter how I may try and make sense of it, Bernard Law's conduct regarding the Boston Diocese pedophile priest scandals is totally amoral. He knew and did nothing as have hundreds of Roman Catholic leaders and they sent these perverts out to inflict more of the same in other unsuspecting parishes. I truly don't know what is right and wrong regarding celibacy, but I do know the Roman Catholic Church doesn't have a clue what sexual morality looks like. If I had my way I would tear the whole institution apart to criminally cleanse the filth away and then let them do what they want under the boundarys of Religious Freedom.
5
The truth is, Ross, no one REALLY knows whether Jesus was completely celibate.
4
Too esoteric, obtuse and long for me, here is the bottom line on celibacy.
If you want to keep celibacy in the Catholic Church fine.
However since 95-99% of the world is sexually active in some way , shape or form, look for the number of priests to dwindle down to a few in a monastery on top of Mt Everett.
Otherwise be prepared to stock the priesthood with gays and child molesters that has happened before.
2
Clerical celibacy is idiotic and unhealthy, regardless of whether Catholic celibacy. Early Catholic priests were not required to remains celibate. Celibacy was instituted by the Catholic Church because priests were promoting their children to positions of power - so then the priests promoted their illegitimate children to positions of power.
Some people are celibate by nature, but those individuals are a distinct minority among human beings. Sex is one of our needs, in the same way that food, water and sleep and social interaction are needs.
This debate is not about philosophy or bigotry. It is about mental and physical health.
forced celibacy isn't natural....so it leads to rebellion and perversion. This is called "being human". To instigate and sustain such a policy for hundreds of years is incredibly arrogant....some would say stupid.
Look what happened....God help them.
1
"the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs"
???
Actually, I'm with Suzanne Sugarbaker. "What’s the big deal about sex. I mean, people talk about it as if it’s the be-all and end-all of existence and I just don’t get it. I mean, we’re talking about what, 6 or 7 seconds here? And it’s OK but it’s not as good as having someone put a crown on your head or shopping.” (https://www.autostraddle.com/top-10-quotes-from-designing-women/)
And, I might add, not as good as the subway pulling into the station just when you get down to the platform. Now THAT'S great!
1
The Church should be harshly criticizes even when its successful. However the Catholic Church I believe have done far greater good. I am thankful that the Church exists.
Nice job providing Martel a platform (given you assert his book is "bad")!!
The Catholic Church isn't embattled because of Martel's writing of the rank hypocrisy of a Church hierarchy, often gay, demonizing homosexuality over the decades while treating their own vows of celibacy with contempt.
The Church is embattled because of the condoning and massive cover-up of child rape.
Perhaps the celibacy requirement is not related to the criminal behavior, the private hypocrisy, and public demonization of sexual behavior most people find normal. Perhaps it is.
Regardless, priestly celibacy would be much less of a topic in the secular world if priests, claiming moral insight, would stop telling the rest of the world how to conduct their sex lives.
Oh, and stop raping kids.
11
'Discard all traditional standards, leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue, you will have no peace.'
Nisargadatta
or perhaps Krishnamurti:
'Why do you need a book and a priest in order to be kind and generous?'
1
The media and the Church have so obscured the problem of sexual abuse of minors that no one is talking about or solving the real problem. First, this is mostly NOT pedophilia. It is hebephilia/ephebophilia. The Church to cover itself has forced all people who come into contact with children to be trained in identifying grooming and abusive behaviors of children. They might as well have done training videos on spotting chickens when the need is to spot vultures. 80% of those abused were pubescent males and all were abused by men. The ephebic system they created to engage and cover this is not at all unique in human history, and occurs with or without celibacy. McCarrick is the archetype, but variations of his methods repeated throughout. As one who attended a minor seminary in the 70's, I can tell you that the programs used to today to alert others to abuse would have been almost worthless. Grooming and abuse in ephebic systems is the problem. Focus on that. We need to commit to calling pedophilia pedophilia , and pederasty pederasty. Until then, the vultures are watching us catch chickens.
3
Celibacy is not a stand-alone issue. It is part and parcel of the unhealthy obsession with sexual sin by the Catholic Church as well as other fundamentalist Christian Churches. This obsession extends to the rejection of LGBT, extra-marital sex, birth control, abortion under all circumstances, masturbation, and the failure to accept women as equal to men in the pews and in the pulpit.
5
Apparently celibacy doesn't work.
2
Two brief points, if I may.
The Catholic Church not only teaches that "gay sex is sinful," but that gay people are intrinsically disordered. How that for respect for life?
If celebacy is so great, why doesn't the author practice it himself?
2
Perhaps it isn'y those who oppose the celibacy rule who are obsessed. The post-Augustine Church seems as obsessed as any 15-year-old boy, with the exception that it wants to regulate sex.
2
You make a verbose and nonsensical case that celibacy is NOT the cause of the church's institutional problem with sexual abuse. So what is the cause?
1
Marrried men have always been allowed to become priests in the Greek Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome. See Unions of Brest, 1596 and Uzhorod, 1646.
Note: when Greek Catholics immigrated to the United States from what is now Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States would not permit married men to become priests. As a result, many Greek Catholics returned to the Orthodox Church in the United States.
In 2014, the Pope changed the rules re Eastern Churches. "Married priests of Eastern Rite Catholic churches will now be allowed to carry out pastoral work outside the areas where they traditionally minister, namely the Middle East and Eastern Europe. This means they will be able to follow their faithful to whichever country they immigrate to. The decision became official when Francis approved a document by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches titled Pontificia Praecepta de clero Uxorato Orientali."https://www.lastampa.it/.../vatican.../pagina.html
There have been thousands of married Catholic priests in the eastern rites of the Catholic Church. Although eastern rite Catholics make up only 3-4% of all Catholics, eastern rite Catholics are part of the same holy Catholic and apostolic church that the rest of Catholics belong to, and are under the jurisdiction of the Pope. Pope John Paul II even canonized a married Ukrainian Catholic priest. Will someone please come forward and explain to me an apparent double standard regarding Latin Rite Catholic priests (no marriage for them) and Eastern Rite Catholic priests (allowed to be married at the time of their ordination)?
I don’t even know where to start with Ross Douthat’s twisted Op-Ed so I’ll try to keep it simple; Jesus taught love. Period!
Most of the stories written in either the Old or New Testaments are retold folklore often designed to perpetuate the “patriarchal order” of that time, male dominance, female obedience, good slave master, good slave, and the list of such goes on and on. And then there are the other parts of the Bible that perpetuate the rule that “might is right,” obedience to the King is right, and that only thru armed conflict and killing can security of the kingdom can be achieved. It’s all nonsense that was never taught by Jesus if you believe those parts of the Bible written about Jesus, his life and his teachings.
And, I believe that Douthat’s Op-Ed is perpetuating more of that nonsense by trying to shift attention onto some titillating book about gays in the Church while the real focus should be on the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations to account for their roles in the criminal conduct of sexual abuse and other methods of abuse, how they will account for those sins and violations of the law, how they will help heal those lives they have destroyed, and how they will stop the criminal conduct they have condoned and tried to hide for decades and some for centuries.
Jesus simply asked us to love others as we love ourselves. There were no exceptions.
3
Start with eight ounces of sanitized history. Add straw dogs for bulk. A nice soupcon of pop psychology for seasoning. Push blend. A column emerges. Ooh, tasty.
3
The Church Lady cometh again (pun most definitely intended).
1
This article is ridiculously out of touch with both Christianityand Catholic history.
A.) Jesus turned over the keys to the kingdom of his church to Peter...a married man.
B.) Married priests were common until well after the year 1139, when Pope Innocent was the first to require celibacy. This was done largely on the grounds of stopping married priests from passing along their parishes via their bloodlines. In other words, celibacy was invoked for reasons of property seizure.
C.) As regards Christianity, it's quite clear that Jesus does not see the epitome of the human condition to be one of being celibate and unmarried. His first miracle was at a wedding.
D.) Which brings us to today...and the real problem, aside from non-Biblical celibacy, of liberal society sexual mores leading to the Church's self-destruction via sexual abuse...and this is all quite accurate:
Blue state Catholic diocese & relig. order bankruptcies (BK): 17
Red state Catholic diocese & relig. order bankruptcies (BK): 4
Blue state BK payouts: $935 million dollars
Red state BK payouts: $30 (thirty) million dollars
Sample concentration of "credibly accused priests":
Austin, TX (2.1MM population): 22
St. Cloud, MN (<68,000 population): 41
...this is nearly a 60x difference.
Reference for long-term Blue/Red states: 2nd Obama election
1
Sexuality is a complex issue. We can discuss this in an intellectual and philosophical way. But all that is forgotten when one gets horny. I was raised in the church. I saw many priests who were going through the motions. But they were mostly bored, dispirited and lonely. Under those conditions and in desperation, the default solution is "any port in a storm".
This is clearly a problem that has been with the church of a long time. I am 85 and have long departed the church. But I recall that in our parish priests would come and go. Many priests departed after various celebrations and masses and wishes of fond farewell. And then there were priest who would suddenly disappear, slipping away in the night. Few knew what happened but we all suspected the reason. But silence reigned. Now 70 years later, silence still mostly reigns about the church, priests and sex.
1
When an intelligent man tries to defend the indefensible he usually winds up sounding like a fool. I'd suggest that Douthat put his mind and pen to a sensible topic such as "Why the Catholic Church should get out of the business of dispensing moral guidance and start selling cat food instead." Then he'd have a chance of sounding intelligent.
3
The article's penultimate sentence: "But [celibacy] preserves the call even when the system is corrupted." What does that mean?
1
As an old, old priest-to-the-end who has discerned a call to celibacy, I can say this: Mandatory celibacy is an institutional, freedom-destroying form of sex-abuse, the moral/spiritual equivalent to the castration once imposed by Chinese potentates on the unfortunate men assigned to guard the royal treasury. And for the same reason. A man without children would not be so gravely tempted to steal Church property to hand on to his heirs.
And secondly, women would make wonderful priests. How long, O Lord?
1
Sex is not that big a part of life. But men controlling women has been around as long as anti-semitism, or longer. Back in the day, 12th century, thanks to her ability on the chess board, Hildegarde was able to seduce Frederick Barbarossa to permit her to defy the bishop and separate from the male controlled monastery/convent. Hildegarde was able to move the convent to a place (Bingen) free of male domination. That was the beginning....the rest is slow moving history....
The roman catholic church is guilty of many crimes. If it wishes to remain in existence it might move into the 21st century. Drop celibacy, allow women priests and drop nuns, and dress like real people instead of clowns.
2
I generally find that when intelligent people write something that’s as incoherent as this, there’s some big knot in their thinking about the world that seriously needs untangling.
4
Fourteen paragraphs to end with the mother of all non sequiturs. Even Thomas Merton referred to celibacy as something related to the Olympian athlete. Only very very few are able to pull it off.
1
Patent nonsense and a cover for generations of sexual abuse. A nightmare. The vow is a horrible mistake. And no cover for the pedophiles or other abusers. A prime example of the terror that institutions can visit on humans.
2
I find it impossible to disassociate western Christianity from viciously racist colonialism, oppressive cultural misogyny, and pervasive sexual abuse. I simply do not buy the revisionist history any longer.
4
Child preditors look for their victims everywhere; I am curious how much takes place in secular public or private instittuions.
Celibacy is not drived directly from Jesus. The apostals were married. Jesus came from a family. This practice came from the 1600w when the Borgias threatened to will church property to their children.
Celibacy reduces to number of qualified people to become priests, eliminates the majoryity of people who would love to serve but can't because they also choose to marry. It is totally unnatural and the Church will never be able to reform until it gets rid of this stupid practice.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out the following. Of all the major U.S. religions, only Catholicism demands celibacy. And Catholicism has far more problems with predators than any other religion.
2
Oh, I get it now. It's the critic's fault. Let the victim's come out of the closet then and subject these predators to real criminal justice rather than frat boy justice in side the secret walls of the church.
1
How do we know Jesus was celibate? Do we even KNOW he existed?
2
The problem is not that the church is the enemy of healthy sexuality.
The problem is that the church is the friend of unhealthy sexuality.
Dan Kravitz
1
Sexual abuse isn't about sex. It's about power. And who has more power over a young "believer" than a priest with a direct line to the almighty? The hypocrisy is sickening.
If all the Catholic church has going for it in its emulation of Jesus is celibacy (not a proven fact) it might as well close up shop.
I have no doubt that that's what Jesus would do.
1
Ross fails to ask and answer the most basic question: what is the purpose of celibacy? I think it is very important to understand the "why?" before moving on to the "why not?".
Then, once you've asked and answered the "why?" you have to ask if celibacy actually fulfills its intended purpose, or might there be a better way to do so?
2
As Ross Douthat undoubtedly knows, celibacy was gradually imposed on the Catholic priesthood as the Church grew in power and bureaucratic complexity.
Some historians explain this as a means to discourage the rise of a dynastic priesthood. Others, as a means for the institutional Church to accumulate property (and power) over time.
In any case, there are many documented cases of Popes producing children and even being the sons of other Popes.
There's a lot more here than some devotion to a self-effacing spirituality.
Come now, Mr. Douthat, you must know that priestly celibacy is not, as you say, "there because [it] connects directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example." The requirement of celibacy was instituted as a policy in order to prevent priests from having "legitimate" children, and thus passing the church's riches to their heirs. Celibacy in the Catholic church was then given religious justification, but the initial reasoning was financial, not spiritual. A look at the church's balance sheet tells us that clearly, the policy worked.
"Celibate men are not more likely to be predators (as one would hope the #meToo era has decisively established), but particular kinds of predation have flourished in the priesthood, and the worst of that predation looks like an anti-Catholic polemic brought to life."
I believe that Mr. Douthat is conflating those men who choose celibacy and those who have it forced upon them. I would argue that most men who enter the priesthood do so because of some religious calling, some yearning to be a force for good, and not because of a desire to cleanse the body of its hormonal (and natural) dictates. Ending celibacy in the Catholic Church may not bring an end to sexual misdeeds - it certainly hasn't done so in the Protestant church - but I feel fairly certain it would have a considerable dampening effect on the kinds of abuses that have been brought to light.
First of all Ross, let me thank you for this, your MOST Ross Douthat headline ever.
Here is the thing about celibacy, Ross. Everybody respects an individual's decision to become celibate. People do it for all sorts of reasons - a spouse dies, medical issues, disability, etc. But that's a decision made just between an individual and him or herself. You don't have a community enforcing it.
Things change when by deciding to be celibate you take on the opprobrium that will be heaped on you by your community if you break that celibacy. Priests and Nuns can lose their salaries, food, housing, friends, and community if they violate their vows. So the pressures to keep that vow can be tremendous. Asking someone to trade their entire sex life (often when they are young) and then hold them to it for life is absurd. You never know how your feelings will change, or whether you will meet someone.
Celibacy has a place in ANY society, if done as a personal choice. Having people view a decision to break with celibacy as a sin against god is hugely problematic.
5
“There was an attempt.” That’s the most positive thing that can be said about this opinion piece providing an argument of some type. Just listing the arguments that have been used against celibacy over the years does not refute the arguments.
This piece was also a straw man. It hinted that the main criticism of the Church was about celibacy. The main criticism is actually that the Church facilitated people going around raping children.
Oh, and calling a book “bad” does not refute it either. Gay priests using gay priests to muddy the waters about child rapists is just revolting. The Catholic Church should not be viewed as a moral authority, especially about sexual matters. For example, its insistence that contraception not be used has condemned much of the world to poverty. That is simply evil.
2
The notion of "healthy sexuality" in the West is a modern one, originating in the mid-nineteenth century at the latest, and it is purely non-Christian.
Christians are only able to discuss by ignoring the teachings of Paul and Anthony and Augustine and just about everybody who came after them.
Christian theology, as it exists, teaches that even sexuality in marriage is tainted and the Christian life which is lived accordingly can never rise above second class.
Twenty-first century Christians squint at this fact but they cannot get round it, not unless they are prepared to lop so many branches off the tree it provides very little shade.
Just one of many reasons I am not a Christian.
1
The future of this soul-searching seems to me tainted by the Pope's describing the abusers within as "tools of Satan."
This kind of attribution, placing the ultimate blame upon the
agent, i.e. Satan, is a classic deflection, removing the existential need to blame the individual priests and heave them
into the real world without the shelter of robes and funny hats.
Douthat is comfortable with his church's conventions. Satan
is a conventional scapegoat.
2
The attempt to by the author to connect the celibacy rule "directly to the New Testament" and further citing "Jesus' own example" is simply dishonest. I challenge Mr. Douthat to cite chapter and verse from the New Testament where Jesus calls upon any of his followers to remain celibate, much less establish a church in his name governed by celibate men.
1
What in the world is Mr. Douthat talking about? Can someone please translate his passionate rambling into a useful, fact based argument?
Consider his justifications for celibacy: New Testament based; being like Jesus; Jesus's hard words for those who extol family life; the "calling" has intrinsic worth; removing the corrupting celibacy pillar might exacerbate Church corruption. These are the words of a 21st century Church apologist for a 13th century unholy aberration abjured by other Christian denominations. A man who writes passionately but cannot see the writing on the wall.
Absent from Douthat's faith based rationalizations are numbers. The Church doesn't release numbers --although something was discovered buried in a Church website and reported last week indicating thousands of priests are being investigated. Children, nuns, women--a Catholic trinity of shame.
Douthat marshals unsubstantiated, alternative faith based facts and assertions that the problem is not so serious as to require basic reforms that might jeopardize the Church's claim to a higher morality and hold over its flock.
What do statistics tell us? Other Christian sects record of sexual abuse? The public at large? Is sexual abuse elsewhere not less than among Catholic priests with their misogyny, repressiveness and much abused celibacy?
The burden of proof is on the Church to prove its clergy are not as portrayed. Not worse. Not worse than the solution. The jury is out.
“And now, in our own age of sexual individualism, Catholicism is mostly just accused of a repressive cruelty, of denying people — and especially its celibacy-burdened priests — the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs.”
Ross focuses on the act itself, as does the Catholic Church. This is the mistake they make, discounting the physiological and psychological aspects of intimacy. Normal humans yearn for the touch of another human, mostly from the opposite sex, but not always. There are all kinds of hormones released, just from a hug, or holding hands. Hormones that blunt stress, anger, and anxieties. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and others are released when one becomes intimate with another, and through orgasms. It’s the way we were created. It IS UNNATURAL to not seek intimacy. This results in the pool of unnatural men to select into the priesthood.
I’ve experienced this. Recently I broke my pelvis and hip and was relegated to a recliner or wheel chair. Two weeks had gone by with very little intimacy with my wife. Then, I was able to transfer to the couch. Just sitting with my arm around her changed my attitude, outlook, mood, etc. I became relaxed, happy and more like myself.
I couldn’t imagine being stripped of this my entire adult life. It would make me do all sorts of crazy things, and a very bad person.
1
Douthat's column is pitch-perfect. We Catholics -- including our priests and nuns -- are indeed sinners. And some have done terrible criminal acts, for which they should be punished.
But we really don't need to have those of other faiths or non-believers lecturing us on what current and approved sexual approach and attitude is best for us. As others have noted, anti-Catholicism is the only remaining approved bigotry (with the recent additional exception of the bigotry against white males).
To quote a currently unpopular and ancient book about a very famous celibate: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Hanging one's argument on maintaining the rule of celibacy for Catholic priest owing to the model of Jesus Christ is historically specious at best. There's simply no proof that he died a virgin nor that he and at least one of the Marys had carnal relations. Interpreting Bible text literally is bad enough -- but to invent text that isn't there and use it as the basis for your argument in a NYTs column is...sad.
As someone whose Catholic high school principal, vice-principal, football coach, guidance councilor, several teachers, not to mention my church's pastor and assistant priests have all been either found guilty of or indicted for sexual abuse of minors, it would be convenient to say that celibacy is the only problem. It's not; but it carries a lot of water.
Celibacy has been a fundamental problem with the Catholic presbyterate ever since The Second Lateran Council in 1139 definitively took a stand in favor of celibacy. The "Irish Democrat" reports: "In AD 494 Pope Gelasius I (492-496) decreed that woman could no longer be ordained as priests. [Yet]...Bishop Pelagio, in the twelfth century, complain[s] that women were still being ordained...and hearing confessions."
Then there is Pope Benedict IX, who, after 12 disreputable years sold his papacy to marry his cousin, only to later take it back by force.
The Catholic Church is as complex and as changeable as is the secular culture beyond its borders.
2
The Catholic Church has to reform according to the times. That would be an enlightened Church. Just like any other Church and it's congregation - like a synagogue, temple, mosque or a shrine. Not that there are no perversions in these Churches also! Although the Catholic Church seems to be the slowest at reformation, adhering to a dogma which should be obsolete. This op-ed coming from a staunch Catholic was very surprising. But the Catholic clergy are repressed and miserable. And Most are and generally not. We homo sapiens are mammals and sexuality is a natural part of being one. Suppression of natural instincts only lead to perversion as now evident in the Catholic clergy. The Church should embrace human beings as human beings - not as an apostle, angel or an ascetic. The Church can teach but not impose and the Church should practice before they preach. And the current ensuing Church tragedy is not about the victims alone but also of the priests who have engaged in perversion. And celibacy is one of those perversions.
1
Douthat’s intellectual gymnastics can’t hide the real problem: the Church is a corrupt institution that, for whatever reason, has fostered and covered up sexual abuse on a level that may be unprecedented in human history. The fact that it happens in a religious institution is beyond the pale. Adding the centuries of other atrocities (enslavement of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, rampant anti Semitic and appeasement of fascism during the 30s and 40s) makes it frankly stunning that it’s still in existence.
4
For those who think this is about celibacy, men, clericalism, and sexual repression, tell me about this. 77% of women are teachers. Some women teachers sexually abuse adolescents. As far as that goes, male teachers do, too, but in a culture where the large majority of professionals are women. The victims are almost always adolescent, not prepubescent, and none of this is all that rare. It all happens in our society with its current attitudes about sex. Are you really on target with your diagnosis and solutions?
I wouldn't mind if priests are required to be celibate except that, in its observance, it means all bishops will be notionally childless! A bishop with children would be way less likely to rotate a known pedophile or any other sexual criminal through the parishes of his diocese, or keep the truth away from civil authorities, or let his fellow bishops get away with such monstrous acts. One feels the same about denying priesthood to women - especially given the fact that the Resurrected Lord chose to appear first to "the women', and that Jesus came to us as the son of a woman - the very first Eucharist creation that is now through some Scriptural legerdemain restricted to the male sex.
In a “nutshell”, how can the systemic depriving of one of a human being’s fundamental attributes, one’s sexuality, not end in a variety of harmful, destructive behaviors?
How about making celibacy and chastity voluntary, without repercussions?
1
So hypocritical negative internal consistency is justifiable in light of external inconsistency.
Celibacy is not a constraint on intellectual needs. It is a constraint on physiological needs, like thirst and hunger. Believe devoutly in God, but spurn one of God's most ubiquitous mechanisms for creating a world full of life.
Priests who are parents, especially priests who are mothers, would be much more likely to speak up and speak out about sexual abuse of minors.
The Jehovah's Witnesses don't allow transfusion, Jews and Muslims have dietary restriction and avoid pork, Catholics didn't eat meat on Fridays. Religious restrictions are what is arcane in today's world. If a well intentioned homosexual young male goes to priesthood and then finds that homosexuality is common among priests, it could become easier to find sex there than a bathroom or gay bar. But then the restrictions on sex are always upheld by priests and nuns right? Catholicism is still the largest centralized religion and it is glacial in changing anything, (Latin Mass, eating meat of Fridays) to the favor of the traditionalist elite who practice the religion, but to the detriment of those on whom the religion is practiced. Stop being mired in tradition and legacy and just change it for the better and the faithful worshipers.
1
Ending requirements for celibacy won't result in forcing anyone to have sex. It might, however, save the church. We need all hands on deck: all genders and consenting adult sexual orientations, and married people as well. Anyone called by the spirit to serve.
Too many clergy are running away from their sexuality, whether healthy homosexual desires that they should, but can't, accept or hurtful pedophilia that no one should accept.
Healthy celibates must always remain welcome in the church, alongside other people who are whole and healthy in their spectrum of sexualities.
Ross, a little exercise for you. Easy, no dogma required, hardly any deep study. Just go outside on a clear night and look up. If you can understand that what you see is the local area of a 14 billion year-old universe, of trillions (or more) of stars, many of which have planets, then you may have a better concept of what a religion might be. Open those eyes if you can; bury your head in fancy if you can’t. I guarantee you’ll get no flack from any of the many deities conceived on our speck in space. Call it enlightenment.
2
Why are converts to Roman Catholicism more catholic than the pope? Douthat needs to at least read church history about when in time a celibate priesthood was mandated, how it was implemented, ignored and abused. In this day and age there are many, many priests who are involved in sexual relationships with women. If I felt a strong desire to be a priest without shedding normal God-given sexual desires, I would do an end run around the absurdity Douthat espouses and be ordained an Episcopal priest, marry and then ask to become a Roman Catholic priest - a scenario that has Rome's blessings. Or I could just be a happily married Episcopalian priest and forego all this screwy nonsense.
1
Of course it’s naive to think that revoking the celibacy demand will cleanse Catholicism of its rot.
It’s also naive, and foolish, to believe that a life of enforced physical and emotional isolation won’t become a destructive, terrifying burden that no human being can, or should be expected, to bear.
Fine. But just like every other institution these days, they need to cast aside their tradition of sexism and allow women to become priests. In no other sphere today would this prohibition be tolerated.
As a non Catholic celibacy of priests holds no interest for me. Priests and nuns engaging in mutual sex...whatever turns them on. These issues are the business of the church. Sexual abuse of children and the rape of nuns,these are the business of the state to be prosecuted by civil authority.
Contraception and legal abortion...these are my business. So here's the deal...I'll happily stay out of your business, if you stay out of mine.
4
Celibacy was a high minded idea, so unrealistic and unnatural that it failed from the beginning.
It’s the principle that has corrupted the Catholic Church from within.
Celibacy has created a sex culture in the shadows: secrete and sinful, shameful and abusive.
In his twisted logic Douthat defends celibacy as the only ideal that sets the Catholic Church apart.
It has destroyed lives and caused unimaginable suffering.
It’s insane and cruel to embrace it on the grounds of theory, when you know the harm it has caused in practice.
I try to imagine The Church without it's regime of wrenching sexual taboos. I draw a blank. I can't get there from here.
Would it be like a fraternal order... the Masons, or the Rotary Club?
1
This article doesn't even pass the laugh test. To moan on about celibacy and not a word about sexual abuse of children, nuns and priests is deplorable. Celibacy, like the catholic church, is outdated.
How will the Catholic Church know if eliminating required celibacy works until it is tried?
Let's cut to the chase about celibacy and the Church. The problem with celibacy is that priests do not live in the real world and face real world problems that families today do-they live a cosseted life free of worry about where their next meal is coming from or housing or medical care , raising and supporting children and the stress of maintaining a relationship with a spouse or partner. Maybe if they married or whatever and the 7th or 8th child came around they might understand why men and particularly women want to control their own reproductive rights.
1
Celibacy and the priesthood in Rome differ from Orthodoxy. For Eastern Orthodoxy celibacy is required of monks only. It was the Benedictine monk Hildebrand, originally from Tuscany, who as Gregory VII required celibacy of all Roman Catholic Priests. One possible answer to current problems may rest in returning to the model of Orthodoxy. Perhaps the Benedictines will lead the way.
The reason clerical marriage was first regulated at the turn of the first millenium was because of concerns about church property being inherited by the wives and children of priests. Celibacy is not a revealed truth, as you argue, but a church discipline. The existence of all the married priests testifies that celibacy is not essential to the priesthood. Our understanding of the priesthood, including ordination of women (Mary Magdalen is the prime example of a woman priest) needs to be rethought.
@Mack see Why are priests celibate by Santiago Cortes-Sjoberg
I've read a few of this writers other columns and he does seem to have a serious Jones for other people to practice celibacy (I practiced for years and remained unfortunately proficient at it. It's not all that, Ross). I confess I've always found the Church's insistence that priests be celibate rather silly, since that means seeking marital or child-rearing advice from one is a bit like hiring a financial adviser who is supposed to have never opened a checking account. But I agree with Ross that allowing priests to marry will not necessarily make the Catholic Church a safe place for children. Baptists (Southern and Independent) and Jehovah's Witnesses all have their own sex scandals that they are all either facing or denying and all encourage their clergy to marry. On the other hand, ordaining women and letting them rise to positions of authority within these churches would make them safer. Liberal denominations have done so for decades and simply don't have these problems on this scale. Some will wonder if it is Biblically sound, but I think Jesus was quite reticent in the Gospels about his expectations of his priesthood. And if you're more scared of what Jesus would say if he came back to find a woman running your denomination and not worried about what he would say about the rape and sexual abuse of children, I have to question what lessons you have drawn from your faith.
Even as a boy in a large extended family of practicing Catholics, I never understood why priests and nuns were required not to have spouses or families of their own seeing that in those days 95% of the congregation comprised of very “fruitful” families (by today’s 2 kid family standard).
Then, years later one of my brothers enrolled in divinity school much to the pride and delight of our extended family. He never took Holy Orders but I guarantee you that if the church allowed marriage for their clergy, today he’d be a very fine pastor of a parish — or bishop, who knows? How many of these men (and women! How about Catholic priestesses?) has the Church turned away because they see being fully human as a vital qualification to lead others in a common faith?
A very good friend of mine, who died several years ago, was the prior of a Benedictine monastery. We had some thoughtful discussions about celibacy, after I asked him what was the point of celibacy. (I can also remember asking my mother this question - more than 55 years ago- before I made my First Communion. She said celibacy was a requirement because priests and nuns must always put the needs of others first. They could not be restricted by the needs of their own families.)
My friend the prior told me that he did not believe that celibacy in and of itself was a virtue. He said: "Celibacy is not like a glass, that at the end of time is either broken or unbroken. Celibacy is meant to be an instrument for good, not goodness itself. Some priests think too much about their celibacy - what they are sacrificing or gaining. Then celibacy becomes almost an obsession for them. In my opinion, they shouldn't be priests.
But for many priests and nuns, celibacy really is a very helpful instrument of their faith."
You are discussing whether celibacy in itself is or is not a good thing. I think that misses the point.
As for the priesthood, I hope that everyone who reads this piece also reads Alice McDermott's opinion piece about women and the priesthood. I think that allowing female priests would do far more to solve the Church's sex abuse problems than getting rid of the vow of celibacy would. One, I think we can agree that men are far more predatory than women.
3
Insanity. Do you remember the old guessing game animal, mineral or vegatable? Human beings are not inert, nor are we some strange sort of plant life.
We are animals: mamals, to be specific, and while we have a more highly developed ability to learn from sources other than our own experience, we still have the instincts with which we were born.
The urge to engage in sex is inate, and attempts to deny it or condemn it as immoral in itself or to enforce abstinence goes against all human nature.
The Catholic Church has for centuries set itself above and apart from all other institutions, and the clash between church and state continues to this day.
We live in a constitutional republic, and no man and no church is above the law.
1
@Lsterne2
Considering that legally the expression of political positions from the pulpit are forbidden by the tax code, I would suggest that a considerable number of churches, indeed whole sects, operate as if they are above the law. If you consider the current and past governmental responses to these wayward proselytizers, you would be correct.
The result is a hodge-podge of bible-beating grifters promoting various doctrines of tax-free hate and exclusion to a congregation seeking official recognition of the inferiority of all non-believers of their flavour of incoherent dogma and blessings for the congregations expressions; meanwhile the good pastors fleece their flock and the tax paying public.
If you want to get rich, don't start a company, found a church. Get a bible and some cafeteria trays to sort it all out. Somewhere out there lies a group of marks. Ka-Ching
The premise of this article is about as flawed as they come. On one hand it argues for the re-contextualizing and modernization of a (what?) third century premise. On the other, it says we should use that same premise to justify the continued acceptance of an almost two millennia old idea that was nonsense even then. To frame modern life based on a work of fiction is folly, no matter what age
4
The church initiated clerical celibacy in the 12th century.
1
For apparently conclusive evidence of his blanket assertion that most Catholic priests are satisfied with their celibate lives, the writer cites to....a survey of self-reporting priests administered by another priest. Credulousness thus serves to ratify a "truth" quite necessary to support the writer's views of the state of the priesthood, celibacy, etc. Skepticism is abandoned for The Cause. In other contexts and columns, that skepticism is quite evident, but in this one, it is a faint shadow at best. A shame.
Celibacy can be a wonderful, ascetic gift. But when an ENTIRE institution, particularly one with so much power over the lives of families, women, and children in many parts of the world, is completely run by celibate men, it creates a myopic, insular, and often dishonest culture that causes real harm to people, not just in the case of abuse, but right down to the institutional culture and the doctrines that get propagated.
The Catholic Church is unique among Christian denominations in that it's hierarchy is made up of entirely celibate men who have absolutely NO responsibility for the consequences of the "doctrines" they propagate. It is not a coincidence that Roman Catholicism is the only Christian denomination to absolutely forbid abortion, contraception, and divorce. It is very easy to teach all these things when the potentially terrible consequences don't effect you.
1
Mr. Douthat has put so many trees in the way, a reader can't see the forest. His point (I think) isn't the notion of celibacy itself, but that it is pure enough to not be 'reformable' and of course is much preferable to today's version of 'healthy sexuality.' Celibacy, according to Mr. Douthat, should remain a tenet of Catholicism. But sometimes, 'rhetorical tropes' are indeed true, that the church of Rome, was (and still is) an enemy of healthy sexuality, no matter what era that sexuality belongs to. Forcing celibacy, as any thinking human being can attest to, is in itself unnatural, and will never be ruled out as a major reason why priests have committed the crimes they have through the centuries in regards to the abuse of children or nuns. I believe that Mr. Douthat sees this obvious truth but decides to argue it away in his rhetorical fashion.
1
Sorry, Ross. This was something imposed on the Church by the early (male) leadership of the 2nd and 3rd centuries after the crucifixion who decided that Christ had been celibate (something there's no evidence for one way or the other), and that therefore sex is sinful, and by extension, that women, by engendering lust by their very existence, are responsible for that sin.
There is no basis in Christ's teaching for the male only priesthood, nor that those are called to the priesthood must be celibate. This manmade doctrine was an impossible standard meant solely to strip power from women, shield the growing church's property from being dissipated through priests' children's inheritance, and to reinforce the notion that sex is sinful. It works only because everyone pretends that the standard is being met, even when it isn't. Wasn't there something in that book you're always waving about condemning those who bear false witness?
5
@LarkAscending
Well said. Personally, I feel that if the church doesn't play the game, they have no business making the rules.
So, according to Mr Douthat, celibacy in the Catholic priesthood is justified by the - assumed - celibacy of Jesus Christ. When Catholic priests can walk on water and raise the dead like Jesus did, then they and the Church can justify their behaviour by what Jesus did and what He would, presumably, do today.
8
The argument seems to be that since sexual mores are mutable, the best thing to do is to avoid them completely. This is rather like insisting that since astronomy keeps providing information that changes our view of the universe, it would be better to maintain a position that the universe circles the earth.
Despite the evidence, both documented and anecdotal about the sexual misbehavior of the clergy, and despite the efforts of the church hierarchy to keep this knowledge buried. The most important critique of priestly celibacy is rarely stated.
The idea that sexual behavior is sinful, in the first place, is the villain. The belief that woman was a by-product of creation and by her disobedience we are all damned, has been the cement in the misogynistic foundation of all religious dogma. The result is the "rape culture" so often complained about, where women are always held to be at fault in sexual misdeeds. Asceticism has always had its place in spirituality, and there are certainly those who are drawn to a life of prayer and contemplation that includes celibacy. There are many more, however, for whom the imposition of celibacy is destructive. Many strictures of the religious life can be mastered through discipline and will. The body's production of hormones, however, and the physical reactions they produce, are not so readily tamed. If you tried to wear the same pair of shoes lifelong, your feet would be crippled. Sexuality is no different, just more powerful.
432
@michaeltide
This argument might be more compelling if misogyny was unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
2
@michaeltide
You completely ignore volumes of Church teaching on the beauty of human sexuality. I am guessing you have never read any of it, or if you have, know most haven't so you can get away with leaving it out.
6
@michaeltide Same old, same old.
1
Any commentator who views the world through a rigid ideology is by definition a propagandist.
The world cannot be squeezed into a neat container, so any attempt is suspect. It reeks of coercion.
3
It seems to make sense that celibate positions in the Catholic church would be more attractive to those who rightly or wrongly feel guilty about their sexual desires. It is easier to give up something you think you should not do. Does this not explain the Church's seeming out of proportion problem with pedophilia?
4
what does celibacy get you that simple charity and service does not? it "preserves the call" ... the call to what?
as for "jesus's own example" ... how much sex do you expect an itinerant jewish preacher in a pastoral society to get, anyway? and how much sex, whatever the facts, do you expect evangelists would be able report a century after the fact?
why is an argument invalid, just because it's been repeated since the 18th century and lately appears in a bad book?
why does catholicism need to rely on such flimsy arguments? because flimsy arguments are the best on offer.
9
Perhaps the RomanCatholic Church should ask the question,”What would Jesus zodiac?” Would he think that religious leaders be lifelong celibates living insular lives or should they be married and be a full member of their community?
This is another typical rant from Ross Douthat. We need to have a conversation about celibacy that doesn't invoke straw dogs like porn, sex robots, etc. It's time we talk about the concept of celibacy without even mentioning sexuality - whether it's the healthy kind or unhealthy.
The larger notion is that priests are married to the church instead of a woman. Or put another way: You choose one of two sacraments in the RCC - ordination or marriage. I'm not a Catholic but I'm clergy. I've known a priest who adopted an underprivileged, minority-status boy. It's an admirable thing to do, but it is also a violation of celibacy. I knew a college student whose father abandoned his home when he was a young child. His uncle, a priest, was a constant and loving presence throughout his formative years, and sat at the family dinner table every night. That is also a violation of celibacy.
So let's stop talking about sex for a moment and recognize that many priests have a hunger for close, family-like relationships that divert their time and attention from the church. One way or another, they're going to find it. And in so doing, they will violate the purity of this celibacy concept in the eyes of someone like Douthat.
10
How anyone believes the myths propagated by all the major religions is completely beyond my comprehension.
6
@MikeZim I second that. After being brainwashed since birth as a catholic I finally threw off the yoke at 25 and never looked back.
1
If I could gather all of the issues that the catholic church has created with their obsession with sex and put them in one place they'd take up half the planet.
Move on. It's not that interesting other than when you are doing and it and who cares what people do if they enjoy it and they aren't preying on children or the weak.
And that goes for Priests and Nuns.
Stop trying to foist some crazy idea your church came up with to guard its wealth onto the rest of us.
2
"That clerical celibacy doesn’t guarantee asceticism...but it preserves the call." Seriously Mr. Douthat? Seriously?
8
Ross Douthat is the voice of reason...from 1019. Life goes on, its time to change.
7
Ouch!
1
The first commandment given to humanity in the Bible is
"be fruitful and multiply." We can discuss the validity and interpretation of this commandment ad infinitum and a host of different opinions can be supported by logic and human experience. But demanding of those who supposedly are going to devote themselves to serving God to swear to violate this commandment is not one of them. Where did all this come from? Certainly not from Judaism, which even insists that judges be married so that they understand other people better. Certainly not from early Christianity, which did not start acquiring its misogynistic bent until Paul made his "better to marry than to burn" quip.
No....celibacy, while practiced by some earlier, was first imposed by the Second Lateran Council in 1139. Wiping away the trappings of piety, the reason for the enactment was to make sure the property of the Catholic Church and the many bequests to it would remain with a rich and all-powerful Church. Incidentally, Karl Marx would have had fun with this one.
This had two pernicious effects, the first of which was genetic. Feudal society was so stratified that the only way out for the most intelligent peasant boys and girls lay in agreeing not to reproduce. The second is what we witness today. A closed (or closeted) priesthood designed to attract pedophiles and frustrated gays who are surrounded by adoring young boys. Pope Francis is a master of PR. Let's see him do something - abolish this foolishness
2
Oh.
The Catholic clergy doesn't, and hasn't for centuries, practiced celibacy. That's the only problem with the vow of celibacy. Instead, it has been an open secret that heterosexual, homosexual, and pedophilic sex occurs and it's the job of the administration to cover it up.
If an organization makes a claim that it values X, but then acts in way that demonstrates a complete disregard for X, we don't normally continue to defend that claim. The evidence shows that any claim to such a value is false.
4
Of all of the things one can criticize Catholicism for, its handling of sexually it small potatoes.
1. It took the simple teachings of a itinerant Jewish preacher and blew them up to the gaudy, grandiose, religion-industrial complex known as the Roman Catholic Church.
2. It is obsessed with maintaining its power over its laity. All of Catholicism's rules and regulations are designed to keep the common folk off-ballance and thus dependent on the clergy just to get by.
3. Its insistence that it is the true religion. Someone please point out in the Scriptures the justification for St. Patrick's Cathedral.
4. Its willing participation in the deadly European political machinations and the even more deadly subjugation of the rest of the world.
5. Its shameless accumulation of wealth.
I'm actually ok with the Church's requirement of celibacy. It's a job requirement; unrealist maybe but I'll bet there are other professions the wish their praticioners did not have families, given the stress it creates. But the Roman Catholic Church had much more to answer for.
4
I've never understood why Catholic, Evangelical, Mormon and other religious sects seem to boil down the entire Bible down to sex. Just look at the results. Both the Catholic and Evangelical male leaders have used their proximity to God to sexually abuse women and children. The author of the Evangelical "Purity" movement now denounces it after having hundreds of followers contacted him about how their sex lives in adulthood have been ruined and racked with guilt by his teaching. The guru of Utah's gay conversion therapy just announced it is cruel and inhumane and he is going to live his truth as a gay man. Elizabeth Smart has created a foundation to stop teaching abstinence only sex ed. She says the reason she didn't leave her captors was because she was taught that if she had sex before marriage she was used up and unlovable. She was raped.
So far whatever the church has done to corral, control and shame the normal sexual impulses of the masses has been a disaster. Perhaps if the church got it's mind off sex and on to the actual teaching of the Bible they can redeem themselves.
10
Ok, got it. Preoccupation with sex and celibacy is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Catholic Church is a corrupt organization that is hierarchical, secretive, dishonest, mysogynistic and impervious to any but the most shambolic review or accountability. By its fruits it reveals itself, we don't need Frederic Martel.
A lazy, superficial column: as if the only alternative to celibacy were secular-liberal promiscuity. Why not just have priests adopt the same sexual morality that the *Catholic Church* itself recommends to non-clergy, with celibacy as an option -- but not mandatory?
If marriage was good enough for Saint Peter, why is it not good enough for the rest of the priesthood?
9
This is a very strange argument. Given the current verified and sad state of sexual profligacy and exploitation in the Church, Douthart seems to be arguing that the only alternative is the sexual deviancy of current sexual norms. This is a real head scratcher.
Apparently, normal and healthy sexual expression is no longer practiced anywhere. It's either rape or exploit children and parishioners in the Church, or have sex with a robot. What a strange editorial.
6
You would think they Catholic church would know what 1 Timothy 4:1-3 says. Especially how verse 3 applies to the clergy.
1
The purported celibacy of Jesus seems to fly in the face of Mary Magdalene's relationship with him. What a trope that is. No, the measure of religions is the abuse of those seeking solace in them. Every cult has its share of abusers. All who suspend their reason and responsibility to think for themselves will pay the price of that submission to other's control. People don't seek your unquestioned obedience for nothing. Take responsibility for your own life, you won't pay the terrible price cults demand.
1
Did anyone else find this column confused and unclear and ill supported? Most shocking was the attempt to justify celibacy because it is "directly" connected to the New Testament, just because there is no record of Jesus having sex.
5
How many more columns will Mr. Douhat wring from one book he did not like? As we flog this dead horse, let me say once again that the issue is not the sodomy, it is the hypocrisy of the institution. Other denominations have had greater or lesser success adapting to gay members. I suspect it will be as much, eventually, about membership rates as it is about dogma. But surely Russ agrees that The Closet, however well upholstered, is no place for sincere practice.
2
I was raised Episcopal--which is basically Catholicism lite, and allows priests to have sex and marry. I was confirmed, and was a acolyte who lit and put out the candles and assisted the priest during communion. Eventually I just found it too boring as the "God is great" message never changed, and my parents allowed me to stop going.
I ultimately became agnostic, and try to follow the golden rule of treating people as I'd like to be treated.
How the Catholic church retains any moral authority whatsoever to tell priests to be celibate, say people can't use birth control, not have abortions, condemn gays and gay marriage, is totally mystifying to me, since it has failed the simplest and most basic moral test of all--which is don't let your priests have sex with children. And then they compounded it by not turning these pedophiles in to the police, and sending them to unsuspecting parishes so they could rape more kids. In addition they willfully destroyed the records of these horrific acts.
If they had turned in these priests like any decent person would have, they wouldn't be having all these problems. To act like they still retain any moral authority indicates denial and delusion at it's highest level.
Why does anyone on earth with a brain or sense of humanity still listen to anything the Catholic church or Vatican has to say?
I think all those cats at the Vatican just got into it to wear the robes and pointy hats.
Nothing more.
8
The Catholic Church, like most organized religions, is about power and little more. And when that power is practiced against innocent children to satiate sexual desires it is beyond abhorrent. What else needs to be said?
4
Thank god we are not medieval schoolmen anymore, though apparently they are held in high regard by Ross.
The crux of the argument seems to be this: Yes, celibacy is cruel and outdated, but at least we haven't caught a priest with a sex robot, like those perverted Protestants.
4
Good God, Ross... doesn't it seem obvious that many normal heterosexual and homosexual (yes, Ross, normal) men who might otherwise want to be priests avoid the clergy because of the policy of celibacy? While men who suffer from the evil disorder of pedophilia are drawn to the priesthood because of the access to children and the status of being protected while engaging in this behavior?
There are a number of other more nuanced issues, but I didn't see you address the elephant in the room, so I thought I would be helpful and put it out there for you in plain English.
7
How ironic to see this article sitting on the NYT homepage next to the featured article at the top, "Pope Francis Ends Landmark Meeting by Again Calling for ‘All-Out Battle’ to Fight Sexual Abuse." There is a scourge of abuse happening. Time to seriously look at how this policy harms thousands and thousands of people To what end?
"Seduced and abused" nuns? What a grotesque way of putting it--is the "seduction" supposed to offset the abuse, the forced abortions, the sexual enslavement? "Seduced?" Absolutely reprehensible, such a weaselly way of passing the buck.
5
Ross, it’s this simple…
The institution of marriage endures despite widespread adulterous violations of monogamy…
Why – because it’s between consenting adults…
Now, jilted spouses and inheritances and righteous prosecutors can wreak all kinds of havoc in specific instances…
But – collectively – the puts evidently outweigh the takes…
On the other hand, our society will not – and should not – survive abusive violations of children within families…
Even if the number of children abused is only a fraction of the spouses cheated…
…..
And so it is for that boy’s club known as Mother Church…
Celibacy’s going to be cuckolded – but swing wide enough of money and righteous prosecutors and the mayor’s wife, and we can all go home till next Sunday…
It’s more about the solace than the sex…
But, when children are abused – makes little difference to them if it’s some bishop or some Boko Haram…
All they know – it’s the person in charge doing this to them, and they better do as he says if they want to live…
Accounts to be settled at some future date...
1
The ancient Catholic texts and tradition requiring chastity of the pure male hierarchical structure of the church is inhumane- period! This practice is largely stemming from the immaculate conception of The Virgin Mary and is in (w)holy contradiction of God's commandment to procreate, let alone the laws of nature. (Clerical) chastity counters one of the the deepest of human natures to mate or otherwise experience physical intimacy with others.
The catholic church is clearly now inept in its mission to propagate, and can no longer be a moral guiding force that can contribute to civilization. That is- until they purge themselves at the vatican of ruling male protocol, elevate the authority of the nuns and lay women devotees to become ordained priest, cardinals, and yes, Popes! Until then Catholicism will remain imbalanced and dysfunctional.
4
Yes, celibacy matters. Which is why it's very important that the Church get rid of the celibacy requirement.
The allure of being a highly respected person while being able to officially abstain from sex may have drawn men to the priesthood who had sexual urges such as pedophilia. This would explain the high number of sexual abusers among priests. Can we prove this? It doesn't matter—we have to get rid of celibacy if it even may have been part of the problem.
Years ago most dioceses in the U.S. adopted policies that when there is an allegation of abuse they call the cops and remove the accused from his post. But now we sadly find that some dioceses in the U.S. didn't take even these basic steps. And as our Church leaders meet in Rome they are still struggling with whether to embrace even such basic measures.
Except it’s way too late for timid measures now. Tinkering with their beloved rules? Saying they're sorry one more time? Scandalized people are leaving the Church in droves. If our leaders want to save the Church they must act to show they are willing to boldly embrace overdue changes.
Step one? Open the priesthood to all people, both married and single, women and men, straight and gay. Other Christian religions have done this, and none of their leaders have been hit by lightning bolts. In fact, they are thriving, while the Catholic Church is in decline.
If our leaders want to reverse our decline, this would be a good start, and anything less would be sinful.
1
Douthat continues to defend the indefensible. The Catholic Church is rotten to its core. Part of that rot likely lies in the organization of its clergy, being all male and striving for celibacy. Why is Douthat lashing out at "anti-Catholicism"?
Ok . . . How about this: priests must be either married or celibate. And let women be priests too! I’m fine with not having bachelor(ette) priests . . . What is the motivation for total celibacy?
Is it to provide the best possible leadership . . . Or to continue a tradition?
Up to the 13th century, priests were allowed to marry women and many priests, such as Aelred of Rievaulx openly had and celebrated in writing close homoerotic loving relationships, and the Catholic Church was doing just fine. The change brought about the problems
The premise of this piece is hopelessly off track. I grew up in a Catholic house and attended Catholic high school.
The issue is not that current Catholic persecution is widespread for the sake of persecution. It is largely a byproduct of the church’s prejudice and hopelessly outdated condemnation of other’s harmless lifestyles such as gay people.
Additionally the church has brought condemnation upon themselves by fostering and trying to keep secret the very widespread practice of sexual abuse, most notably and heartbreakingly, child abuse.
When most people ask themselves why is the Catholic Church’s “ministers” so much more likely to be Monsterous predators, the answer that appears to be most valid is that the church clings to the outdated notion that celibacy has some intrinsic virtue.
The monster that is attracted to children feels ashamed and conflicted. Their choice of joining a group that is (supposedly) celebrate is their attempt to suppress. Unfortunately for thousands of victims it doesn’t seem to work. It is not about condemning celibacy, it is about the deluded notion that this archaic notion that self deprivation is holy and that it will suppress deviant sexual desires
1
First of all, if the magnitude of the abuse crisis does not move a Catholic like Mr. Douthat to more skepticism of celibacy than this, it only makes clear that he really does not care about those little children and their pain.. Shame on this person. Second, a lot of right wingers now are admitting that there is a "homosexual subculture" in the priesthood. They say it like it is obvious to them now, and as if everyone has always known it. Just a few years ago right-wing people like Mr Douthat were denying this utterly, and calling it a trope of "anti-Catholicism". ( Just look at how they condemned the very same observation in Albert Cutie's book that touched on the subject!!!) So it makes their contention about Anti-Catholicsm these days vis-a-vis other issues a tad doubtful. They keep shifting the markers of what is meant by it.
3
Perhaps the best solution for the Catholic church, and religion in general, is simply to adopt a "hands-off" approach to sexuality.
How would an all-male triune Godhead know anything about it, anyhow? The idea in Catholicism is that there are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: three possible positions, and none of them feminine. Whence the Son? And why would an entity without a body be concerned with who puts what where, and with whom, anyway?
1
@Palladia Maybe the Holy Spirit was a woman and they never told us? Just a comedic thought. After all, 2000 years ago, women basically had no standing in the world regardless of religion. They were considered chattel. No one gave it a second thought. And, the Catholic Church still remains stuck in its out-dated and misogynistic beliefs.
After all, look how long it took women to receive the right to vote - 1920! It that not a perfect example of male egocentric domination?
No matter what the sexual mores of the era it is clear that the Church is a failure. Predatory priests? Check. Moral deviance/pedophilia? Check. Subjugation of women? Check. Encouraging overpopulation and thereby the ensuing misery of children and families? Check. Repressing healthy sexuality? Check. It's not that the critiques keep changing according to the times, but rather that the critiques are so many.
4
'People call my 16th century beliefs out of date, but they did that in the 19th and 20th centuries too, so they must be hypocrites!'
You lost me on the second sentence.
1
Douthat uses the association fallacy to suggest that "the sexual ethic on offer" is somehow the "cause" of the increased availability of porn or of rising rates of people living alone, or growing old alone or asserting new forms of gender identity. These social phenomena have to do with cultural, social and economic factors, not with "the sexual ethic on offer." This is akin to the familiar fallacy in religion that corrupt ungodly behavior has "caused" social decline as opposed to social change preceding and conditioning a change in values. Douthat is an Old Testament prophet disguised as a modern op-ed commentator.
When Douthat becomes celibate I'll take his views on celibacy more seriously...for now celibacy only matters in how it punishes it's clergy for being human...
2
The sexual drive is "God given" and it is universal. To deny it, is to deny God.
4
Sophistry. All his shallow pseudo intellectual pretentious fail to dismiss the fundamental, irrefutable fact, that celibacy is the root cause of the Church’s problems.
2
Sexual attitudes change, but the morality of standing by over the blood of your neighbor hasn't changed since the publication of Leviticus. The blood of raped and molested children is crying out for justice, and all Douthat hears is an attack on a deeply unnatural Catholic institution by enemies of his adopted tradition.
There's precedent for that, too. Six centuries before a Jewish carpenter was nailed to a wooden cross for radically undermining an establishment status quo, the priests of Judea were absolutely sure their God would never allow the destruction of his own temple, a place where they kept the all-important ritual sacrifices going. And when Jeremiah relayed the message that the smell of burning lamb disgusts him from a society that ignores the plea of the widow and the orphan, they put him in the stocks for it.
The Vatican needs a good old fashioned Babylon or Rome moment - it is quite clear they're incapable of self correcting when we get this true believer trash, focusing on ritual and convention while the innocent are raped and blamed for it. And if anyone even mourns the church after the deluge, it'll be a charity on their part.
2
Celibacy doesn't matter at all, because no one practices it. How this minor detail has escaped Mr. Douthat's attention I coiuildn't say.
2
This is the most outstanding example of deflection from a scandal that he’s ever been written. Ross Douthat gives us ab historical overview of Protestant and secular critiques of celibacy when the issue(s) on the table are
1.outright paedophilia,
2.sexual abuse do teenage boys by (obviously) gay priests-over 80% of the cases according to one Cardinal-
3. Priests forcing nuns to have sex
4. some of said nuns being then forced to have abortions
5. Priests impregnating laywomen
All of this covered up by Bishops and the Vatican.
This is the reality which RD, a noted catholic convert-wants to avoid.
3
as a practicing Catholic, I find it remarkable, that the same society of men who say that it is sinful for married couples to use artificial contraceptives, cover the crimes of pedophiles.
5
Who cares about this pedantry? Catholicism is organized religion. In other words, it is a system of superstion and mythology designed to provide its leaders with riches, power and influence.
2
Ross gives the game away at the end with his instruction to "trust me." Just as when our transparent president says "believe me," or "frankly," it tells of lying. A columnist can argue or demonstrate a point of view. Trust? Not really.
The best thing the pope could do for the world would be to say:
"Remember that verse in Genesis, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.'? Well, guess what. Mission accomplished. The earth is full of people and subdued. Now start using birth control."
2
Celibacy prevents corruption. That’s a good one!
2
Ross, you rely too much on books and your own conjectures about once-upon-a-time. I have been Catholic for 70 years, with 21 years as a srudent in Catholic schools and universities, and another couple of decades working in such institutions, cheek to jowl with vowed celebates. I knew many of them pretty well. I cannot recall a single one whom I could call a healthy, wholesome personality. Though many were good people, even saintly. What about you, Ross? Do you actually have life experience to see what enforced celebacy does to people? It sounds like you are entirely in your books and in your head. Wishing don't make it true.
2
Ross, as you likely know, but fail to mention in your piece, celibacy did not become Church doctrine until 1139 AD. Only 839 years ago - when Pope Innocent II declared all priest marriages annulled, and holding that celibacy should be the rule for all Catholic priests from that day forward.
Read on Ross, it is solely about protecting the Church's property, and not much to do with biblical scripture.
Moreover, pedophilia, rape and other unspeakable horrors have nothing to do with either celibacy or church doctrine. It is part of a "black wall" that protects these criminals and manipulative, sorry excuses for human beings. These rapists are also desecrating the fact that we are made in God's image and their vows to both God and man. They must be ripped out from the church and cast out into prisons and solitary confinement!!!
In the third and fourth centuries, AD, it was common in
primitive Christianity for men to become ascetics to express their devotion to God. This included celibacy, ritualistic fasting, cloistering, i.e, priests removing themselves from society and into monasteries and , willful injury of oneself, and taking vows of poverty.
Indeed, during the 3rd-5th century AD, celibacy among priests was not overwhelmingly common. And, in the 8th-10th centuries, polygamy and concubinage was extremely common. With so many priests kids, inheritance became a huge problem.
So, there you have it, it was all about protecting the Church's money!!!!!
4
The comments are far more enlightened and enlightening than the column they comment on.
9
'Discard all traditional standards, leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue, you will have no peace.'
Nisargadatta, I Am That
or perhaps Krishnamurti's question:
'Why do you need a book and a priest in order to be kind and generous?'
1
...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!
The rich is the Catholic Church.
2
Two clarifications: Douthat muddles “sin”: any sexual activity whose moral end is not procreation is sinful—whether within or without marriage. Sins: birth control use, fellatio, any sex outside marriage. Not sinful: cunnilingus and intercourse within marriage as part of a procreative act, for examples. Gay sex is not more or less sexually sinful than the sinful heterosexual acts above. Douthat perpetuates the outsourcing of heterosexual sins onto homosexual persons, a mistake clarified nicely in 1976 by the American bishops.
The conservative Protestant call for abstinence education (until marriage, implied) fails to highlight celibacy, which Paul considered the preferred choice. Celibacy is wonderful for the called. Coerced celibacy is not.
1
I am perplexed as I leave this editorial. I leave it having no idea why it matters. What I have read seems to explain (?) how its mattering should continue mattering against all of the various criticisms over what happens when persons try to make it matter. Clearly it matters to Mr. Douthat--and probably to a whole slue of others--Catholic and non-Catholic. However, the title of the editorial suggests that it will address "why it ought to matter"--that is, why it ought to be held firmly by the Church. On this matter, however, nothing is said. If I read the editorial correctly, then, I cannot but wonder if anything Mr. Douthat has said matters.
5
There is no calling from Jesus or his disciples that requires celibacy. (Yes, there was a preference for it, but no demand or requirement). Celibacy is not something all can achieve. The sexual deviations of those who have not been celibate are legion, and a source of great sin and shame. So why celibacy? Because marriage connotes property and inheritance, and the church is so greedy as to scoop it all up. The greed of the Catholic Church is what underlies this. You can'f fix the problems unless you deal with the root of the problem. In today's world - where reporting exposes at the speed of light - the Catholic Church can no longer hide.
233
@Bruce Maier. The Catholic Church would do well going back to its original traditions, that remain in effect in the Orthodox rites where there are two types of the clergy (1) Married priests, and (2) Celibate monks and nuns. No one can become a priest if they are not married (with limited exceptions such as a dead spouse). This is established because priests deal with a large number of family issues. Also, half the congregation is female, so they get some practice at home. Leadership at the level of Bishops and higher is drawn from the ranks of Monks. There are far fewer problems of abuse in Orthodox rites. The system works, and the church would do well going back to its original teaching and practice.
21
@Professor Ice Thank you for sharing this. You are spot on. It is also worth noting that the Roman Catholic Church is not the entirety of THE Catholic Church which includes Eastern rites (with whom the Roman rite is in communion) that have married priests. In other words, the Roman Catholic Church says its ok to receive communion from a married priest that is say, of the Maronite rite. Tjherefore it makes no sense for @Ross Douthat or anyone else to claim a Catholic theological requirement for celibate priests.
27
@Professor Ice I wonder if there is some way the RC church could edge up to something more like what you describe by the pope releasing the various orders from necessarily demanding celibacy. Let each order have its own standards.
7
Does the Church exist for it's own sake, or for the congregation? Assuming the latter, how does celibacy enhance the Church's ability to understand, guide, and support the people it serves? We were told as children that priests and nuns didn't marry because they needed to devote their lives to service, that if they had a family, they would be more concerned with that family than the congregation, as if the two are mutually exclusive. Life as a Catholic cleric provided a convenient cover for thousands of men and women who, for a variety of reasons, could not see themselves in the only other socially acceptable roles of husband, wife, mother, father. Is anyone surprised that few people now are willing to take lifelong vows to deny any form of sexuality, or an intimate relationship with someone?
6
Mr. Douthat completely ignored the central issue here -- the institutional covering-up of illegal activity, almost like a mafia. This problem should have been full addressed long ago, yet the church is still grappling and failing to this day.
The connection between this institutional problem and celibacy seems pretty obvious. Excessive repression leads to transgression and covering up. Hypocrisy corrodes the institution and the results are there for all to see.
9
@L.R.
So explain the rate of sexual abuse of minors outside the church.
1
I cannot fathom how anyone - Catholic or non-Catholic, religious or non-religious could not see a political and religious organization run only for men as having a healthy attitude towards human sexuality.
One of my favorite books on the history of the Catholic Church and its fear of human sexuality is by Uta Ranke Heinemann. Her book "Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven" was a fabulous, dense historical review. The subtitle is "Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church". While Pagans had their own body-haters, the Catholic church did a wonderful job of instilling sexuality as something to be mistrusted if not banished. Does Mr. Douthat remember that women were not even allowed inside the church to pray if they were menstruating or had just given birth? No history? And its priests were once allowed to marry, but humans (male humans of course) changed this law, so they can certainly change it back. Can't wait to read "Inside the Closet of the Vatican" for more insight.
4
What remains the same: the fear and loathing of the body in general and sexuality in particular that is deeply rooted in Catholic Theology. Mr. Douthat remains unwilling to look this square in the eye.
7
For a person on fire with the Holy Spirit, celibacy is a natural choice. But there are many for whom such fire is yet aspirational. And there are others, of whom, in time, that fire may have dimmed. For these people, celibacy is a repression. This is a problem.
Those who lose the internal struggle with repression and eventually express a sexuality are vulnerable to bursting into that expression in an unhealthy way. The rational mind is not in charge at that point.
Breaking one’s own “rule” of celibacy, one might think, “Oh, what the heck, in breaking this vow, I’m breaking a taboo.” One might go on to think, “breaking one taboo, I am guilty... breaking another is not all that much worse.” This could lead to the abusive behaviors that this century’s journalism has revealed to be rampant in the church.
This is speculative theory, working backwards from the evidence of the culture of abuse of children that appears extensive and pervasive. It sure seems to fit the facts.
2
@Mary Brooks: So, only celibates can be "on fire with the Holy Spirit?" Then the vast majority of Catholics and other christians are not "on fire with the Holy Spirit?"
The Catholic Church treats normal human sexuality as something dirty, corrupting, distracting: laypeople are ordered to delay and then ration it; clergy to suppress it entirely. That was psychologically unhealthy when it was introduced halfway through the church's history, and it has remained so to this day. THAT, Mr. Douthat, is why the criticism persists.
10
Celebacy persisted in the church even as definitions of human sexuality and the meaning of celebacy evolved. One reason might be that it allowed the powerful to eschew accountability by pretending their sexual lives didn't exist.
1
Celibacy is an unnatural state best served by extraordinary and unworldly personal will. Yes, priests and nuns who really observe this vow are commendable. But are they any better than those who are or want to be priest and nuns but also want intimate human companionship to go through life? I don't think so. Priests should be allowed to marry. The hidden and recently admitted Church rules for priests with children are comical and hypocritical. And women should be allowed into priesthood. What is morally wrong with these concepts?
4
@robert I agree but I would go further: priests should be able to marry and women should be allowed to become priests - or is the Church too afraid of the old religions' worship of the Goddess? You have to remember why that came about. To early man, seeing women give birth, gave rise to the belief that women must be gods by their ability to create life. While we know much better now the process of conception involves both male and female, those old beliefs, in the absence of todays science, were logical at the time. But it seems that women still frighten the male community of Rome.
Our sex drive is a critical component of the drive for survival of the species. Sex & reproduction was how around 150 people who left Africa tens of thousands of years ago populated the rest of the world. It is like Whack-A-Mole. It can not be suppressed without popping up somewhere else as a sublimation or redirection. Revolutionary leaders have long known this, which is why leaders from Mao to Che & Castro demanded celibacy among their fighters. They wanted to force the drive to be sublimated as passion for their revolutions. Leaders of early Church used celibacy in an effort to redirect the drive into equal passion for their religion. However, you can never tell where the "mole" will pop up if repressed from its normal function. During the Italian (as opposed to the Spanish) Inquisition, inquisitors were only able to document 6 cases of priests having sex with minors. At the time, the Priest would sit on the alter steps & the penitent would kneel before him, both alone in the Church. Much like radical Islam today, an adult woman was never alone in public without a husband or relatives as chaperones - except during Confession. The inquisitors found that upwards of 50% of women reported having sex with their Priest during Confession. Of these, 80% were consensual & in 20% the Priest used his power to coerce the woman. Today's booths are the attempt to stop it. And, today, the drive pops up with children, who are the only ones not protected from private contact with Priests.
1
Once again Ross Douthat gives us a wrongheaded column filled with ignorant assertions. Celibacy should remain a choice for some who wish to be priests. However, presently it is a requirement for men wishing to be priests. That is wrong and Eastern rite Catholic churches , aligned with Rome, allow married men to become priests. The failure of the Roman Catholic church to allow married men to become priests is hypocritical. Further, Douthat
makes the unsupportable assertion that the practice of celibacy "... connect(s) directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life". What "hard words and Douthat is well aware of the fact that Peter, the first Pope was married, that another four or five were married, and that it was not until the 12th century that priests were forbidden to marry. The Times does its readers a massive disservice to allow a journalist, as ignorant of Church history and so obviously at odds with the reforms of Vatican II, to be its spokesperson on matter of Catholicism.
Moreover, there needs to be not only room for married men to become priests but most of all women need to be admitted to the priestly ministry. Any profession that refuses to draw from half of our population will become increasingly irrelevant. The legal and medical professions are more vibrant today because of their women members. Finally, Douthat needs to remember that Sex is not Faith.
5
It is my hope that molestation of minors will never fall within the bounds of "healthy sexuality". In my view, this is as morally reprehensible as it gets. i also believe that a reasonable connection can be made to the high incident rate within the Catholic clergy and celibacy. It is true that the Catholic church has been subject to many criticisms in the past as it is now. What Douthat refuses to acknowledge is the validity of these criticism, past and present. Let's circle the wagons people and hope this blows over.
3
First off, Ross is a convert who willingly came into this institution because he saw something in it that will allow him a fuller expression of self; that speaks volumes. The rest of us who were born into, and dragged up through it, look at it quite differently. Ross, no one is saying priest must marry, just that it be an option. The general feeling on the matter is that married clergy will make the church a less welcoming place for deeply closeted, sexually immature individuals seeking to hide from themselves and justify and impose their bizarre, objectively disordered, view of human sexuality on the world.
252
@Glen Then again, permitting marriage without requiring it presents a whole new set of problems. Priests might feel compelled to marry in order to prove their heterosexuality even if they aren't strictly heterosexual. Unmarried priests might get sidelined from leadership positions. The Church will experience a different set of scandals when married priests are caught in extramarital affairs. Unmarried priests dating parishioners leads to shotgun weddings often involving child marriages. Families in general are distracting. The list goes on.
I'm not really defending celibacy. However, there are some very practical problems unraveling the practice 500 years or so after the fact. The Church's position is basically "Don't touch it even when things are broken; you'll just make matters worse."
5
@Andy
There are a lot of married protestant pastors though.
19
@Glen Ross has gotten criticized in these comments for being a convert whenever he writes about Catholicism. Is that some deep-rooted prejudice born and raised Catholics have? Do the pure Catholics know real Catholics better than any convert ever could? Can he ever become a real Catholic?
1
Translation: "Other religions have no problem with priests who can marry or be in sexual relationships, but not my religion. And only my religion, out of hundreds, is correct."
3
It does seem that the Catholic Church has a serious sexual crime problem. The other large religious organizations do not seem to have this problem.
Is it possible that celibacy creates a climate that leads to sexual crime?
1
The more organized religious are unmasked - all religions - the more they are shown to be based on using, abusing and self-aggrandizement. The founders were right to try and keep ‘the Church’ as far away from the state as possible. Unfortunately, that separation is gone and politics uses religion to gain and keep power and too many religious institutions are happy to oblige.
1
There was a time when the Catholic Church sentenced people to be burned alive for witchcraft or heresy. Local governments at the time carried out the sentences.
The Church has reformed. It can now change its policies on homosexuality and celibacy. These changes would be relatively minor compared to ending the death penalty by fire.
1
There is a difference between "celibacy" and "chastity." The joke goes on, but wouldn't pass moderation.
1
The best argument I've heard against Catholic celibacy doesn't actually have anything to do with a priest's adherence to sexual asceticism. The reasoning goes something like this:
How are you going to trust someone who is officially a non-participant in sexuality to deliver guidance on sexual relationships? A priest's experience is at least theoretically defined as observational, philosophical, and above all academic. Getting sexual advice from a Catholic priest is sort of like a pilot asking an ornithologist to land the plane. Sure, the professor understands the principles behind heavier-than-air aviation. However, do you really want them flying the plane?
2
So how does Mr. Douthat attempt to defend the indefensible? He has two--and only two--arguments:
1. Non-celibates have their own problems.
2. Jesus was celibate.
Regarding #1, I wonder if Douthat would argue, on the same basis, that poking yourself is the eye is fine, since people who don't do that also have problems.
As for #2, if my understanding of what Christians believe is correct, Jesus was God in human form. So I wonder if what's right for God might not necessarily be right for mere mortals with built-in mortal drives.
Is that all ya got, Ross?
2
God gave us intellect to learn, research, and evolve. I think he is looking over us and wondering why so many think it makes sense to believe the same things people believed thousands of years ago. He's wondering...why aren't they using the brains I gave them?
1
The Church considers homosexuality a sin because of economic issues - that the flock will not grow because procreation cannot occur between same sexes - is antiquated and wrong. It has used the moral argument to condemn it, instead. The Church needs to realize this, accept homosexuality and help grow its following.
No other Western religion promotes celibacy, but other churches often have issues related to male/female relationships. I think the big problem with the Catholic Church is the abuse of children, the hypocrisy of paternity, and the abuse of nuns. I know I wouldn't trust a priest alone with children and those parents who have probably all are worried now. Have all priests been evil? It probably is a small percentage, but once you know there is serial abuse you just can't trust anymore.
1
As a Presbyterian, I have a solution for the Catholic Church.
ORDAIN BOTH MEN AND WOMEN.
Allow each priest to choose celibacy if he/she so desires.
If priests had a normal outlet for their sexuality I suspect there would be less abuse of their flock.
3
All through the Middle Ages, many priests & nuns also had sexual relationships together. It is why, for most of its history, the Church canon said that the point at which a fetus became officially human was at quickening, not conception. It allowed for abortions of pregnant nuns up until "quickening" in the mid-second-trimester according to 13th century Pope Innocent III. Before that, Augustine, Acquinas, & others had differing ideas on when "ensoulment" took place. Even if an "ensouled" fetus was aborted, the penance was only 120 days (oral sex penance was 7 years to life). There were always theologians who argued for ensoulment at conception who Right-to-Lifers love to quote, but they were outliers. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V issued the "Effraenatem," setting ensoulment at conception for the first time. When he died 3 years later, Pope Gregory XIV immediately revoked the Papal Bull & reset the point of ensoulment to 16 1/2 weeks. There it stood until 1969. Pius IX was unable to get his claim for Papal Infallability past opposition of the French Catholics. Worried about a 100-year drop in French population, Bonaparte III offered Pius a deal. France would drop their obstruction if Pius would outlaw ALL abortions. Pius did this as a political deal. Official Canon law wasn't revised until 1917 & finalized during Vatican II in the early 1960s. So, except for 3 years in the 16th century, ensoulment at conception has only been Church policy for the past 150 years.
I - an Episcopalian -married a Catholic women. When we went to pre-cana for the Catholic side we had questions which were answered in a very book learned way, we also met with my parish priest - a married father of 2. There were questions regarding children, tolerance, sex (yup, sex) and more. I know the explanation- well, one doesn't need to be whatever, all they need its the knowledge from books (at that time - no internet) and I beg to differ. Once you have been up with a non-sleeping or sick child or children and have had to balance work, children as well as the spousal relationship with no sleep and emotions running rampant no amount of book learning will give you the knowledge on how to counsel that young family. Sorry, the idea of celibacy or not being allowed to marry is simply money - greed- period. There is no reason on earth that it is a positive human aspect . I would gladly accept a gay priest and his or her partner because I would assume had a strong loving relationship and are not looking for an outlet. As a sidebar- Gay is not synonymous with pedophilia as there are many straight pedophiles - that is an entirely different conversation. So give me relevance, give me someone who has first hand knowledge, give me someone who is not sidelined by trying to suppress a basic primal urge.
1
As the Pope (finally) struggles against sexual abuse in the Church, Mr. Douthat complains that he and his fellow true-believers are the true victims.
Just stop.
1
You forget, Mr. Douthat, that celibacy was a construct to protect church assets from inheritance laws. It was never about sex, just money. It is a flawed and unsustainable policy from the beginning. Why defend what is obviously a failure? It’s not just outsiders who think it isn’t twisted, it’s most Catholics, too. Just like most Catholics ignore the ban on birth control.
Ross, a strident convert, jittery whenever there is criticism of the church tenets is completely wrong on this one.
The origin of the celibacy requirement had nothing to do with holiness. It had everything to do with protecting Church assets from being passed on to progeny. This never stopped priests from having illegitimate children (note numerous paintings of Pope So-and-So with “his nephew.”) Celibacy was never natural. Priests always found ways around this rule but it got harder to hide illegitimate children, possibly why fewer heterosexual men entered the priesthood and why it became a kind of safe haven for closeted gay men. Repressed sexuality is not and never was healthy. Abuse was always happening. Lives were destroyed, victims were silenced.
By contrast Protestant male and female clergy are able to marry and therefore we do not see the level of sex scandals in those denominations, with a notable exception of far right fundamentalist anti-LGBTQ ministries. Religious and political figures decrying the evils of homosexuality are likely self-loathing repressed gay people crying for help. If women were allowed into the priesthood and if all Catholic priests could marry the partners of their choice, the level of sexual abuse would drop dramatically. Priests would be more connected to the lives of their parishioners and would lead less conflicted lives.
1
The arguments of theologians and other supporters of a dogmatic Church are especially appalling when they commit to explaining the color orange when it is, in truth, the color green. The Church is blinded by a twisted prism of loyalty and because of this it is irrelevant and dangerous. Remember the Church’s other egregious and murderously out-of-touch dictate: forbidding condom use during the time of AIDS.
1
What's the body count -- since the 12th century -- and how many destroyed lives throughout the ages? Give us a break!
The premise of why priests are given status, that they have been giving a calling by God, should be acknowledged as eternally false. They simply cannot claim spiritual superiority given by God. If they are thought of as Sunday School teachers instead of priests some will still abuse, but at least there is a chance fewer will be able to get away with it.
Speaking as an ex-catholic the answer to the angst is lying. Institutional lying. Personal lying. Organized, patent, convenient, systematic overwhelming lying as an institution saying that lying is evil. I thought at the age of 12 that I really don’t need this in my life. Feel great.
1
In order to accept celibacy, one must accept a vocation. That implies not only a church, but a god who cares. Then, it's turtles all the way down.
If people want to play the game, they need to know the rules. The church that has evolved over two millennia will figure something out.
Apparently the sheer size and world wide scope of this sin of the abuse and rape of children overpowers the ability of Mr. Douthat to think. What God organization could possibly justify celibacy when its practice is accompanied by abuse of innocence and the subsequent cover up by Church officials? Ross, celibacy is not synonymous with holiness or even, apparently, with trustworthiness. You are too old to seriously argue for this baloney as somehow necessary to true faith.
On the Catholic Hierarchy: good criticism; good defense. A little subtlety in an ocean of irrational scorn.
Unless he converted to catholicism as an adult, Ross is a victim of childhood indoctrination.
Many of the dogmas into which he was indoctrinated are manifestly false:
The Genesis story,
Prophetic foreknowledge,
Parthenogenesis,
Resurrection,
Life after death,
Miracles,
Transubstantiation,
etc.
All drummed into the innocent mind before the age of reason and maintained into adulthood by group think, fear of hellfire and the insistence that faith is superior to evidence based critical thinking. It's horrible what priests, pastors, imams etc. do to children's minds. It's horrible what some of them do to children's bodies.
2
The only thing missing from this twisted defense of the church is precisely how priestly celibacy helps priests, parishioners or anybody human.
On the other hand, I have to congratulate the NYT for its fanatical devotion to the First Amendment. Even a Vatican publication might hesitate before running a column this anti-factual, this anti-historical, this anti-natural and this paranoid.
Sorry, Ross, methinks thou dost . . . well, you know.
Eliminate the celibacy requirement and the marriage prohibition and you'll see a far healthier and more effective Roman Catholic church within a generation, two at the most.
1
The Time's readers favorite bête noire elicits the usual hyperventilating responses. Often for good reason, but nobody contradicts this takedown of our current sexual taxonomy: "It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman."
1
The Evidence is clear and convincing. Celibacy is an antiquated superstitious practice that has no relevance in the 21st century, which has forced a White Male dominated church to twist themselves into pretzels over the question of healthy Human sexuality. By all means, continue your little fantasy based ritual, and watch as your precious faith descends to the bottom of that great equalizer: The Dustbin of History.
We do something for a reason -- we ask our kids not to jump on the sofa because they might fall and break their neck or dirty the sofa. So when God gives the commandment of "thou shall not kill", what is the reason? What is the reason that priests need to be celibate?
As a non-Christian observing this discussion, I think there is some confusion in the minds of Catholics what celibacy and chastity mean, beside obeying God, or maybe this is enough in Catholicism?
I always feel that ethical conducts can only be voluntary. It cannot be a formality, and definitely cannot be forced.
The question here for Catholic Church I think is may be the wrong people are becoming priests, not that celibacy for priesthood is bad.
Since God created a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to commit the sin of eating apple from the forbidden tree, God should perhaps be mindful of the shortcomings of His own creations, and created also different levels of spiritual paths for one to choose from so we do not set ourselves up for failure.
Where does Ross get the idea that priests are celibate? When thousands of priests around the world have sexually abused children, had relationships with both women and men, fathered children and raped nuns? That's a lot of non-celibate activity going on, most of it criminal. These days, you're less likely to encounter a celibate priest than one who has been sexually active. Douthat just can't accept that what's left of his church is "only the corruption, undiluted and unchecked." Still, he wants to "preserve the call," as if that will help. What's the point when obviously priests reject that call?
When an apple is rotten to the core, you throw it out, even if there is, maybe, a bite worth salvaging. The Catholic Church has shown itself, time and again and for reason after reason, to be rotten to the core. What apologists like Mr. Douthat fail to see is that, despite the presence of some undoubtedly good people, it is now beyond redemption. It's time to toss it and move on. Only when it's all gone can the good people within have the chance to build something new, or simply move on themselves.
That a male priest need be celibate in order to be a priest has always seemed patently absurd.
Ironic that this comes on the heels of Pope Francis' "landmark Vatican meeting" on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy on vulnerable children, women, and men, out of which no policies - none - were developed to stop the abuse. And, so, it will continue.
4 things will solve this problem for the RC church:
1. End mandatory celibacy
2. Ordain women priests
3. Empower lay governance for all congregations
4. A "zero-tolerance" policy for sexual abuse
1
But the Church REALLY thought celibacy mattered because of, well, nepotism mostly, didn't it? It's more complex than that, but I think that was the gist of it. "Lead us not into Thames Station, as the choirboys are said to have prayed..." Well, at least we haven't got many Catholic public intellectuals taking the position of Gide's "Corydon."
Soon, perhaps?
I must have glossed over the Bible verses that describe Jesus as celibate -- unless they're not there, of course. Nevertheless, if Jesus' example is what Catholic priests should follow, let me suggest that they throw away the clerical collars and join the laity; sell their possessions and make restitution to the poor; stop cozying up to political leaders like that "fox" Herod; feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned; and, oh yes, love their neighbors. If I missed Jesus commanding his followers to imitate his sexual behavior, that's simply because I cannot find such counsel in Jesus' example.
Mr. Douthat embraces his self-designated mantle of "conservative Catholic." He embraces this identity without regard to any facts that he follow as a journalist. The sexual practices of the Catholic hierarchy has been an undisputed disaster. Yet Ross disputes this???
You can have, it don't want it, it's too weird for me!
As one moves from a semantic focus-“cognitive-celibacy”- to delineated information and knowledge
about processes and outcomes, to
derived dimensionalizing which
goes beyond a valenced + - -/+ physical act, and
includes wordless-experienced-understandings,
robed, or disrobed,
vulnerable or not,
by choice or not,
with menschlich feelings and
enlightening “insites”/insights,
seeding and harvesting
ONESS with self and another,
momentarily-genderless,
one BE comes distanced from sex,
sacraments and secular stakeholders;
BE THEY invested,
empowered
individuals and/or systems.
And cognitive celibacy reigns!
It's the politics, Douthat. I judge them by their works.
The majority of white American Catholics have routinely genuflected to the GOP. It's works are their works. And it's works are not pretty.
Still the Catholics are not as bad as the Evangelicals in their republicanism.
Ross, your column is titled "Why Celibacy Matters" but does little to make a cohesive argument for it. There are more than a few straw men in it.
You criticize the concept of "healthy sexuality" as changing with the whims of society, but you don't offer a definition of what healthy sexuality is.
Is your concept of healthy sexuality defined by the Roman
Catholic Catechism? If so, sex is ONLY for procreation in heterosexual marriage. Married sex for pleasure is not OK. Using birth control is a sin. Anything else having to do with sex, including masturbation, is a sin.
Augustine, a man who was conflicted and guilt ridden about sex if ever there was one, influenced the Christian church with his views about sex, and we've been paying the price ever since.
I'm so sick and tired of "church people" equating clebacy with virtue. It's base on the assumption that sex is a sin when it's not
practiced for the purpose of procreation. If you experience some pleasure within that context it's considered okay, according to the churches teachings.
Sex is a physical need and pleasure, just like eating a good meal or any other pleasure. There is nothing wrong with it! Nothing..
It's all based on the perverse demonization of shaming the body
and the pleasures it can provide. It's twisted. It's false, and unscientific.
1
Ummmm.... I think Douthat is off on a tangent. Again. Healthy sexuality has never meant celibacy. No matter how views about sex have changed in society as a whole, the Catholic Church as always been an outlier, and it always will be so long male hierarchy thinks that it can simply create an alternate biology by papal declaration.
"Celibacy matters", yes, but does it work?
It's simple, biological demands require the male of the species to have sex on a regular basis. If the Catholic Church wants to benefit humanity it should practice as well as promulgate a sexuality that respects both nature and culture.
Utter nonsense, Mr. Douthat. Your use of quotation marks around "unnatural" when describing the demands of celibacy and chastity says it all. It is unnatural. And the results have been predictable since this particular hypocrisy was first instituted (- hundreds of years A.D).
Oh, and btw, the "evidence" of Jesus of Nazareth being celibate is far from incontrovertible.
In an article titled, "Why Celibacy Matters," wouldn't it have been useful to devote more than half a sentence to answering that question? If clerical celibacy is based on the New Testament, then why did it take a thousand years for the doctrine to be invented, and another five hundred for the doctrine to actually be enforced?
4
So let me get this straight. In a time when multiple high-ranking members of the Catholic Church stand accused of serial rape and child abuse, and the Church itself of covering up sex crimes for decades, your main concern is to defend the doctrine of celibacy.
I'd say that this doeesn't pass the laugh test, except the anti-sex and anti-woman attitudes that are baked into Catholic Church dogma are no laughing matter. They destroy lives.
566
@S North Typical blah.
1
It is telling to note that the words "child" and "children" do not appear in this piece (except for the word "childbearing" which has nothing to do with the current crisis the Catholic church is facing).
Douthat misses the point when he writes: "And now, in our own age of sexual individualism, Catholicism is mostly just accused of a repressive cruelty, of denying people."
No one is concerned with Catholic clergymen being denied or repressed, save that the current system might be attracting the wrong talent pool. What people are upset about is the seeming prevalence of child-abuse taking place in this system.We are therefore questioning whether a system that forces it's leaders to pretend to live a life of celibacy might be attracting questionable applicants.
11
A self-directed spiritual seeker here weighing in on celibacy. I was celibate for 3yrs by choice. Most spiritual paths include celibacy - most notably brachamarya (sp) in yoga. Why is this? The message has become distorted in the major religions. If someone is reading this and they do not understand, then they are not at the level required to make the choice of celibacy. It’s a choice and one that is made easily by the true spiritual seeker. And when the time arrives to make the choice, it’s a natural progression on the path. What I see is an organization (the cc church) filled with fakers proclaiming themselves to be spiritual and moral authorities yet their actions speak the opposite. That’s a huge red false flag telling me that path is a convoluted path. It’s never been necessary to have a human middleman as the connection between a person and a higher spiritual power. The truth and reality is making its way to the surface. To quote Maya Angelou “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It is being revealed what the cc church really is, believe them. And this isn’t the first time, we are on second, third, fourth times and it’s always the same. Celibacy requirements are not the root cause of the sex abuse pathology that infects the cc church and many other religious organizations. The root cause is that these organizations are filled with false prophets who are nowhere near being spiritually evolved. If the GPS sucks, how will one ever find the way
2
@AuthenticEgo
lol..."celibacy. It’s a choice and one that is made easily by the true spiritual seeker."
The old true spiritual seeker gag. When is that claim going to expire?
What is this true? True to whose rules? To the rules of men! Not the spirit. What are the metrics of the "true seeker"? Who measures it, and by what means do they do so?
Show me/us where the "Spirit" or the spirit world, has ever communicated celibacy as part of the true seeker path!? Where?
You use terms like absolutes, because you've bought into a Faith, that tells you X, and Y are rules.
Prove the spiritual evolution of the "prophets" of the faith you sided with? Please, lets see those proofs.
BTW; its RCC, not cc. Roman Catholic Church. What is cc?
"The style of Martel’s account is fascinating because it so resembles the old Protestant critique of Catholic decadence."
But it's not about "style." Martel's central argument is that celibacy is not working. According to his evidence, within the clergy there is a lot of sex going on, both abusive and consensual. This undercuts the whole mission of the priesthood if priests are supposed to be models of integrity.
Opinions about the appropriateness of the celibacy vow are beside the point. It's not that the "ethic regards celibacy as unrealistic," it's that according to the statistics, celibacy is rarely achievable. If celibacy were working, there would be no discussion.
7
Why does it have to be either or? The Eastern Church, including the Eastern Catholic Churches, have had a mixed priesthood basically forever. There is a married and unmarried priesthood.
The rule is married men can be ordained to the priesthood. Once ordained, a man cannot then marry. Unmarried priest tend to be monks. Bishops are selected from the monastics and widowed priest pool.
This seems to be a better balance.
4
The early church had no proscription against married clergy. That ban came in sometime in the 3rd century of the Christian era - not for any dogmatic or religious reasons but because the church did not care to support widows or children of priests who died.
It's a ridiculous and antiquated requirement that is losing the Roman church many who might otherwise serve.
9
Douthat laments “Catholicism remains eternally condemned”, portraying the church as a victim to society’s natural tendency to evolve and change, without addressing the Church’s intransigence around celibacy and other important issues.
He also conveniently ignores the oft-cited reason why celibacy was implemented- to keep inheritance within the church’s coffers.
Most insulting of all is this remark-
“particular kinds of predation have flourished
in the priesthood, and the worst of that predation
looks like an anti-Catholic polemic brought to life.”
The worst of that predation would be the rampant sexual assaults carried out by clergy and covered up by the church- not anti-Catholic sentiment.
12
“But it preserves the call even when the system is corrupted. And to lose that call, in this era of scandal and unfinished purgation, could easily leave only the corruption, undiluted and unchecked.”
In effect Ross, you are asserting (a stupendous overreach) that the preservation of the mandatory vows of celibacy and chastity for clergy are the only bulwark against the total moral decay of the Catholic church.
5
The mistaken premise of this piece is that even valid criticism of the Catholic church is driven by anti-Catholic prejudice, and thus the criticism is not valid. With this attitude, the church will never solve the underlying problem of sexual abuse: it goes hand in hand with celibacy itself. Voluntary celibacy may have all the benefits outlined in the article, but enforced celibacy is a problem waiting to happen.
6
This article gives an example of the convoluted logic that ensures the status quo will prevail . Plenty of neat footwork sidestepping easy targets and avoiding the elephant in the living room . You feel the answers he wants coming before his "logical" conclusions .A fine case of smoke and mirrors to baffle the audience .
13
As a former Catholic, who grew up in the church, was an altar boy (in and of itself a reminder that women were relegated to the backseat, not allowed to serve in the sanctity of the altar), was in youth group, served the poor in soup kitchens, and finally, lectored before leaving, I'm not surprised at this column. Catholicism is extremely defensive, sees itself as the one true church among Christianity, and finds any criticism leveled against it to be dishonest in some way. This was true at the time of Martin Luther and is still the same today.
This is not to say that Catholics should be discriminated against. Those years are a stain on humanity, just as much as the Church's own scandals now. However, the idea that the criticism is wrong because somebody made unfair criticisms a century ago is so blindingly shortsighted of Mr. Douthat that it is no wonder the Church has fallen so far. When you are constantly convinced of your own infallibility despite clear evidence to the contrary, you will not reform.
Ending celibacy or male-only priesthoods won't cure the problems the Church currently faces. It will, however, reduce their likelihood and their occurrence. The Church in its earlier years adopted ideas not found in Scripture--saints, iconography, only priests allowed to read the Bible, and pastoral celibacy. The Church has spent centuries doing things that are contrary to Jesus' teachings, so it would behoove them to realize they aren't infallible and start listening.
16
It brings to mind the famous passage from Chesteron: "As I read and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind--the impression that Christianity must be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I understood) had Christianity the most flaming vices, but it had apparently a mystical talent for combining vices which seemed inconsistent with each other. It was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons. No sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to the west. No sooner had my indignation died down at its angular and aggressive squareness than I was called up again to notice and condemn its enervating and sensual roundness."
3
@Jonathan Stensberg
Another one of Chesterton's tasty but curiously unsubstantial word salads--the kind with the tiny tomatoes that somehow always elude a fork.
Then again he didn't have to come up with an apologia for the institutional shielding the rapists of children.
And no one had discovered the septic tank in Tuam on his watch.
This column isn't about celibacy or the Catholic Church per se; it's - as usual - about Ross Douthat. The Church is merely today's vehicle that dovetails perfectly with Douthat's conservative worldview. There's no better example of the conservative fixed-world view -where time stands still - than the Catholic Church. That priests are forced to be celibate; that they have abused children and raped nuns is beside the point. The point is that the framework that allows these things to happen must be preserved as an institution -as tradition - no matter what the cost. Everything else is just collateral damage.
The Church is an is an institution established by humans that once fulfilled a purpose. Change has outstripped its usefulness, but the conservative mind clings desperately to it in the face of that change.
That's what this is about.
32
@Michael
The conservative mind has as a pillar a statement by St Anslem of Canterbury, a 12th century priest who is famous for his saying :Credo ut intelligam, usually translated as "I believe so that I may understand". It is reflected in the remark of Douthhat, a believing but not celibate Catholic who states, without any real evidence, that Christ was celibate. St Alsem's 12 century world-view is held, unfortunately in my view, by many, perhaps most people, even in this post-modern world. Encroyable!
While I support expansion of the clergy to include women and married people, I also agree that it's wrong to dump all the complaints on celibacy. Being asked to restrain one's behaviors in the face of strong personal urges is the core of becoming civilized. Monogamy asks us to restrict one's sexuality to one partner. Ethics asks us to restrain our urges to take what is not ours or to take vengeance when hurt. What is asked of Catholic priests is more difficult, but not in and of itself "unnatural."
2
@K. But it is unnatural when it is made an absolute requirement for the priesthood - a requirement that was only established in 1073 by Gregory VII and then took several centuries to become standard. A priestly calling ought not to be limited to those who can stay celibate - when it is, the result is what we are seeing now. (In 1520, the cleric of Toledo preached a sermon in which he begged the mistresses of the local priests not to dress so flagrantly when they came to church, so 500 years after Gregory the Church was not having all that much success.)
And there is a considerable difference between teaching restraint and teaching that all sex is sinful, even for procreation. That is the Augustinian position (and he wasn't the first) which to this day infects Catholic theology.
6
The urge to reproduce is about as natural as it gets.
Certainly he has reasonable points but we need to go back to the two (as I see it) underlying dogmatic problems.
First the church needs to uphold and cherish the value of human sexual expression even when procration is not the direct immediate intention of a specific act. I'm not just talking about physical lustful acts. And lets get past the slippery slope argument, yes it is complicated.
Second we often hear the go forth and populate quote. The church needs to finally realize we've done it.
If the church can work though the above two then most likely reasonable answers can be found to the issues the author addresses.
5
Mr. Douthat misunderstands, perhaps deliberately, the nature of the complaint against the Catholic position on sex. Cayholicism to this day is still in the thrall of Paul's ascetism and, more importantly, Augustine's determination to categorize for theological reasons sex as the original sin, which led him to state that, EVEN WITHIN MARRIAGE, sex for the puirpose of pleasure alone is a sin. This is the basis for Catholic hangups over sex, and while today many Catholics, especially in the West, reject this view, it continues to provide employment for a phalanx of therapists and psychologists.
Celibacy may be an option for some individuals. It should not be a requirement for priesthood (and wasn't, until Greogy VII in 1073). In Judaism, to give a contrary example, rabbis are expected to be married so that they can better relate to their congregants' lives.
As for gays in the Church hierarachy, what Mr. Douthat overlooks is the reason so many gays go into the priesthood: It saves them from having to deal with relatives nagging them to get married. Maybe that's ome reason why the Vatican remains opposed to same-sex marriage - it would further reduce the already tiny pool of potential priests.
12
Catholic problems with sexuality goes deeper than celibacy. It goes back to Plato, St Augustine, and others who proposed that the physical world is sinful, while the mental or contemplative world is spiritual. It is dualism of physical vs. spiritual. The flesh must be suppressed and overcome in order to get close to God. Therefore, maintaining celibacy is a sign of great spirituality. Sex is bad except in marriage, but contemplation and self-denial is spiritual.
As long as these assumptions are overlooked, most Christians and Catholics will try to repress the flesh through celibacy or other means that are not always healthy.
8
@cheddarcheese That's part of it. Another part is that the Church adopted Aristotle's misconception of sex; he thought that each seminal emission was a miniature human being, so if it was not properly deposited in a womb, it was the equivalent of murder. That is what is behind not just celibacy, but also the Church's position against contraception (also homosexuality, but that's more complicated). The Church Fathers added a lot of theological gloss to that, but that's what's behind it.
1
The only critique worth paying attention to is a Christian critique because all other comments come from the viewpoint of non-belief in the whole religion to begin with. Jesus was unmarried. St. Paul says "he who is married seeks to please his wife, while he who is unmarried seeks to please God" -- ie the married man must, by the situation in which he is placed, have as his first priority the welfare of his family, while the unmarried man is free to act in whatever capacity God calls him. If someone doesn't believe in the Gospels then their conclusion will be that the best Church is no Church at all and anything that brings the Church closer to dissolving into the society around it is good. Any comment from such a person on clerical celibacy would be about as valid as my commenting on kosher laws and concluding that I get the bacon part but lobster are delicious.
5
There are many so-called "Christian" perspectives and it is rarely spoken of but nonetheless true, Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish and his first followers were Jewish. In 300AD , Bishop Jerome led the charge to require Jewish/Hebrew Christians to drop the ethnic tribal labels because to be Jewish was both to be a tribal member and the follower of a religion, a religion which did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah. So, there are perhaps, Hebrew Christian Catholics as there are Polish Christian Catholics, Coptic Christians, or Greek Orthodox Christians, or...."fill in the blank" Catholics. I know quite few Evangelical Christians who consider Catholics to be non-Christians and religious Jews to be in need of salvation. Which are you?
@JerseyGirl
So why did the Catholic Church wait until Pope Gregory to require celibacy? You know why, and it had nothing to do with St. Paul, or whether or not Jesus was celibate, but power and the retention of wealth.
To hew to that requirement is to bring down all the ills we have witnessed over 5 centuries of pederasty, rape of nuns, forced abortions, persecution of the violated.
Lovely. Your argument is indefensible.
1
@JerseyGirl...
Is the common law against blasphemy and heresy still in practice in New Jersey? Burning apostates at the stake in Princeton? Ecclesiastical Law still paramount in Mercer County?
A refresher on the current state of the matter...
First Amendment, 1st Clause. First concept that was judged to be necessary to protect the citizen
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,..."
As there is no proscription on writing about your particular branch, this citizen will suffer no trepidation on expressing my thoughts on the subject.
As a fallen away Catholic, I’ve never understood the requirement of celibacy as a precondition to being a priest. Why can’t the Catholic Church give men (and women) who may be candidates for priesthood, the option of marrying or staying single?
9
Mr. Douthat, rarely, as here, supports his positions with evidence to substantial the pro or the con. Exactly how do we know that clergy are not more likely to be predators? Does the church even know? Is there data? Are the church's number accurate?
As for large families, do we really need to be overpopulating the earth? Aren't there demands enough of on it? What is the downside of a fraction of the population not reproducing?
Further what is the DOWNSIDE of allowing priests to marry? I think many of these are important to the issue but Mr. Douthat does not seem ever to be up to the task.
9
@Yann
Literally every study of the matter shows that rate of clerical predation roughly equaled the societal average from the late 1960s to early 1980s in the US. Before and after this period, the rate is dramatically lower than the societal average. There is no reason to cite studies when thi information that is not contentious or groundbreaking.
Once again, Ross Douthat has used ‘Anti-Catholicism’ as a way to ignore the evils pervading his church, one sorely in need of a new Reformation. Recognizing that the Roman church has deep - seated problems, not the least of which is dwindling numbers in the wake of the abuse scandals is essential to preventing further ongoing abuse. After all, we were given the same rhetoric by the hierarchy back in 2002 about how things will be different. This is not Anti-Catholicism, but a recognition that there’s a problem, and removing the blinders, as Mr Douthat has failed to do.
10
For someone like Douthat claiming to be a devout critic of the Church’s failings, where is his column on specific cases that the Church has “corrected,” without government prosecution?
Obviously,no conference was going to address the problem at the heart of Church doctrine- Paul’s exhortation that missionaries be “all things to all men so that they might by any means save some.” Douthat doesn’t understand what Paul’s view means: there must never be a consistently uniform Church position on celibacy in all the Church Missions, not when the Church doctrines place at risk the opportunities for conversion. Hence the abuses in Asia, Africa and South America have been long ignored, whenever Vatican condemnation might have discouraged the faithful, or provoked religious persecution.
2
A long-time objection is the idea of old, never-married men presuming to tell people how to love and how to raise children. In the modern world, women and men value advice from people who have real world experience in those areas.
The more recent objection is that in many places around the world, the Church has became a child-rape conspiracy, with its men getting away with committing horrible crimes over many years. The clergy men are not all bad, but any institution run solely by men will not consistently respect women and protect children.
The Church needs to hire women and put them in positions of meaningful workplace supervision of men who work directly with children. It's what schools and other modern institutions do to protect children.
11
A clear, rational comment to which I would love to hear Douthat respond. Douthat is an apologist for a system that has clearly failed its body of followers. He will not truly engage with the tragedy, horror and damage done by abusive priests and the top to bottom administrative cover-ups, a second travesty foisted upon vulnerable congregants again and again, for decades and going back generations. This is how the Church has functioned. More so, this is how the Church is DESIGNED to function. There is NO remedy for what ails Catholicism that does not involve an evolution away from this flawed design, which includes doing away with ideas about celibacy and promoting the inclusion of women in the priesthood and meaningful roles of in the management of the Church.
Movement of the Church into an enlightened condition will support and preserve it's role and work, not undermine it. Such growth certainly does not preclude or erode 'the call,' which I am not sure Douthat can or should even speak to as a layman. He hopes to conclude with an unassailable point, impervious to critique, as invoking the very idea of 'the call' is to push the discussion out of the realm of rational engagement. He promotes a fraught mysticism here, exploiting it as an inoculant to criticism and dramatic change but his conclusion is in fact symptomatic of the very same closed system that fails the Church again and again.
1
Just because Douthat correctly claims that we do not know that celibacy corrupts doesn't mean that the opposite is true: that it "preserves the call" of priesthood.
But we can be almost certain that what it does do is attract to the church young gay men fearful of their desires and seeking affirmation outside of the heterosexual imperative.
7
Ross needs to learn a bit more about Catholic history before he spouts off about things he doesn't understand. As others have pointed out celibacy was added later in church history as the church didn't feel right about spending money to support priests' families when they had so much more in mind for the cash. Though it was made to sound righteous and noble, celibacy was an economic choice with little basis in scripture or doctrine. Similarly making suspect and perverting the natural urges of their parishioners was a highly effective means of control.
Essentially controlling sex was very good to the church in a myriad of ways but none of it was healthy for anybody. But Ross wants to perpetuate a twisted doctrine because it's traditional and in theory sounds good. Yes, there is much to say that time spent on a family or love relationship would detract and complicate a life devoted to God but it is possible and potentially more beneficial to both the priest and the parishioners and the Church as a whole. Additionally the Church instead of perpetuating the stigma of sexual behavior and opting to denigrate it, could preach a healthy, responsible appreciation and acceptance of it - becoming a non-judgmental outlet for those seeking understanding of their own sexuality and help guide their congregation toward better relationships.
After all, Christ preached love and sex is an aspect of love so there is jurisdiction, as it were.
21
My question is what caused so many religious leaders to act in such a way.....why? Is there something inherent in the makeup or character and/or the role of priests? Why? Why not in other religions? Or does it exist in others - possibly, but it doesn't seem nearly as prevalent. It's as if the Church is treating the wound, but not the what caused the wound in the first place. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't understand.
4
@JMS
Abuse does exist in other religions. The Southern Baptist Church is dealing with it right now. A retired Lutheran bishop told me in 2002 (as the Catholic abuse scandal was hitting the fan and the newspapers) that the Lutheran Church had dealt with child sex abuse in the mid-twentieth century. The reason that we have hear so much about the situation in the Catholic Church is due, in part, to the size of the church worldwide as well as to the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church. The Church bureaucracy allowed records to be kept and a paper trail (usually hidden) to exist and be there when people went looking into the situation.
Many other religions do not have a centralized hierarchy, and so each congregation often acts independently of all others. This makes it harder to link all the dots in other religions.
I don't know if celibacy has anything at all to do with abuse. I do know that it's an accepted fact that people who are pedophiles seek out occupations and volunteer situations that will put them in proximity to children. So in the 80s, the Boy Scouts dealt with a child abuse scandal. They put in rules that required that no adult could ever be alone with a child. Many Catholic schools have done this since 2002.
Douthat argues that the arguments against Catholicism, particularly its odd doctrines and practices regarding sexuality, are rendered illegitimate by virtue of their change over time.
Perhaps, Mr. Douthat, all of the critiques are valid and their variety over time is undeniable evidence, not rebuttal.
13
After reading this, I still have no idea "Why Celibacy Matters". Douthat criticizes Catholicism's critics, but makes no attempt to wrestle with the obvious problems with celibacy, or offer a way forward. That's a sad shortcoming -- we need serious, honest and thoughtful conversation about how clergy can co-exist with evolutionary biology-driven sexuality, not self-serving defenses of a status quo that has harmed untold millions.
But alas, this essay is verbal flak - a scattershot distraction from the important issues in this conversation. For example, the claim that society's shifting generational postures towards "healthy sexuality" bears relevance to church imposed celibacy is an insidious strawman. Douthat juxtaposes, on the one hand, the draconian regime of the Catholic church which has, by overwhelming evidence, driven Priests to an underworld to satisfy their natural sexual desires, abusing children and nuns who trust them like literal "fathers" with, on the other hand, generational social attitudes regarding sexuality. It's nonsensical -- one doesn't relate to the other.
What's worse is that Douthat places the burden on everyone else (framed as "anti-Catholic arguments") to define some kind of ideal sexual attitude, as if there weren't a tragic mountain of evidence that the Catholic attitude of celibacy has proven devastating and demented. We needn't solve the equation to prove that the Catholic solution is incorrect.
Douthat does not deserve this platform.
37
Ross,
I was a celibate Franciscan for almost four years, 1959 - 1962. I rang the morning bells at dawn on the day Vatican II began. We young friars hardly understood what was about to be wrought on our church. I loved my years of Franciscan formation -- though some practices of those days would be looked at today as being quite medieval.
But during my time, I discovered that this was not my calling. I left.
But I never look back on the experience of celibate living as odd or perverse - as many do. It actually prepared me well for what is now a fifty-seven year marriage.
But -- Catholics should look hard at vows/promises of life-long celibacy. Many people (men and women) have vocations to priesthood who are not called to celibacy. And those who seek vowed/celibate life should take vows for no longer than five years at a time.
The present "dark night" that currently enshrouds the church can be addressed by opening priesthood to men and women who seek ordination that is not tied to celibacy. Such a change would not be historically remarkable. It would, however, address several large problems.
ejm
46
@Dianne Murray Excellent comment. As a student and naval officer I was celibate for many years also, then married for 42 years. At no moment did I feel disqualified from churchly observance. But, of course, that is in the past since I am now remarried. Contrary to all cultural tradition, the church is, for the time being at least, both atrocious and dehumanizing.
5
@Dianne Murray
I'm make this a pick for sharing your experience and for suggestions on how to look at celibacy. It has a place for some, but a lifelong commitment doesn't make human sense. And it isn't necessary to perform the role of a priest.
6
Priestly celibacy is not, and never has been, a theological value. Historically the practice emerged because the earliest Christian cults in the Patristic era that required celibacy were more popular than the ones that didn’t (“Rise of Western Christendom”, Peter Brown.) As such, celibacy was a tradition rooted in the local culture of that age, not distinctly Christian mandate.
The Orthodox Church, which has a very deep connection to its Patristic roots does not require celibacy for its priests. Although to be consecrated an Orthodox bishop, one must also be a member of a monastic order. Orthodox monastic orders do require celibacy, but this is more analogous to following the Rule of St Benedict or the Rule of St Augustine. It is a tradition, not a theological mandate. (“The Orthodox Church”, Kallistos Ware)
When the married Orthodox priests recites the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, as it is understood by the Church. Celibacy is just not sacramentally important.
It’s not hugely important to me what a Catholic priest’s healthy sexuality might look like. What’s important is that their sexual expression not include people who are vulnerable, people they trust, people who are in their care.
28
Mr. Douthat attributes an absurd claim to those who believe the Roman Catholic Church should end priestly celibacy.
No one argues that married priests including, saints preserve us, married women priests, will make "all Catholic ills ... vanish." This obviously false argument exists only in the minds of diehard defenders of the church, as an aid to caricaturing their opponents. A church with married priests, male and female, will still be capable of many forms of evil, including sexual abuse.
In the real world, the issue is decreasing the unjustifiable harms which flourish in the Catholic Church because of its attitudes toward sexuality.
According to the best available evidence, that compiled by the late sociologist and ex-priest Richard Sipe, about half of American priests, straight and gay, are sexually active. Given this evidence and the reports of historical and current sexual practices by Catholic priests elsewhere in the world, it seems safe to say the the Catholic Church as a whole honors celibacy as much in the breach as the observance.
Are we to think that this hypocrisy is a sacred legacy of the historical Jesus?
20
@csp123, it does get tiresome dealing with Douthat's frequent straw man arguments. You do well to answer this one.
We assume that a Catholic priest is a straight man who has chosen celibacy. Shouldn't there also be Catholic priests who are gay men and have chosen celibacy. As we understand more and more that sexual orientation is determined by a person's genetic makeup, wouldn't it be great if the church welcomed openly gay men who chose celibacy into the priesthood--because they too were made in god's image and might better serve gay Catholics?
8
For those who want to better understand the genesis of the sexual abuse epidemic in the Catholic Church, please READ the book, The Dark Box, A Secret History of Confession, by John Cornwell.
This book offers new and critical insights into the history of the sacrament of confession and how it has truly been the opportunistic breeding ground for much of the moral failure being exposed world wide in recent decades. This history clearly details how the boundaries of human intimacy between the "confessor and penitent," went astray in the context of this powerful, dominant, socio-religious structure. These historical details fill in so much of what has been absent in our understanding of how clerical abuse could happen and continues to be aided and abetted so broadly across the institution. Insights into when and how the age of compulsory confession was changed from about age 13 to age 5 and that before the confessional box was installed in churches, penitents would often kneel on the ground at groin level, before the priest who would often put his hands on the penitents head. (you get the picture, blech) Suppressing the inherent human sexual drive is problematic in the context of the intimacy in confession. The Dark Box holds many critical insights and answers.
7
Douthat mixes up social trends with basic human sexuality. Fads come and go and thinking changes, but sexuality is a basic human drive and has been consistent through the ages. If the Catholic Church is NOW determined to remove sexual predators, it will be left with roughly 3 priests (or, unsarcastically, according to an article I read in the NYT, about 5% of all priests). The Church must either change or continue its slow sink into irrelevance. It is out of step with society's overarching march -- not just trends but evolution -- and it is at odds with basic human needs. Just count the number of closed Catholic churches in the last 3 decades to see how well their closed minds, old rules and hidden perversions have fared.
11
@Andy
From what I have read lately some aspects of human sexual expression are changing; it seems to be becoming more of a spectator sport. Sexual activity is down especially among the young. The experts are quoted as saying people prefer solitary porn fueled gratification. Whether this is good or bad in an overpopulated world I don't know but it seems to suggest celibacy is not always the result of authoritarian dictates.
It is my understanding that the celibacy thing had no basis in spirituality. It was put in place when priests married or had families outside of marriage so that no offspring of priests would be able to make a claim on church property when the parent/priest died. The church has always been more interested in maintaining the iron fist of the bureaucracy as opposed to the spiritual needs of the people it tries to control. Look no further that the sex abuse scandal that continues to haunt the Vatican.
16
Nobody is saying that "...all Catholic ills would vanish if Rome only ceased making “unnatural” demands like celibacy and chastity." That's absurd and it damages Mr. Douthat's argument. Celibacy is a relatively recent feature of Catholicism, and many make the claim that it was instituted to protect church property from being handed down by churchmen to their heirs. It has a long and complicated history, but we are left with one undeniable fact: it's not working. It needs to go. Organized religion cannot exist without a healthy dose of hypocrisy, but in the case of modern Catholicism, that dose is no longer healthy.
7
@Jim Mandatory celibacy should be abolished for all RC clergy, from priests to the Pope. The Anglicans (basically a National Catholic Church) have no trouble with married clergy all the way to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, well we're at it, there should be women priests and bishops, and out LGBT clergy.
1
Although it certainly does seem to be the case that the celibate priesthood disproportionately attracts men who are ambivalent about their sexuality, I think much of the problem is loneliness. Once a parish might have had several priests living together, and the priests could come home to a sociable cocktail and dinner discussing the days troubles and the foibles of their parishioners. Now it is probably only one priest and his cocktails. It is not an attractive life.
It would make far more sense to allow diocesan priests to marry and reserve celibacy for the religious orders. After all, Protestants have had a quite successful five hundred year experiment with married priests and for several decades now have been conducting a quite promising experiments with women priests.
6
Catholics aren't the only ones who are have a problem with sexual abuse as we've seen recently with the report on the Southern Baptists. The core issue is the inability of the people in charge to confront the crime in their midst and the organization's protection of the criminals.
Celibacy and chastity are not the same. Priests in Roman Catholicism as opposed to the Eastern Rite do not marry but few if any are chaste.
I am the proud grandpa of 12 year old fraternal twins who were born out of wedlock. During the tumultuous prenatal period, someone associated with the church counselled the parents to live apart, just when they needed each other the most. Bad advice is bad advice. They married 18 months later and added two more souls to the family.
What evidence is there that Jesus was celibate? My believe is that he was married.
5
Clerical celibacy is a tradition, but it is a man-made institution nonetheless. It is not an article of faith. It can be changed by a General Council -- as can be the decision not to include women in the priesthood. God's Church must develop, unfold and grow in wisdom and grace. Moreover, we the faithful who use birth control, support marriage equality and justice for all human beings are as much the voice of God's Church as the hierarchy. We must remember that.
7
All power corrupts, and abuse is committed (and usually conveniently overlooked) by corrupt religious, political, entertainment, workplace, and other leaders. Everyone is righteously outraged when abuses are brought to light--and they don't even question their own prejudices. Catholics have been discriminated against in this country for a long time--at one point the children of Catholic immigrants were forcibly removed from their families and placed with Protestant families. It's interesting that the virulent bias against Catholicism isn't even questioned here as it would be if the comments were directed against other sexist and oppressive faiths. No one wonders why so many people have deliberately chosen celibacy as a means to deepen their connection to a higher power.
4
Though well positioned to deal in the good and bad elements of human nature, church hierarchies are not the only culprits.
When any organization's claim of supreme, righteous validity is aimed at the enforcement of authority for its own sake, it inevitably succumbs to the excesses of its hypocrisies.
Because the illusion of power can be the most delicious - and dangerous - of temptations. It can attract many among the masses to join in to gain a taste for themselves... until they begin to choke.
1
if Catholics were sceptical there would be no Catholics. The sky fairy scam really is the king of the long cons. Upon close scrutiny a person choosing celibacy due to sketchy tales of some sandal wearing dude who has been dead for a couple of thousand years seems at the very best illogical, if not absurdly delusional. Taking guidance or advice from such an individual about anything, never mind sexuality, seems on the face of it to be comically ill advised.
Please spare me the "church is persecuted and misunderstood." narrative. In reality the church is a highly manipulative, power hungry exploitation machine. But like all good cons, the victims become the perpetrators best defenders. Any other organization in the world could not withstand the absolute barrage of exposed horrendous behavior without suspension of scepticism.
You, Mr. Douthat are a prime example of this shortage of scepticism. Rather than questioning the existence of the catholic church in the face of the horrors it has perpetratedyou engage in "serious" discussions about policy and theology meanwhile minimizing the conduct that collectively the pack of charlatans who are the catholic church engage in.
Rather than calling for reform, debating holy proclamations or defending the institution which has continually hidden or abetted absolutely disgusting human behaviour it seems time to call out the abuse, hold the church accountable and call a fairytale a fairytale.
You know, be a little sceptical.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
7
It seems that the Catholic Church faces issues of sexual predators and harassers in significantly larger numbers than other Western faiths. I have to believe that celibacy plays some material role in this, even if it is the (mistaken) belief of some priests that they can suppress their homosexual feelings by initially trying to lead a celibate life in the priesthood.
1
The results of the requirement for celibacy in the Catholic Church - as well as within other religions and belief systems - are clear.
The breadth and magnitude of proof of the sexual abuse and rape of thousands and thousands of men, women, and children...is appalling and profoundly saddening. And we have allowed it.
Like with climate change, we have allowed the voices who deny reality to subjugate our own voice…and the truth itself.
Our ignoring, allowing and “following” has caught up with us.
Our excessive focus on media, marketing, money, advertising, and technology has us disconnected from the truths and realities that require our full attention now
Neither God, nor any church, belief system, government, or political leader...will be doing the work to change this; it begins with us.
And that’s the good news.
2
Mr. Douhat once again offers an apologia for a corrupt institution that has used its power to shelter a vast culture of pedophiles and sexual predators. Douhat's argument is belied by a comparison to the eastern church allows priests to marry. As yet we've no reports of a rampant and systematic culture pedophilia within the orthodox church. What Mr. Douhat to be really arguing here, is to defend misogyny wrapped up as some sort of eternal value as defined by the church and therefor god. Douhat's Catholicism, in its contempt for women as independent agents, politically, morally, and most especially sexually, undefined by men, is a consistent thread in his essays.
9
After plowing through Douthat's usual mountain of Harvard rhetoric (as an antidote to this, read Alice McDermott's clear, concise critique of Catholicism in today's Opinion section), we finally - finally! - come to his defense of priestly celibacy: "asceticism." This misty thing called "asceticism." In a future column, Mr. Douthat, why don't you explain to us your understanding of "asceticism" and why it is so necessary in a priest.
4
Mr. Douthat, you have utterly failed to make any reasonable argument in favor of celibacy per se in this piece. That it "preserves the call" to (I assume, since it's unclear) the priesthood is a mighty faint check mark in the imaginary "pro" column; whereas the centuries of corruption, sexual predation and scandal is de facto proof that the Church cannot be trusted to govern itself, especially with regard to sexuality. Denial of the power, majesty and, yes, normalcy of sexuality, no matter how holy it might seem, has been an utter failure, both inside and outside the Church. While I have plenty of other criticisms of Catholicism, it seems to me that if the corporation wants to survive it must change with evolving times - much as you've pointed out it has had to do progressively over the past 2000 years.
2
If Martel is correct, the proportion of gays in the priesthood is higher than in the general population. One reason for this may be the guilt of young Catholic men who believes their urges push them to sin and damnation, only to be saved by lifetime celibacy. If you are forced by doctrine to give up the possibility of a loving relationship, the celibacy clause of the priesthood is not an obstacle and will save later awkward questions about being a bachelor for the rest of your life.
Are young and repressed gay men afraid to step out of the closet the best candidates for the priesthood?
5
The dark strain of Catholic thought that blames Protestants for everything appears to surface even here.
You can relax. Modern Protestants care about Catholic religious practice less than you can imagine.
It's simply so hard to accept the unadulterated evil of priests raping small children trusted to their care that observers are grasping at straw excuses like celibacy.
The reality is too horrible to contemplate: evil is real and among us. Not them, us.
4
The problem isn't with celibacy. The problem is with priesthood. The priestly class controls the door to a one-on-one relationship with God described expressly in Revelation 3 ("Behold, I have set before thee and open door, and no man can shut it") as being open to all, without intervention or interference by anyone.
Would anyone doubt that the church's power and all its abuses lies in its control of the spiritual lives of its adherents? In controlling that door that Revelation says no man can shut?
No wonder so many Catholics have closer relationships with clergy and church abuses and scandals than with God him/herself.
And since when does being married prevent child abuse/rape? If we have learned anything from all the sexual scandals that have contributed to #metoo, it's that being married isn't a bulwark against sexually abusing/harassing others. Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein...how many others?
There are plenty of ways to minister to others and helping them get close to God. But letting priests marry is still going to give them power that Jesus Christ, himself, eschewed.
The problem is that most people are more comfortable with having a middleman than being in front of God and doing the hard work of self reflection, growth and living aright. But it can be done. But first, you have to walk through that door. And keep doing it.
2
Ross, it's not the celibacy thing that's so unpalatable, it's the hypocrisy--at which the Catholic church and Republicans excel. If you or anyone else wants to "believe" some trumped up nonsense that only sells to the lazy and gullible, go ahead. Just don't insist that others must buy your beliefs in our land where there is freedom for all religious attitudes. Oh yes, and a land that still protects the freedom to investigate and understand such things as the origins of Christianity with far greater clarity and documentation than you're willing to provide.
5
So let's only allow as priests men who are willing to pledge that they can deny one of the most powerful human drives, for life.
Who gets through that filter into the priesthood? A pretty atypical group of men, as one would suspect.
3
I was brought up Catholic and attended only Catholic schools even as my faith dissipated.I recently had occasion to attend an Episcopal wedding ceremony and an Episcopal funeral conducted by a woman priest.
What struck me about this was how similar the ceremonies were to Catholic ceremonies but also how much more civilized it was with married priests who had families. There was no pall of sexual deviancy and sex as a dirty experience overshadowing the entire event.
It almost made the experience of church going appealing again.
4
The self-anointed illuminati of very age are blinded - to one degree or another - by loyalty to their favorite formula for the advent of an earthly paradise. The notion that the Catholic Church would somehow benefit from blessing (that is, accepting) widespread and open sexual liaisons among its priests is just such a preposterous conceit.
The sexual revolution does not seem to have restored society to the state of Eden before the Fall, so much as brought us closer to the nightmare depicted in Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Read the painting's warning left to right.
3
Gee, I was hoping that Mr. Douthat would explain why celibacy matters, but instead he just huffed and puffed. So let me ask plainly:
The Catholic Church might ask its priests to forgo a number of things: meat, travel, travel by jet, sleeping on a bed, sex.
Of all these possible things to abstain from, why is only the last one important? Why does celibacy matter but vegetarianism doesn't matter?
3
Aside from hunger, sex is the most powerful drive known to mankind. So voluntarily giving up sex is, or so the theory goes, the kind of sacrifice Jesus wants us to make.
Nice theory but why wasn't it true during the first thousand years of Christianity existence and why does Rome permit the adherent of "Eastern" rites to marry.
Finally, if the Church drew its priests from the vastly larger pool of those who marry, it would make the Vatican a much less attractive space for sexual predators who come from the ranks of heterosexual and homosexual priests who use celibacy as cover for their depredations.
Lastly, read the second paragraph. which is a pretty accurate statement of the facts with which the Pope wrestles.
3
Mr. Douthat, human sexuality is not about and not measured by having children or the number of children that are had in or out of a marriage.
That the birth of any and all of us necessarily requires an act of male/female sexual congress is not the measure of human sexuality.
Children are born of love. Children are also born of rape, which is not love.
So you see, unless you are stuck in a dystopian understanding of it like yours, like that of your church, it's kind of more complicated.
3
Mr. Douthat’s superficial review of the ills of modern society (“...failing to reproduce itself...”?) is a head-scratcher. Reducing population in the face of current and looming population-driven ills is a symptom of degeneracy? Where is his consideration of the (on-going) elevation of women to personhood that the church abhors? My non-selfloathing married life would be impossible without the abolition of tenets of the church I was raised in and learned to detest from the inside.
Child crusades. Irish orphanages working their charges to death. A sexual minority twisted into a class of serial abusers. Collaboration with the decimation of South American populations and cultures. I like Richard Dawkins’s critique of religion: approximately, what has it learned in the last millennium? Mainly to adapt to realities it resisted that eventually took hold. Copernicus taught it a little about science, to his cost. Its own history has provided it a teaching moment about sex. Will it learn?
We face a variety of cultural crises: a president who lies routinely, rampant authoritarianism across the globe, political dysfunction, societal striation, ecological collapse. Ethics (part of religion but not its exclusive domain) has something of value for us all; rigid dogma opposed to evolving knowledge of ourselves and our world, not so much.
3
This is just a scattergun defense of some old Catholic doctrines which were, in fact, man (male-man) created dictates.
If someone wants to be celibate, it's fine. Not even my business. But vows of celibacy obviously have neither been enforceable nor served as protection for the vulnerable.
There is also no evidence that men are the better for not having legal intimate relationships, or families to care for - and care for them.
The problem with the Church is that it is insular, closed and secretive, and that like most such institutions, it has gone to great but sometimes despicable lengths to increase and preserve its influence, mystique and the status quo.
In the process it has become instrumental in furthering what the Pope just referred to as Satan's aims. For the rest of us, it suffices to say it has allowed the most extreme exploitation and misuse of its most powerless members to an extraordinary degree. It has held itself as more important than the flock it was supposed to shepherd.
It took a long time for people in general to learn that child sex abuse exists across society, and that trusted people are often perpetrators. So the Church was simply "human"in some of it's reluctance. But its rigid, top down, literally holier than thou structure was responsible for a lot of the abuse. Shutting out secular input as irrelevant made it institutionally stupid and cruel.
It has nothing to do with a 'sexual ethic,' tho' it certainly has to do with ethics.
6
Contemporary critiques of the Catholic church have nothing to do with clerical celibacy or the lack thereof . They are focussed instead on the church's long-standing and widespread practice of covering up and thereby abetting the crime of rape perpetrated against innocent women and children.
275
@AJ
You postulate that "Contemporary critiques of the Catholic church have nothing to do with clerical celibacy or the lack thereof."
Of course those critiques of the Catholic church have much do have to do with clerical celibacy. The evidence is obvious. As many of the critiques offered on list readers' comments. At it's most basic, requiring people, particularly young people when they're near their peaks of hormonal sex drives to repress their natural, God-given desires, is a disaster waiting to happen . . . an it did.
9
Not clear why making celibacy optional would "close" the call. If I understand correctly, the Orthodox Church has such a tradition: early on, one chooses celibacy/chastity or one marries; both celebrate the mass. It may be useful to remind ourselves that celibacy was not codified into Canon Law until the thirteenth century. So one thousand, three hundred years without it, and perhaps miraculously, the church survived. This also means that there have only been seven hundred years with celibacy.
As for Jesus' example? Forgive me, but for those outside of the bubble (where I have been since age twelve, but that is a separate, altar-boy story), the reality-check memo is that we don't even know if there ever was a Jesus, much less, was he really celibate. There is the mystery of Mary Magdalene, the baker's-dozen apostle, who was reinvented as a reformed prostitute; there is also, notably, John, "the apostle whom Jesus loved," winking out from every version of "The Last Supper" at every gay male Catholic, including every gay priest. Didn't Jesus love all? Did he not love the other eleven apostles? Oh, I get it, his love for John was special.
The overarching point is that, at least in Western democracies with the rule of law and a free press, the RC Church has much explaining to do. And, it has a massive, public, house cleaning job ahead of it. An existential decision must be made: reform from the bedrock to fulfill the Universal mission, or become a third world anachronism.
8
A girl in my high school class was a devout Catholic. She got pregnant at 16 and married her boyfriend. By the age of 21 she had three children she couldn't afford and was at her wit's end. Birth control, after all, was a mortal sin. She went to confession in tears and aired her woes, and the priest told her using birth control wasn't a sin. How many children did she end up having? THREE. It's a strange religion when a celibate priest prevents a woman from have an inordinately large family and consigning herself, her husband, and her children to poverty. But most of the time the outcome was the opposite. That "girl" is now 74 years old, still married to the same man, and has nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
4
CLARIFICATION: There is ample support for the conclusion that Jesus remained unmarried. The same cannot be said for whether Jesus was celibate.
6
“The sexual ethic on offer in our own era” is dominated by porn, sex robots, lonely elders, childlessness and genderlessness? Really?? Where exactly do you get your understanding of our shared culture? I look around me and I see oceans of happily paired people able to choose the number of children they bear, greatly improving the prospects and outcomes for those children. I see women able to push back childbearing so they can explore careers first, offering children a cohort of moms who are wiser and even equals in the home. I see older people experiencing new love relationships at later and later ages. I see a vast majority of people who are able to easily identify and express their own gender, while learning from those who don’t have a binary experience of gender. Sex robot parlors were banned from our city. I will agree that certain kinds of porn are making it difficult for young people to grow into a healthy experience of true sexual intimacy. But generally, I see a world that is starting to live by the happy dictum that one size does not fit all, where there are many good and joyful ways to make a family, experience intimacy, find spiritual fulfillment, and respect and honor the people around you.
Mr. Douthat’s bizarre assertions make me doubt his entire analysis. The Catholic Church is a hotbed of criminal sexual misconduct, a grotesque problem that has not been so dominant in churches that allow clergy to marry — this is readily apparent to anyone with clear eyes.
6
This piece not only misses important points, it conflates "non-points". Who really cares about "critics of the church"? And, I'm not sure the "history of cultural norms of sexuality" is accurate, but it doesn't matter. To me, the point is that priests are a heterogeneous population just like any other large group. Forcing them to fit into a single mold exaggerates the heterogeneity and causes no small few to "act out". Moreover, clergy in general have no experience with the most important part of the life of their "flock": the family. How can they relate to a mother or a dad. Well ... they can't. They have to read it in a book - even the good ones. Ugh
4
"The rhetoric of anti-Catholicism... has always insisted that the church of Rome is the enemy of what you might call healthy sexuality." Because it is.
You have harnessed a non-starter to a reductio ad absurdum. How many more women and children have to suffer before it gets through that demanding that adherents to a faith have to forego intimate relationships for life is neither humane nor natural? That you cannot grasp that the very foundations of the Catholic church are flawed on this issue is deeply troubling.
The issue of how the views of healthy sexuality has "evolved" is also a red-herring. In the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Elizabethan Age, etc. there was a wide spectrum of views about sexuality. It's long been pointed out by historians that the Middle Ages had a much more emancipated view of sexuality than the Victorian or mid-20th century did. Chaucer and Shakespeare both have infinitely more open, bawdy and diverse views of sexuality than most current writers.
Most of us are horrified by the ongoing deluge of revelations of grotesque abuse of children and women by men made to kneel, not to an idealized god, but to some absurd and thoroughly human dogma that demands that its acolytes forgo sex in the name of...what? Purity? Obedience? Faith?
A compassionate church would evolve knowing that its best tenets trump its most illogical practices. Lives depend on a more humane, emancipated approach. There is no reason a priest cannot love his god and a human, too.
6
I always enjoy Mr. Dothan's discussion of Catholic issue and maintain an interest in the comings and goings of the church.
Seeing the issue from the perspective of an ex Catholic and now atheist, it seems to me that what is missing is in fact divine intervention. One expects a grateful god to reward priests and nuns with special powers to transcend human tendencies, not only sexual, but greed, envy and the whole panoply of human failings.
Logic suggest that having experienced no godly blessing the church would change or disband.
Good luck with that
3
As a Catholic who turned agnostic and is now atheist, I now have a familiar phrase I repeat often when I'm attending sports events of Catholic little leagues:
"Now I know why the Romans put these folks on crosses."
1
How do you miss the mark so completely?
The issue Catholics and most non-Catholics who follow the news want addressed is the CONTINUING criminal sexual abuse, assault and rape of CHILDREN, nuns, young men and women.
It's been going on for many, MANY decades.
And it looks like it will continue unless citizens and their children are protected by secular LAW ENFORCEMENT.
4
It's noteworthy that Douthat says next to nothing about the Biblical justifications for celibacy by priests. He devotes just one sentence to it, and then he got it wrong. If Jesus ever preached celibacy, the gospel writers did not record it. Jesus' own celibacy is merely inferred. Peter, the first bishop of Rome, was a married man, the Bible says. We have no reason to believe he never saw her or was sexually intimate with her again after he began to follow Jesus. The Apostle Paul actually has a very un-Catholic view of sex, telling married couples not to withhold sex from each other. He advises single people that it's better to get married than to burn with lust that has no legitimate outlet; if only the Catholic Church could apply that teaching. Since there were no priests in the Christian communities of Paul's day -- such structures were a later addition -- his words should be taken to apply to all Christian believers. There were, however, leaders in whose homes these Christian assemblies met; the earliest among these in Rome belonged to a married couple, Priscilla and Aquila, who worked for a time as Paul's companions in ministry. Married church leaders? It's right there in the Bible, Ross. Read it for yourself instead of letting your bishop tell you what it says.
3
Draconian thinking will not solve this quandary.
2
I always thought that the biggest example of the Church's disrespect for women starts with the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. Motherhood is the most revered concept of the Church - the basis for being against any sort of reproductive health. yet the Blessed Virgin didn't conceive her child the way woman normally do. why couldn't she have had a loving relationship with Joseph that resulted in Jesus' birth without the myth of the flying Dove etc. etc.
1
A rare thoughtful piece on this subject, correctly pointing out the anti-Catholicism that lies at the heart of the dispute. Bravo.
2
From the The Catholic Encyclopedia; "Asceticism"
"The word asceticism comes from the Greek askesis which means practice, bodily exercise, and more especially, athletic training. The early Christians adopted it to signify the practice of... spiritual exercises performed for the purpose of acquiring the habits of virtue. At present it is not infrequently employed in an opprobrious sense, to designate the religious practices of oriental fanatics as well as those of the Christian saint, both of whom are by some placed in the same category... For although the flesh is continuously lusting against the spirit, and repression and self-denial are necessary to control the animal passions, it would be an error to measure a man's virtue by the extent and character of his bodily penances."
From U.S. Catholic, "Why are priests celibate?"
"Throughout the first centuries of Christianity, clergy continued to get married, though marriage was not required. It was not until the turn of the first millennium that the church started to canonically regulate clerical marriage, mainly in response to clerical abuses and corruption. Of particular concern was the transmission at the death of a clergyman of church property to his wife and children. The Council of Pavia (1018)... issued regulations on how to deal with children of clergy, declaring them serfs of the church, unable to be ordained and barring them from inheriting their father's benefices."
Closer to god? Or Catholic economic construct?
4
How long has this abuse been going on? You think it began only 30 years ago? I venture to say it began 900 years ago when celibacy became mandatory for the priesthood. Think of the millions of children who went through their lives with this happening to them. And Ross, maybe you should admit that celibacy attracts the wrong type of man to the priesthood.
3
This article labels the encouragement of a healthy sexuality standard in the priesthood just one more chapter in a history of "anti-Catholicism". There is no more prejudice against the largest and wealthiest denomination in America than there is against white people. Please. The fact is that we are having this discussion seventeen years after the Boston Globe "broke" the story of sexual abuse by priests of children and vulnerable people. The reality is that it was finally brought into our awareness. When is Ross Douthat going to bring into his awareness that the institution is corrupt, and encouraging a healthy sexuality among the men who say mass, by allowing women to do the same, by allowing marriage, by normalizing what it means to be a priest--this is not prejudice. These are suggestions often made by Catholics who are dismayed, saddened, and angered that they have lost their church to the arrogance, denial, and willful ignorance of its leaders. It is alarming, to say the least, that this column was even published. One more chapter in the wishful thinking of church defenders.
3
Jesus and Paul were celibate so they wouldn't be tied down. Both needed the mobility that antiquity demanded to broadcast a message they knew the world desperately needed. (Spoiler Alert: There was no Internet.) In order to be faithfully married, they would have had to divide their time and talents between two masters. So the message came first, last and always. The breakdown comes when we forget that these two men were divinely inspired. Something that clergy and celibacy is not.
Let's call a spade a spade. The Catholic church was chugging along for a 1,000 years before they decided in 1139 that its priests needed to be celibate. Despite the church's sanctimonious claim to the contrary, more likely the vow of celibacy was to prevent its priesthood from amassing personal wealth and power.
I could care less what Catholic priests do with one another, but when children and young people and nuns are victimized, that's a Cardinal sin in my book.
5
If this piece is an argument for celibacy it failed miserably. A high school debater would take it apart in short order.
Tell me again why we need celibacy - and a male only clergy.
2
Mr. Douthat, nothing you can say will whitewash the evils of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church must change for the better and one of the first steps is to allow priests to marry, sanction contraception, and remove all the archaic laws that are an affront to humanity. I left the Church at 16 Mr. Douthat and I have never looked back.
1
For the record, I am a non-theist because I don't believe most of what any religion teaches is true or factual.
However, what stands out to me about Judeo-Christianity is that in God's list of ten biggest sins, beating and sexually assaulting women and children IS NOT EVEN THERE.
Yet a man chasing the tail of his neighbor's wife is.
This complete disregard for the rights and well-being of women and children is the CRUX of the problem (nice, I got to use Latin!).
7
‘the privilege of Absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only’.
Hobbes
1
Ever since its founding pillar of immaculate conception, Christianity has always viewed sex as a bug rather than a feature of the human experience. There is a fundamental flaw in the operating system of the Catholic Church. I don't think the program is fixable. Society just needs a new operating system.
3
Be sure to tune in next week, when Ross will defend the selling of indulgences!
2
Celibacy might be a good idea for clergy -- if it is practiced. Alas, however, hypocrisy is rife. This applies not just to celibacy but to charity, politics, education, and so forth. Christopher Hitchens was right: religion poisons everything.
3
In his plea for celibate priests Mr. Douthat too narrowly defines the duties of the priesthood. The call for asceticism should not be the raison d'être of priestly duties. In Catholic school I learned that a priest was an essential link to finding God. St. Peter had a mother-in-law (Luke 4:38) and St Paul (1 Timothy 3:2 ) tells us that "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;" Why then the insistence upon celibacy? The true call of the priesthood is to service, not to celibate asceticism.
That clerical celibacy doesn’t guarantee asceticism is obvious, ...But it preserves the call..."
The requirement for celibacy in the Church is not enough to explain the deep seated sickness that permeates its hierarchy. That said, the Church is way too interested in proscribing sexual matters within and outside the clergy when there are far greater matters of concern in this world. Why must clergy be celibate? Why not leave it up to the individual priest? Clearly a bureaucracy full of "celibate" men has not taken the Church to heights of godliness. Reform for heaven's sake.
1
Lots of straw dogs burned in this article and a distraction from today's issue of sexual abuse that has stood the test of time. Perhaps the rule of celibacy has appealed to gay men in the past as a convenient reason for being unmarried. I once taught at a Jesuit university where I overheard one Jesuit ask another what he thought of a recent article arguing for marriage for priests. The response was, "I could have written it."
If someone is to do a history, I would be very curious about how sexual abuse became so commonly tolerated as a perk of the job. The individual stories by victims I've read are horrific. A major part of my dismay is the sense of entitlement. A cardinal suggesting that to please him was to please God.
Every time I see a gaudily be-robed creature, my stomach churns.
The best case for celibacy in the church is the churches. They stand behind the history of western art in their magnificence. Wherever the church put up a building they did in style with a richness of adornment matched only by the Buddhists who were also, by the way, celibate. If the church's resources had been mired in the support of families we would be bereft. It's hard to imagine life without the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's Moses, and with churches that looked like they had been built by the Baptists, who, by the way, also have pedophiles.
1
Celibacy Matters because it is at the heart of why the Catholic Church is crumbling around us! Defending this outdated and impractical practice has caused many of the issues that have led too many like me away from the church. (Not to mention the horrible coverups of sexual abuse.) Modernizing the church with women priests, clerical marriage would be a strong call to the many fallen catholics that want to return the community of Christ. Will Rome wake-up?
2
I started out sympathetic to this article. The point about the changing accusations against the Catholic Church over the centuries is quite intriguing. And I am inclined to think that hookup culture is neither healthy nor satisfying.
But you lost me at porn and sex robots.
I think there was an excellent reason for celibacy in the days when a life in the church could be a path to money and prestige. Those days are very long past.
As a parishioner who has attended both Catholic and Episcopal services, I really can't see the difference in the ability of a married or celibate priest to lead a congregation. I doubt that God can either.
1
Splendid and right on! Chesterton himself could not have put it better.
wow Ross, criticism of the church for pedophilia, rape, pressured abortions, cover ups, criminal conspiracy, relocating Cardinals to Rome to escape subpoena authority, destruction of evidence, organizational behavior that borders on criminal racketeering (RICO) violations prompts you to identify this as a variation of anti- Catholicism is stunning. You and I must belong to different churches. I doubt that many observant Christians view this as behavior taught, sanctioned or excused in the Bible or by Christ. Simply amazing.
Focusing strictly on sexuality as what is wrong with the Catholic Church omits so many other ills in a broken institution.
"... in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life."
Ross has no idea if Jesus was celbate, he just wishes it were so. Why?
And if "making an idol of family life" (an obviously biologically natural and socially necessary condition) is somehow worse than fetishizing celebacy, those "hard words" Ross clings to ring hollow.
It bears repeating often: Ross does not know what he pretends to know (about the unknowable facts of Jesus life and supposed sayings). It would be far more useful for him to honestly look into that fact than to idolize his chosen religious milieu and it's historically authoritarian, supernatural ideology (yes, it is idolotry) and defend the monstrous culture it has engendered and striven to hide and perpetuate.
Why doesn't the article tackle the questions as to whether there is a link between celibacy and sexual abuse of children by priests that is also tolerated by bishops. The editorial doesn't address the elephant in the room.
1
How about other Catholics (or lapsed Catholics) criticizing celibacy? James Joyce and Voltaire are redolent with stories about pervasive failures of celibacy; 250 years ago, Voltaire (educated by the Jesuits) slammed them for trying to have sex with everyone and everything. The entire institutional premise is corrupt (the main original purpose of celibacy was to prevent hereditary power in the church, an institution which is about power above all else). The eastern church got it right. Let them marry (any consenting adult) and turn the pederasts over to the secular authorities.
1
Religion is a voluntary association in this country. The Catholic Church is deeply flawed, which is why I left it decades ago— but that’s all you need to do. I don’t understand why we waste so much time debating it.
Of course, if priests committed a crime, prosecute them. For the rest of this ‘How does the church reform itself?’ navel-gazing, I don’t care.
1
As Mr. Douthat wrote this column, he must have smiled, knowing that it would get good readership numbers. Progressive Times readers like myself were sure to be drawn in by a defense of celibacy in the Catholic Church, in these days of scandals which likely have their roots in this practice.
1
Ross, the Church did not adopt celibacy in emulation of Christ. It did so to conserve the resources of the Church, comparatively late in their history. I think you know this.
1
It is a pleasure to read an opinion piece that isn’t directly or indirectly about Trump.
Oh Your God, Ross, you aren't just tone deaf, you're unaware there even is a tone.
But first, I appreciate your Catholic Doctor Ruth. Nice to get sex advice from an authoritative source.
Unsurprisingly, you mock criticism of the corporate decision to institute chastity/celibacy centuries after the founding of the church as a sex-related mistake. That's not it at all.
I mean, it is sex-related, and it is a mistake.
The problem with the policy is that it forcibly limits the Vatican and the priesthood to a single, some would say perverse, understanding of the role of sex and love in the lives of the faithful, a lack of understanding that typifies every problem besetting your church to today.
Every problem that started the Church on its slide to oblivion unless people like you can be made to think a little and not just dig in your heels and pout.
Priests have no idea of life with the thrill, the heartbreak, the satisfaction, the addiction, the perversion of a sexual existence. Or they're not supposed to.
Even though we know now they do indeed have massive experience in those areas they're hamstrung when it comes time to talk or counsel in such matters. They become, as you, blindly dogmatic, sarcastic (not very well exemplified here today), cynical, defensive, mean. They stop listening and start demanding.
That's the trouble with celibacy policy. Like rape, it isn't only a sexual issue, its about mindless power and a refusal to openly be in the world as it is.
1
Mr. Douthat must have received his degree in logic from Trump University.
It's the Protestants and secularists and unbelievers who are attacking the Catholic Church! Be afraid, be very afraid!
1
These days, you can't do the simplet of activities without first signing a disclaimer....
CHURCH DISCLAIMER
I (print your name) agree that by joining this religious institution (print name of just about any church or religious group) understand the following: that practitioners may be discriminated against, homophobia will be a common theme and above all, misogyny is the rule.
I (print name) understand that any children that I may be have, may be sexually assaulted. I also understand that if members of the administration rape and/or father children, that they will not be held responsible - either legally or financially.
I (print name, initial and make thumb print) agree to give money to the administration so that they can do the above, along with countless other deeds and with complete impunity. I understand that the money I give is financing for these activities.
I agree to join this group and forego any right to independent thinking for myself. Furthermore I permit them to interpret the "guidebook" however they choose and will live my life how they tell me to live - even if it is seemingly contrary to the rules in the guidebook.
I understand that the administration has the final word in everything and are always beyond reproach for they are superior to me, since they have "the secret knowledge".
I (print name) submit myself completely to these MEN.
1
The Church has long had problems with sexuality. A dear friend spent the early 1960's in Rome and found her way into society social circuit. She spoke of attending many parties where Cardinals and their mistresses wives were prominent guests.
The celibacy requirement has no theological basis. Byzantine Catholic priests have always been permitted to marry and they too answer to Rome. What's the difference for them? Remember too that celibacy only means they do not marry, which is not the same thing as being chaste. The requirement was instituted to end the risk of property rights claims by the widows of deceased priests.
It's nonsensical to operate a priesthood that may in fact be majority-homosexual when the general population's homosexual prevalence is probably less than 5%. It's particularly ridiculous to expect these men to provide marriage & family counseling to parishioners when they themselves have no experience being married or parents.
Let them marry.
1
While Ross seems obsessed with how the world views sexuality and the church, I'd like to turn the question around. Why are priests required to practice celibacy? What is there about sex that requires its separation from the priesthood? Why is the church so obsessed with the sexual practices of its priests? I think the church maybe the entity with the obsession problem (the rest of the world is obsessed with sex, but is okay with that obsession...).
1
"repressive cruelty, of denying people — and especially its celibacy-burdened priests — the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs.--There you go, Ross. Nailed it.
Create a suppressive regime, one of absolute celibacy (not even "Onanism") and then ignore the result, while protecting the perpetrators of outrages on the innocent while also condemning the victims.
And on what basis? To achieve what (other than churchly wealth and power)? There is no basis in the teachings of Jesus, that I have ever seen. He did not demand celibacy of his apostles; perhaps not even of himself--no one is sure from the historical record.
Centuries of needless suffering on the part of those attempting to maintain celibacy, those who fail, and their victims. No thanks. End it.
1
Funny, I thought the problem with Catholicism and sex is that it has institutionally protected sexual abuse for practically its entire existence. As my very wise mother observed as she exited Catholicism, "I'm not going to take advice on sex and birth control from some seventy-year-old man who's never tried either." Unassailable logic I would recommend to any woman. To be fair to Ross though, I don't want the Catholic church to "reform;" I want it to go away.
2
Ross: What is the proof that Jesus or the apostles were celibate? Since your expertise regarding early Christianity is poor I will remind you that the gospels were written by people who probably never met Jesus, very possibly were born after Jesus died. They wrote with agendas in mind. Even Mark, the supposedly most historical of the 4 gospels. Paul of course was writing for his own version of Christianity.
We make a large mistake to reason that celibacy is part of the origins of Christianity.
The tell of Ross' ignorance and bigotry against anyone who doesn't fit his definition of sexuality is in his statement, "It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman."
If Ross was half as smart as he pretends to be he would realize that human sexuality is not a thing where you're this or that. Human sexuality is as varied as the colors of human skin. From albino to shades or pink and red to shades of brown and black.
The thinking that human identity can be summarized into you're this or you're that; that if you're anything else either you're a fool or a fraud is the thinking of children who need the world to be simple because their minds and souls have not sufficiently matured to recognize that reality is infinite in its design and variation, whether among human beings or among the stars.
Some individual Catholics do good works. Some individual Muslims, Jews, agnostics, atheists, and members of every other religion on earth do good works. Some individuals in each of those groups do grotesque and evil things.
The problem is not the particular beliefs, it is the immense power that every organized religion holds over those who follow that religion. Submission to the leaders is a major tenet of every religion. Exploitation and abuse are a guaranteed outcome.
We have finally begun to face the reality of sexual disfunction in all areas of our society. There is plenty of blame and pain to go around. But the human condition only improves when the human race faces its own shortcomings.
Every religion, social and political group is capable of doing great things for humanity and the planet, but only if we are eternally vigilant in our protection of all not just some.
3
Mr. Douthat,
Please. You're a smart guy. Take off your Catholic apologist hat for just a moment and read what you've written here. You start by saying that critiques of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood that reference "healthy sexuality" have persisted throughout radical shifts in our definition of "healthy sexuality." This is of course true. Then you allow that, in certain cases, the critics are right about how the priesthood has encouraged certain of the behaviors that have, more than anything in its history, constituted an existential threat to the roman church, before demurring that if they got anything right, it's only by accident, and besides, the current sexual culture is nuts so we're still safer under the current system. Then finally, the most embarrassing moment comes when, in response to nebulous calls for reform, you suggest that's not possible because priestly celibacy is rooted in the new testament, specifically that bit where jesus warned against fetishizing family life. if someone delivered a critique of any aspect of catholic theology this weak you'd rightly laugh them right out of the room. whether we're talking about sexual abuse in the catholic church, violent jihadists in the islamic world, Kahane-ists and their ilk in judaism, or wirathu or his murderous buddhist acolytes in myanmar, we'll never get anywhere until people inside these communities decide to show humility and admit work needs to be done.
The author of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament (traditionally the Apostle Paul) wrote: "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled..." (Hebrews 13:4). I look forward to the day when the Roman Catholic Church embraces this primitive, apostolic sentiment for their priests!
1
Journalism that reveals the rot, intellectual, spiritual, and political, at the core of the church will neither hasten nor retard its inexorable slide into irrelevance. It simply reveals truths that illuminate conditions as they are and how they originated. Mr. D's exhortation to keep the faith by disregarding reportage he wishes weren't true is unconvincing.
In a statistical sense, institutionally-mandated celibacy is deviant -- way out there on the tail of the bell curve -- far more than homosexuality or other modes of sexual interacton.
Douthat does not make a case for the headline writer's proposition that this sort of deviance "matters." Whether or not the ever-elusive "historical Jesus" personally ever had sex of any sort with anyone is unknown and unknowable -- especially during the 12-30 year-old period largely outside the Gospel accounts -- but the one thing we can know for certain is that if he was not sexually active during the period of his ministry recorded in the Bible, it was not because some bureaucracy told him he couldn't be.
I suspect what twists the souls of those priests who have sexually abused children or young adults is less the ability to have sex, as such, than it is the effective prohibition of the most consoling and comforting sorts of human intimacy, such as being able to hold a beloved partner's hand as one goes to sleep. The loneliness of this enforced lack of intimacy cannot help being corrosive.
1
There might be a spiritual benefit in celibacy, although I doubt it, and would find it strange if that were the case, given how critical a healthy sexuality is for humans. The problem is that the Catholic Church forces it on its priests and nuns -it's not optional. What happens then is what we've learned recently: people start failing, everyone has something to hide, horrible crimes and unhealthy relationships are covered up equally. Victims and hipocrisy start piling up. This is unsustainable, and I don't think the solution is to double down on the ridiculous rule.
1
Here's my take, which, like Douthat's, is based on anecdotal, selective observation:
The celibacy rule doesn't make heterosexual priests or nuns gay. Along with devout heterosexual people, the celibacy rule is what attracts non-devout, non-heterosexual people to the Church's fold, where they can live unmarried under the cloak of the institution and above suspicion.
The celibacy rule doesn't liberate women from a life of procreation. On the contrary, it's based on the Catholic precept that women are lesser--dirty, even--the root of human sin, and that sexuality is something they should not enjoy. The Church has formalized its belief that women are incapable of leadership and autonomy. They exist only as literal vessels for the men who rule over them--as wives who answer to husbands and nuns who answer to priests.
The celibacy rule reflects the Catholic church's schizophrenic attitude towards children: the theory is that life is sacred and women must bear them, but the reality is that children are soulless sinners who are not fully human. The Church has made clear over its entire existence that it can do whatever harm it wants to children if it serves and empowers the men in charge: children can be repeatedly, viciously sexually abused; taken from their unwed mothers; institutionalized where they are beaten and neglected.
In other words, the celibacy rule pretends to be based on things pure, devout, and holy. But it's actually based on everything opposite.
1
Is there proof that Jesus was celibate? It would seem that other denominations of Christianity function quite well with married priests and female clergy. Some are even coming to terms with same sex adult relationships. Too many examples of priestly celibacy exist to challenge the charade of the celibate doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church. Put an end to it and church interference in the sexuality of all its members. If clergy want to be celibate, that should be a personal decision. Sexuality is a normal part of the human condition.
1
Let me make a couple uncomfortable points in response to your column today. First, the priesthood attracts men with more potential for sexual problems because most men with normal heterosexual desires would not choose the priesthood for that specific reason. This is not a condemnation—just a fact.
Secondly, your column ignores the much higher percentage of priests (over the general population) guilty of child molestation. We know the percentage is very high, but every year for the last two decades we find that we need to keep raising that number. How you omit that horror in a column on celibacy would make any objective person realize you aren’t open to a serious dis ussion of celibacy and the priesthood.
2
By saying "Celibate men are not more likely to be predators ..." Mr. Douthat misses the point. Church doctrine says that anything other than procreative sex, the first use of sex by humankind, is against human nature and hence a sin. Yet, the Church demands its priesthood stand in denial and violation of the first ordering principle of human nature as a living organism and that is to survive and to survive must by its nature procreate. Requiring celibacy walls priests off from their humanity, and in the bargain makes them as reliable a source for pastoral cousneling in matters of human sexuality and marriage as would a baker be in matters of particle physics.
And trying to prop up this unnatural act - celibacy - by citing "Jesus’ own example" is as nonsensical as would insisting Roman Catholic priests follow Jesus own example of making their toilet outdoors as Jesus no doubt did during his 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. Jesus asked his disciples to follow him, not emulate him. The requirement of celibacy, imposed originally to prevent disputes between the Church and the priest's heirs over church property, is in fact attracting and providing access and shelter to sexual preditors and the victims are our children. Priests are human not divine beings. If the Church qua institution is willing to die on the hill of celibacy, may it rest in peace, because die it will.
There is nothing wrong with celibacy. But, as in any healthy, functional relationship - in this case between a priest and the church - it should be a choice. Insisting that priests be ignorant of a crucial element of human existence does neither them, nor their flock, any good whatsoever. And, as it patently clear, the stricture is flouted frequently, and has been throughout history. So really, what's the point?
The title of your essay is wrong. It should be: Why Celibacy does NOT Matter. It is quite obvious from all the appalling evidence piling up.
Celibacy matters as the root-cause of the sex crimes throughout the history of the Catholic church and all its related institutions. Indeed, it may un-do, or already has un-done, all the good of the church. Yes, celibacy has a place in our wanton society, but only if it is a voluntary calling to forego self-satisfaction for some individual or social ideal. Preserving the “call”, runs counter to other, less scandalized religions. The author to is over-stepping his role to say “trust me” on this monumental issue for the Church, all Catholics and society at large. This self-imposed, mis-step in church doctrine to be abolished. It’s time for the Church to move on to fulfilling all the traditional good for the betterment of the world as well as inner grace for Catholics.
1
Ross, you set up a false choice between “today’s sexual ethic” of porn and robots vs. the tradition of priestly celibacy. While the former is troubling, it does not represent a mainstream practice for most adults. Celibacy, on the other hand, has demonstrably led to, at best, closeted hypocrisy and at worst, contemptible and horrific crimes against children and families. Celibacy by choice should be respected; celibacy by Papal fiat is fundamentally inhuman.
Christian apologetics aren't arguing to discover larger truths, they are defending an ideology. The circular logic (Christianity is good, therefore Christianity is good) that enables one to argue for Catholic celibacy in priests can also make one tone deaf enough to do it during a child rape crisis. Logic and compassion would suggest such deliberations might be more appropriate after we stopped this organization from raping children. The suggestion that anti-Catholic bigotry is behind the current questioning of celibacy rules for the priesthood is just the latest example of modern Christianity's martyr complex.
"And now, in our own age of sexual individualism, Catholicism is mostly just accused of a repressive cruelty, of denying people — and especially its celibacy-burdened priests — the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs."
No, actually Catholicism is accused of covering up sexual assaults of thousands of helpless children to protect the organization. Try to get this, Mr. Douthat - your church has institutionally condoned the rape of thousands of it's most vulnerable members. Your church has protected priests who used their authority to abuse children and then further violate them by using religious belief to frighten them into remaining silent. Your church has persecuted the victims in these heinous crimes as they have systematically shielded the perpetrators. The effort to minimize these ghastly crimes continues right up to today, including this very column and the quote from it I included above.
The idea that priest should be celibate and only married to god was created to keep money in the church. In the early days of the Vatican, priests were allowed to marry and came from the wealthiest families. When they died, their spouses inherited their fortunes. The church had a better financial plan.
So the whole idea is based on a fraud. And these church-enabled sexual predators, gay or heterosexual, and anyone who protects them, should be thrown in jail. Period.
1
Clerical celibacy sets the Catholic church apart from other major religious groups that Americans are most familiar with. So it has been all to easy to single out celibacy as a smoking gun in the sex abuse scandal. But now we find that the Southern Baptist Convention is grappling with a similar scope of allegations. That by itself does not take celibacy off the list of contributing factors, but it does suggest that the power of blind allegiance to authority plays a much bigger role. It may even have something to teach us about our politics. Blind acceptance of what your leader tells you, all the while insisting that any contradictory evidence is just “fake news,” is just another manifestation of the same phenomenon.
You said you were going to answer the question of why priestly celibacy matters, but you didn’t. You just talked around and around the issue of why we heretics have found it weird through the ages.
Sorry, Mr. Douthat, you lost me on this one; I tried following but became hopelessly tangled up by your logic.
I don't see how it's possible to write a column on celibacy / sexuality, healthy or otherwise, as relates to Catholicism and manage to completely omit the words "pedophile" and "molestation" and "coverup".
I'm still confused as to what is the horse, and what is the cart. Does the Catholic church actually attract sexual deviants into the priesthood or does the conversion to deviancy occur once a man is inside the institution? I'm guessing that this question will need to be answered prior to any meaningful changes in the institutional structure. One thing I am sure of: When a natural biologic function becomes prohibited, it comes out sideways.
2
The Catholic Church has been a Playboy Club for pedophiles for decades (okay, centuries) with impunity. Even last week, the Pope cited "the tragedy the little ones have experienced" - not "the tragedy clergy have caused..." - as he blames journalists for "exploiting" the little ones and goes on with his justification that this happens in other faiths, etc. as well. The discussion as to whether the celibacy requirement contributes to homosexuality is rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Another thing. Douthat sets out totally unsubstantiated "facts" about perceptions of sex through the ages and then bases his arguments on those. Straw man, indeed. Back to English 101 for you, Mr. Douthat.
2
There is this nice little legal ditty called IMPLIED CONSENT.
If the church does not act against sexual improprieties, though their positive basically outlaw them, then by IMPLIED CONSENT they lose the right to enforce that part of their tenets.
It is like an apartment complex that has a rule against animals, but allows them anyway, they are implying consent to have animals in the apartment.
I read and respect Ross Douthat's opinions and writing greatly. But when it comes to his mother church you could drive an aircraft carrier through his blind spot. Decades of celibacy especially when at a time homosexually was repressed and not openly accepted turned entering the seminary into a default choice for many young sexually confused men. Can anyone imagine a worse filtering process for creating a class of moral and spiritual leaders, and personal counselors? This has been a unmitigated disaster and the thousands of victims are a stain which can never be cleansed. And it is possible the church will never heal from the financial damages as well. If this were any other issue one can imagine I think Douthat would be the first to see that allowing priest to marry would be the first step in moving beyond this tragic period in the church that is so important to him.
2
Keep clinging to the wreckage of the sinking ship. You may stay afloat, at least a little longer.
Alternatively, you could climb about the seaworthy rescue ships that are sailing along side.
The choice is yours.
1
So maybe I'm dumb or ignorant or something. I couldn't follow this column's conflation of changing sexual mores with celibacy for priests and nuns. Furthermore, except for politicians trying to "find an angle" I don't think many of us pay much attention to whether one is Catholic or not (kind of went out the window with John Kennedy's election).
Regardless of the ever-changing definition of healthy sexuality there is a constant: like almost all animals humans propagate by engaging in sex. The urge is there because without it we wouldn't be around for long.
Whatever the upsides to a life of celibacy the "urge" remains even in the most pius. And the fact is that even among celibates, the urge will be satisfied either by hand or by nocturnal dreams (at least for men--don't know about women).
So why deny the truth? Why demand priests and nuns to live a lie? As with death it's going to happen whether you like it or not. Douthat is probably wrong that changing the rules for priests and nuns won't have much effect on overall sexual misconduct. At a minimum it might save a whole bunch of kids from the awful abuse and emotional devastation inflicted on them by horny priests.
2
Being a faithful Catholic and a loyal Republican must be very challenging. In both instances, you're a willing enabler of their bad behaviors unless you are actively advocating for massive institutional change.
1
It's true that the oft-repeated "Celibacy is the problem" is too simplistic a critique of the evils the Catholic priesthood has perpetrated.
This piece is - surprise! - a typical piece of Douthatian sleight of hand. Much more sophisticated critiques exist, and I'm sure Douthat is aware of them. Pick the _easiest_ piece of the overall critique to debunk, so as to leave the rest of the structure standing, but hopefully unnoticed.
Sorry, not by all of us.
The latest iteration of what Douthat calls "anti-Catholic rhetoric" is accurate. Moreover, many of us have _always_ said; it is not somehow just the "latest iteration" of complaints about the Catholic church.
"Repressive cruelty" is a critique that hasn't changed over hundreds of years. Interesting Douthat doesn't take it on in its substance, instead tries to problematize it pointing to its historical shifts.
At some point, dear boy, the problems with the Catholic church's twisted and perverse stance on sexuality need to be taken seriously. How about this: ALL of those critiques have some validity - did then, and do now.
Even when the church was being accused of "harboring homosexuals" at a time when homosexuality was widely condemned, the problem for _your_ analysis is that THIS WAS TRUE. The fact that homosexuality was unjustly condemned does not make the observation that the church was turning a blind eye to gay priests somehow less accurate, nor the hypocrisy less stinging.
1
I am absolutely stunned that anyone can write a column about this topic and not once mention the child abuse, assault, rape by Catholic Priests and the cover up by the Catholic Church. Just in US, there have been tens of thousands of victims, children as young as 3, most between 11 and 14, most boys but also girls, by thousands of priests. There are similar horrific numbers around the world. Besides absolutely destroying the lives of these children, the horror is multiplied by the Catholic Church’s coverup, at every level including the Popes, including the current Pope - who is on most issues far better than almost all Popes, but too liberal for Douthat - with Catholic families that looked the other way as their children in their community and even their own family were being abused, brutalized, raped, destroyed.
I have no idea if Douthat’s strawman about celibacy for Catholic Priests makes the abuse and coverup worse or not. There is a recent scandal with married Baptist ministers and leaders. The abuse exists in other religious groups. And Douthat is right to point to #MeToo movement that shows that men (mainly) will sexually assault no matter what circumstances. But Douthat misses that #MeToo is about abusing power, typically men abusing women. The problem with the Catholic Church is power, concentrated male power, it’s about the misuse of power, it’s the rot of the entire institution. Douthat’s pathetic defense of his beloved Catholic Church will not change that reality.
2
Celibacy is a healthy option along the spectrum of responsible sexuality.
Forced celibacy, forced homosexuality, forced heterosexuality, forced abstinency, or forcing any sexual behavior is troublesome, unhealthy, and dangerous.
This is a different conversation from the immorality, illegality, and harm of those who abuse youth, women, and men.
Let those who choose celibacy freely choose it.
Let there be a married priesthood for those choosing it.
While we're at it, let women in on the choice to serve as priests.
And for Pete's sake, let's step away from the unnecessary gilded, ornate, elevated, and magisterial adornments of a spirituality meant to be everyday, ordinary, down to earth, and face to face.
2
Instead of judging the church's celibacy policy based on its critiques, why not judge it on its own dubious merits. Most humans have a sex drive. When denied access to sex, many will look for ways to subvert the system. Insisting that priests deny their sexual needs has only created an alarming number of deceitful and abusive priests over many generations. The system must be changed if this situation is ever to be overcome. Opposing one author's argument doesn't change that fact.
Ross Douthat’s weakness: Any issue that intersects with the crying need for the Catholic Church to stare any reality of institutional rot and theological hypocrisy in the face and DO something to make it better. Said another way: Where is Douthat’s head? Answer: in the sand.
this is disgusting. the Catholic Church has not abused children, women and men since years, or decades, but since centuries. the broken social structures of many indigenous populations where the church brought "salvation" are still nursing the wounds that generations of sexual abuse has brought to them. don't tell me that the Catholic Church harbors one healthy sexual conscience as long as it doesn't accurate (and retribute) for this fact. I can not help to believe that, if these abusers, who were and continue to be, primarily men were married that there wife would not have put a stop to this. but alas, the structure of the Church attracts people with a sick sexuality that makes these abuses possible.
I dunno. Just because it is nowhere mentioned in the New Testament that Jesus ever got laid, that is not a logical proof he never did. The one episode where he resisted the wiles of a particular sultry temptress is just that, an episode. It is hardly the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Nowhere in the NT does Jesus demand of his evangelically inclined followers that they abjure the pleasures of a mate, regardless of gender. Seems to me the priests and bishops are just doing what comes naturally. We rightfully have rules and laws addressing the dangers of preying on the immature and on assault and just plain unwanted advances. Where these are broken, retribution is deserved and warranted, regardless of whether they occur behind and altar or in the confines of a car.
The Catholic demand of celibacy is decidedly contrary to the construct of the body and the brain of any species where it takes two to tango, from fish to fowl to our fellow mammals.
Remember the Luddites? Where are they now? We did evolve, you know, contrary to what millions of Baptists, Pentecostals and the rest of the innumerable fundamentalist sects that litter this country would have you believe. This brings up one last question. Are people born a Catholic, anymore than a fish starts out life as a Jew?
Douthat's defenses of religion and his own preferred version are always good for a few Sunday morning chuckles.
Thanks, Ross.
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@Glen
Loved your comment - very refreshing and down to earth.
1
Neglected in this column about the need for the church's views on sexuality to remain exactly the same as they did in the time of Jesus (who never claimed to be celibate), is the fact that, for thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children raped and violated by priests, their lives will never be the same.
1
States should enact laws making it illegal to require celibacy as a condition of employment.
2
Your argument is weak, because you leave out an important fact: celibacy for priests became mandatory only about 1000 years ago. Further, the main reason was not for questions of sex, but for questions of inheritance. (The church did not want its properties to be contested by priests' children.)
1
I normally enjoy Douthat's editorials, but here he goes after a red herring, instead of addressing the gigantic and horrifying elephant in the room, which is child sexual abuse. That is the only unhealthy sexuality anyone's interested in, and there is absolutely no question that the institution of celibacy is largely to blame. Failure to make this the central (really the only) issue is to deal in irrelevancies and to reinforce the impression that the church's defenders are interested only in evasion.
Yes, we live in a Fallen world, and the Catholic Church is the only hope we have to escape that world's terrors. Clerical celibacy denotes the difference. Unless the Church itself is the Devil in disguise.
1
I have known people from an assortment of religions, and the one thing they all had in common was an interest in sex. Some were heterosexual. Some were homosexual. Some were asexual. None of them wanted to be what they were not. All of them wanted to be what they were--without shame or humiliation. Find me a human religion that welcomes everyone. The only sin or crime is coercing others into a sexual situation that they don't want.
1
Unconvincing. Consider the facts: the percentage of predators in other denominations. Consider my hypothesis: when sexuality goes underground, anything can go underground. It's the lack of transparency that a celibacy requirement creates that's the real problem. But you can't separate the two. Kill the celibacy requirement and you kill the covert, predatory behavior.
2
Very bizarre. In a discussion of Catholicism and sexuality Douthat refers only once to what's been headline news for years now: the Church's enormous criminality, and, if you're Catholic, the appalling and shocking sinfulness, of the sexual abuse scandal. And he does so obliquely, by way of warning Catholics not to dismiss criticism of the scandal simply because it might resemble "an anti-Catholic polemic brought to life."
Perhaps Douthat meant this piece for a right-wing Catholic publication, and only submitted it accidentally to the Times.
1
“The rhetoric of anti-Catholicism, whether its sources are Protestant or secular, has always insisted that the church of Rome is the enemy of what you might call healthy sexuality.”
Gosh, Ross, do you think some of these latest criticisms may have a point because of the cover-ups of rampant child molestation?
An utterly romanticized vision of ministry, not borne out in the lived experience of millions of Catholics.
It's clear Douthat is a convert: easily captivated by liturgical "smells and bells" and the exquisitely tailored finery of the new pre-Vatican I, post-Vatican II (escapist) ordinandi.
1
Mr Douthat:
Past time you offered an argument that proves celibacy and chastity are natural.
1
Ross, it must be difficult to rationalize your shaky beliefs. Hence, your current straw man: social values evolve but the Church’s values remain constant. Except when they don’t. Popes with children in the past have since evolved into today’s nuns being forced into abortions by their rapist priests. (Two sins for the price of one!) The truth is that Catholic hypocrisy remains constant but it’s values and practices have changed. Just not for the better. Denying human sexual desire works about as well as shifting child-raping priests to a new parish.
1
Reading Douthat’s column, you don’t really get that the Catholic Church is an institution that aids and abets pedophiles, likely for centuries. The reason to end celibacy is to try to make the percentage of pedophiles in the priesthood the same as the rest of society.
If it was any other institution that didn’t have many followers and a purported connection to the almighty, it would be banned and closed for the crimes it has allowed.
Why not allow Diocesan Priests the option of being married ?
If you wish to be a member of a Religious Order then
Celibacy is in order.
1
Douthat, it's the 21st Century. You argue for an antiquated understanding of human sexuality.
Your Bible is from the ancient world -- 2000 years ago! -- replete with values and ethics appropriate for a world unacquainted with science or our, by several magnitudes, more enlightened understanding of human sexuality.
Any belief system that requires men and women to be celibate in this day and age, a completely unnatural practice of self-repression that all but guarantees failure in ways that are psychologically self-destructive to the practitioner, who when they do fail must do so SECRETLY or face authoritarian consequences.
With all due respect, Catholicism's policy of celibacy is a dogma grounded in the authoritarian and superstitious psychology of the Middle Ages. It's as absurd as a Republican's dogmatic faith in the thoroughly discredited trickle down, neoliberal economics that promises to lift all boats despite its real world effect of always doing quite the opposite for everyone but the dogma's most ardent promoters -- the rich.
It is, in short, grounded in fear -- of sexuality; a perverse belief that sex is a temptation of the flesh, the work of the devil. That's not just medieval, it's silly beyond words.
Stop demonizing sex as something the holiest members of your church must deny themselves, the supposed arbiters between God and humanity. Same for the brides of Christ; it's not enough that their arbitration is considered second rate by virtue of their SEX.
1
Let’s come right down to the Genesis of the Church. It was flawed from the start, thanks in part to its founder Paul.
Jesus NEVER said or implied that to follow HIM meant Celibacy: PERIOD!!!
“Suffer the little Children to come to me” isn’t possible with Celibacy! If the world had taken Paul’s proclamation NOT to marry, our world would have come to an inglorious end!
If the Catholic Church suddenly passed a ruling about Celibacy, I doubt anything would change immediately. The reason? The existing priesthood’s ideology regarding Celibacy and what caused them to accept it in the first place is flawed!
Many years ago, comedian Lenny Bruce once said “More people today are leaving the Church and returning to God.”
I am a Catholic and I am also a critic. While I appreciate your columns and support of the Church, I believe you are mistaken and a mindset like yours will lead to the final demise of our Church.
Celebicy was not a requirement in the early church. Are there any data that show such has made the Church more relevant?
The Church continues to demean women. When will you address this issue? The role of women in the Church needs to be enlarged. First women deacons, then women priests.
The Church is not of the people, but of the male hierarchy wearing robes of richness. It is the ultimate patriarchy—and scandles abound.
The issue regarding gays is particularly hypocritical.. it is not wrong that many priests are gay— but the Church’s vilification of gays then is unbelievable.
The Church purports to follow the tenets of Jesus, but then hides child abuse, and yes the raping of nuns.
The Church forbids the use of contraceptives knowing that in developed countries most families use such.
The Church preaches forgiveness and reconciliation—but not for Those divorced.
Ross, you are defending the patriarchy and the unusual sexual bias of the Church. It will result in the destruction of our Church.
Why do you not focus on social justice, support for the poor and the least of us?
I hope you keep reporting on the Church- Your current approach is misguided. I feel we should give you red slipper and a golden staff—appoint you a cardinal in the patriarchy.
371
@Mary
Ross is a noted convert. No zealot like a convert.
Good point about the Church's criticisms and attacks on gay guys being out-of-sync with the number of gay clergy and bishops. And. yes, I agree that there is nothing wrong with gay guys being priests.
16
@Mary. Very well said! Why is it never mentioned that St. Peter, the first Pope had a mother-in-law? Women need to be allowed to at least become deacons. That they can be lectors at Mass, but only males can read the gospels to the congregation is ridiculous. The is no reason why women cannot be priests. To see photos of elderly white males gathered in the Vatican is be depressing.
13
@Mary. You state basically all the reasons I left the church.
15
Celibacy is a "recent" requirement of the priesthood. For about half of the history of Christianity, celibacy seemed to have been a non-issue. As a man-made requirement, Douthat spends his time defending current policy, not the teaching of Jesus. Defending clerical bureaucratic decisions is a waste of time.
4
Preserving the call is not a sign of wisdom but a pointless attempt to avoid just how failed and hypocritical the Catholic church is and always has been. It's so wrong in so many ways. Defending it is thus also wrong.
It pretends to be wise and all-knowing when it's really an ancient effort to exert social control when it comes to sex even as sex is used and abused by those within it. The good it accomplishes pales in relation to the evil and misery it creates for so many with it's sanctimonious rules about sexuality and procreation. The Catholic church needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt...by women.
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1
I am not Catholic but I have studied a lot of Church History. Celibacy has little to with Jesus or any time close to Jesus' life. It wasn't formalized until the 12th Century though encouraged earlier. It was also designed for the Church to gain the property of the now heirless clergy.
4
Is the RCC interested in encouraging goodness and faith? Or in keeping it's great power and wealth, just like any for-profit corporation? Maybe they need to ask themselves - what is the job description of a priest. Celibacy/chastity / all male has NOTHING to do with bringing more light into this world. In fact, it creates the power imbalance by conferring on these men an identity that puts them clearly above and apart from the flock and out of which comes abuse of all kinds and misogyny, in general. It must be very difficult, even for those with good intentions, to not believe what the system is reinforcing and feeding them, that they are closer to God , special, etc. Arrogance, at the very least, would always be a danger. And then hypocrisy - do as I say , not as I very humanly do. I have been holding out through all of these revelations, but I have reached my limit. I no longer want to see a human being , literally standing above us at Mass, tell me how to be holy. I will come back when that person is allowed to be as human as the rest of us.
2
Mr. Douthat writes:
“Catholicism is constantly asked to ‘reform’ away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life.”
It’s true that the New Testament records several moments when Jesus challenges notions of family. But doing so was in service of getting his disciples and followers to see *beyond* their immediate familial bonds to recognize a larger family, that of humanity. He continuously placed children in front of his followers as examples of those who would be first in the kingdom of heaven, of those who were capable of receiving and responding naturally to the love given by God.
In other words, the spiritual life isn’t about keeping our circle of what we would call “family” small, contained, and insulated. It’s about recognizing, as Jesus said in Mark 3, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” What’s interesting here is how quick we are to decide exactly who it is doing the will of God...
The practices around celibacy come instead from the letters of Paul, who busied himself creating an ethical structure for the fledgling church. Paul himself was both zealous and unmarried, and is the one who states that celibacy is the preferred state. He was speaking purely from his own experience and assumptions, and is perhaps a good example of exactly what modern church-goers are complaining about.
4
This may seem an odd response to this article, but as as non-Catholic gay boy growing up in a deep deep closet, in a world where hetero marriage was the only option, learning that there were women and men in the Catholic world who did not have to get married was for me a liberating discovery and a doorway to new possibilities.
3
There is a missing word here, Mr Douthat: Mandatory as an adjective to celibacy. Is true that celibacy is a beautiful charism. Many men and women have chosen to remain celibate for the sake of their commitment to service: Not all are priests and nuns. Doctors in mission work and teachers, for instance, have remained unmarried. As to chastity, we are all bound by the rule that sexual intimacy is licit only for married people. This is also a beautiful ideal to aim for. But in the western church, you cannot be a priest unless you remain celibate. Can love be forced?
1
To further argue that the unrealistic pathology of celibacy is justifiable and that any critique of it is bigotry is both offensive and anti-intellectual. Either integrate the Church into the realistic & fact-based world, or the Church will continue to be justly criticized and it will continue to do damage to its adherents.
5
Oh puh-leeze! Celibacy should be an option, not a mandate. Problem solved. This celibacy thing was never taken very seriously for centuries. Plenty of popes had mistresses and children.
Sex is a human thing. Without it, none of us would be here.
In my life, I've had a married friend who had a priest's baby; known several former seminarians who left the church and later came out as gay; a colleague at work who was a month away from entering the priesthood, took a leave of absence came back married with a pregnant wife. A priest once dated my sister, he said, because he hadn't taken his final vows.
The real problem in the church is the wholesale cruelty of preying on innocents: priests raping nuns; nuns abusing orphans; and turning a blind eye to the murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, to name a few of the most obvious.
231
So even after all we've learned over the past 20 years, Mr. Douthat implicitly posits the Catholic Church as the sole bulwark against a dystopia of pornography, sex robots, and lonely death. Recently I heard a moving sermon by an 86-year-old Episcopalian priest. He said providing hospice care for his late wife led to see the human body not as a temple of the Holy Spirit, but more as a tent - collapsible and impermanent, analogous perhaps to worship sites of Old Testament Israelites in the desert. This beautiful analogy sprang directly from his life as a non-celibate, married man.
6
To equate sincere disagreements on the issue of celibacy with anti-Catholicism is intellectually dishonest. First, if one believes that God created humans in his likeness and if humans are sexual beings, then celibacy can logically be thought of as being against God's plans for human beings. Second, the foundation of celibacy is that Jesus was celibate and therefore, to demonstrate additional piety, holiness, sacrifice, or whatever, one should practice celibacy. Yet no one knows if Jesus was celibate or remained unmarried. Third, in attending religious ceremonies of various faiths throughout my lifetime I discovered that the most meaningful sermons for coping morally with the challenges of life have been given by Protestant ministers, who are married and who therefore understand the many facets of living. Fourth, that celibacy as a requirement of the priesthood is ridiculous is proven by the fact that throughout the centuries, celibacy has not been honored by the numerous priests, even popes. So please, Mr. Douthat, do not equate arguments against celibacy with anti-Catholicism. I am a Catholic myself.
16
Yet — Anti-Catholics’ scathing attacks on Catholicism abound in these critical letters against Mr. Ross Douthat’s support of celibacy. Too many critics make the unproven claim that celibacy is the primary “cause” of sexual abuse — despite the fact that most sexual abuse is predominantly by married men. Then, these same critics expound that the “only solution” to sexual abuse is the “end of celibacy”— despite the fact that again most every priest and bishop grew up in a Catholic family and were raised by married men. Though not every adult who was sexually abused as a child abuses later in life, clinicians do see a direct link from childhood victimization in families of origin and later sexual abuse by these victims as adults.
I'm not a church historian, but in my limited research, I think that the church compromised it's basic foundation when it was absorbed into the Roman Empire. The garments, ceremonies, rituals, and even the holy days that Catholics follow today are vestiges of the religions of the Roman empire. Christmas at the winter solstice? Easter around the spring equinox? Is the celibate priesthood also a part of that compromise? Can you trust anything in the new testament or is that also written in a roman world view? Why, until Vatican II was the secular life considered a compromise? The corruption of the institution cannot allow itself to be reformed.
7
Orthodox men can marry before priestly ordination — but not all do — but Orthodox bishops and patriarchs are all celibate. I doubt any Orthodox would support your claim to pagan origins to their feasts and religious celebrations.
@CitizenBTV
"The celibate priesthood" was invented, I believe, so priests would not be tempted to steal church money and give it to their relatives.
More often than not I’m left swimming in ambivalence after reading one of Mr. Douthat’s columns. This time, not so much.
Not one word in the article about WHY celibacy was, is, or should be official RCC policy. Many others have commented on the historical origins: Second Council of the Lateran, in 1136. Notably, this was around the same time as the RCC’s proclamations that the Cathar movement (which grew in large part out of a desire to shun the clerical abuses of the Catholic church) needed to be wiped out—which they did, to the tune of upwards of one million people killed. The Church’s logic in both cases was the same: Hold onto power, money, and influence—nothing about Scriptural adherence.
Why not look at the issue of celibacy as simply a human rights issue? As in, “Women’s rights are human rights.” Why go through such mental contortions based on some misguided notion that celibacy is a necessity? It’s not, just like burning people at the stake for heresy isn’t a Scriptural requirement, either.
14
Instead of protestantism or secularism, Douthat might consider a parallel Christian tradition that goes in a completely orthogonal direction: Orthodoxy. [often termed Eastern Orthodoxy in the West]
In the Orthodox practice and theology, there is room both for married priests and for celibate priests. There is a rich tradition in Orthodoxy of celibacy in the monastic orders. But that is not enforced on the priesthood.
Quite the opposite. Orthodox teachings see that for priests to relate to their flocks, understanding the issues of family, marriage, child-rearing, etc. are important insights and cultures to be immersed in. There exist two parallel groups of priests: the white (married) and black (celibate) clergy. Often the latter, with more time available, serve in more administrative positions, but it varies.
The Catholic insistence on priestly celibacy is actually fairly recent by the timeline of church history, not occurring until after the Great Schism and 1000 years after its foundation. It had as much to do with economics (inheritance issues of married clergy and the economic needs of the church) as it did theology.
Instead of either or, why not do as the "Eastern" Christians: allow both married and celibate clergy. It offers a sacramental choice long established.
7
This editorial does not begin to make any case for clerical celibacy until its bitter end. Primarily, it’s a critique of the inconsistency of its critics. Finally, it cites the example of Jesus, who was an exceptional figure if ever there was one. Priests do not claim to be the literal sons of God, nor are they crucified. Priestly celibacy was invented by the misogynistic Saint Augustine, and does not date to the beginnings of Christianity. Human men in the numbers required by the church have not been capable of maintaining Augustine’s ideal, and countless others have suffered. It’s unacceptable, to say the least.
13
I don’t agree with your conclusions. Opening up the clergy to conduct open personal lives with family/children is the first step towards changing a culture of conducting affairs in the shadows. It has the potential to bring in an entirely new group to the clergy. The situation is so catastrophic that a radical change in the only chance to restore legitimacy. The celibate priesthood has lost its moral high ground, which in this instance, is everything.
15
There are generations and generations of victims and critics are trying to find solutions, which is more than I can say for the Church or its apologists.
7
What this article conspicuously fails to do is make a case for celibacy.
Why should the Roman Catholic church maintain it given all the problems that seem to go with it? And given that most other religious traditions seems to do just fine without it. And given that the practice/rules about it have varied over the years.
Why indeed.
17
Celibacy as a requirement for priesthood is “ relatively” recent.
It is ridiculous to say celibacy is related to greater spirituality.
What it does is exclude many good people who wish to get married from the priesthood. It also is associated with a good deal or hypocrisy.
15
Ross wrote:
"Catholicism is constantly asked to “reform” away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life."
Maybe. But it's curious that it took a thousand years for the Church to definitively recognize this New Testament connection, and to formally and unequivocally mandate clerical celibacy.
Such delay suggests that one can find "connections" wherever and whenever one wants. The institution of the papacy itself is the beneficiary of such delayed recognition. But that's a story for another day.
10
I think Douthat makes a good argument for not dismantling celibacy as a venerable practice in the church. However, I do not believe that it should be a requirement for ordination; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit for some, but not for all, and that gift does not automatically descend upon ordination. Many good (non-predator) priests struggle horribly with the requirement. What is not mentioned here is that the celibacy policy is tied to the power structures of the church; even making celibacy an option for future ordinands would require an adjustment in how power is exercised by bishops (not easy to move families, for instance)—and so there is built-in resistance to the idea. Currently there seems to be some openness to ordaining "viri probati"—essentially old men who've been married for decades and who would simply be sacramental dispensers. This proposal is insulting to the institution of marriage and family, which should lie at the heart of the church's life, including the life of its ordained. My recommendation would be that new candidates for ordination be given the option to take the vow of celibacy. This would require a sea change in the formation culture of most seminaries, but in a relatively short period of time the priesthood would have been changed. I prescind here from discussing the ordination of women (married or celibate). That, too, absolutely must happen, at least in the US. Time is running out.
3
It does seem that celibacy is important to reach a peak spiritual experience however that peak experience is rarely the goal. If goodness and high moral character is the goal, neither celibacy nor maleness is required to be an excellent priest or lay person.
Excluding women from the priesthood has had a much bigger impact on Church's failure to prevent sexual abuse of children, nuns, and others, than celibacy has.
6
In Italy, the wife and children are heirs by law. Celibacy is desirable because the priest will not have anyone to inherit his wealth, so the Church can get everything. The aristocracy is interested in the celibacy doctrine, and they are powerful, so maybe the Pope can't just do what he wants. But I believe the law now includes illegitimate children in some cases, so the priest wouldn't completely be off the hook.
8
Of course the Catholic Church permits married priests. You just have to follow the trail of asterisks.
*An Episcopal/Anglican high church priest experiences a conversion to Catholicism.
*He's already married.
*His priesthood is grandfathered into his conversion experience. He's still a priest.
*His sacramental marriage is still respected, so he is allowed to remain married.
That's the fact of it, and many dioceses have such married priests. I would leave it to church sociologists to describe and report the difference in their subsequent ministries as pastors. And I leave it to the Curia to describe the theology of it.
Though I'd enjoy reading Ross Douthat trying to reconcile the logic of it.
11
Maybe the Church should concentrate on the clearly illustrated theme that the apostles were fishermen. That might solve a multitude of issues.
17
I'm not so interested in whether Catholicism has celibate monastic orders -- or, whether effete, gay men are attracted to that, or, why nuns want to be celibate. I assume there will be that happening, as well as those who want to live a contemplative life with celibacy vows for spiritual purposes. (And, even both happening at the same time for some).
That doesn't matter to me any more than there are celibate monks and nuns in Buddhist monasteries around the world. Who cares -- I don't. None of my business.
What *does matter to me is oppression and abuse of children, women and men at the hands of said practitioners of any such order of any religion or philosophy (whether it is sexual or any other form of abuse or flagrant disregard of rights and dignity). This is my concern. And, only that. The rest is distraction.
29
What Ross and many others seem to ignore, or leave unsaid, is that the elevation of chastity as a virtue relegates "unchastity," which might include lustiness between married partners, to a lesser level of virtue. All manner of judgement and finger-pointing flows from this. I come from a Roman Catholic/Irish Catholic/Jansenist culture amid a wider not-Irish Catholic culture. Within the church, there are ethnically based and gender-based micro-cultures from which individuals are quick to point their fingers wherever they need to in order to protect "mother" church, which is indeed a "father" church. While I am happy that the church is opening up about abuse of boys and nuns, I am still waiting for all of the women who were abused as girls in penitential asylums, convents and homes for wayward (sexually abused or sexually active) girls to come forward and shout about how the nuns and women of the church treated them. Maybe most of these women are dead or wish to forget. And, maybe they are pressured into silence. These places didn't advertise themselves in the newspaper the way modern Catholic schools do.
12
You seem to equate any questioning of celibacy as anti-Catholic. I have not heard anyone say that priests can't be celibate, just that it should be an option and not a requirement. I have known healthy celibate priests, and it seems to be a good option for them. I fail to understand your point about gay priests. Society has evolved. The American Catholic church needs to constantly examine its policies. The central tenant of Catholicism is that a Catholic needs to act out of an informed conscience. What you are seeing is people trying to work this out for themselves. It is not just a question of celibacy for priests Catholics also struggle with other issues such as contraception, divorce and abortion. The American Catholic Church has a few options. They can look the other way while the laity continue to live with their duplicity. They can work with the laity to explore ways to keep what is truly essential while opening to change. Or they can take the "my way or the highway" approach. I can only hope that a middle way can be found. Otherwise, the American Catholic Church will continue to die.
10
When once I was a Catholic and in need of marriage counseling, I went to the pastor of my parish church. How could that be, I thought, that a priest who had never married could be of any help with my and my wife’s issues?
I went to him twice, didn’t learn a thing other than to pray and seek forgiveness, and go to confession. About what I expected.
A couple of months later, the priest absconded with the widow of a parishioner who had been killed in a car wreck. I didn’t expect that turn of events, but perhaps I should have.
16
@Paul Bernish I have never understood why anyone would seek counsel from a religious leader unless that leader was a licensed therapist. They are very detached from the reality of the world (they do, after all, peddle in the imaginary). Catholic priests are the worst though because they REALLY don't have a connection with real life struggles. They don't have relationships, don't pay bills, etc.
Hard to count the number of straw-man arguments in this article. You don't address the question of homosexuality in the Church by describing the sequence of attacks on it. Anyone who wants to live a celibate life should be free to do so. But the Church requires celibacy--in effect it advertises itself as a safe place for homosexuals. So what? That's only a problem that the Church creates for itself by proscribing homosexuality. But the presence of homosexuals doesn't have anything to do with predation. That's something else. Perhaps the Church recruits people who are too young, who don't know who they are but thrive in a hierarchical environment where people are preoccupied with the embarrassment of the institution and no one takes responsibility.
13
The seeds for celibacy can be tied to the confiscation of property for being a priest. Remember there is a history of married priests. Celibacy follows a historical pattern of forgiving for money. Be it money laundering of the Medici family's banking interest for loaning to create Cathedrals and producing art, or the creation of celibacy to acquire property. The hierarchy of the Church’s goal was to make the Catholic Church more wealthy and powerful than governments.
Even in modern history, we have hierarchical hypocrisy.
Annulments are given for contributions. Remember Ted Kennedy’s annulment even though he procreated children. The Church ignores contraception while over 80% of US Catholic women have used it.
For nearly 30 years, the Church has said kind words of support to its victims, but they have not taken any serious actions. Until the Church changes it hypocritical views, many others and I will be “Catholics in Waiting.” We believe in a Supreme Being but not in proclamations of the hierarchy. The core teachings guide me in my daily life, but I have no regard for the hierarchy.
Ross Douthat has written many times about the Church in which he generally defends it. He needs to come to grips with the moral decline of the Roman Catholic Church. Now is the time to call for change, or the Church will die as an institution. I look forward to his future column that says, “Enough is enough” and says to Pope Francis “Actions speak louder than words.”
21
@Stephen
Nobody confiscates the property of priests. They do not take the "vow of poverty" like nuns and are free to own cars, jewelry, watches, property etc.
Ross, check out the first Pope, married with family....and who said his Rabbi, Joshua, was a life long celibate?
We know precisely nothing about the great majority of his life.
In fact if celibacy was so important in early christianity, why did it take so long for it to be codified?
Is there a place? No one says there isn't, but the Eastern Orthodox church (as old as the Roman one) has struggled along with both types of religious quite well.
Also, maybe it's time for the church (all churches!) To recognize that homosexuality has more to do with how people are made, than what choices they make. Or has your God just made a lot of mistakes, or instead makes an organization that condemns people for what they are, instead of who they are.
15
Douthat conveniently leaves out that there was a time when priests were permitted to marry and the term celibacy simply meant "unmarried".
Elevating the unmarried male to an exalted position both within the church and society in general was driven by the construction of a church hierarchy that would place priests above parishioners and demonstrate earth sacrifice to symbolically mimic the scenic of Jesus.
Aside from whatever historical role this played, none of that is needed today and aside from a slavishly holding on to old, outmoded conventions, there is neither need nor justification for it continuing.
And the problem isn't just with the Catholic church. Protestants have claimed Christian virtue for the most brutal savagery known to mankind. It is all of Christianity, not just the Catholics that need serious self examination.
13
The changes in the idea of “sexual health” Douthat describes mostly have to do with social structures and the (non-sexual) relationships between men and women. The major changes in ideas about sexuality have really just been two: acceptance of sex outside of marriage and homosexuality. In any case, criticism of the Catholic Church in earlier eras was about the theological schism between Protestants and Catholics and not sexuality. I am old enough to recall Protestants describing Catholic use of saints’ images as idolatry; suspicion of the Pope as a competitor for the political allegiance of Catholic Americans: and a general distaste for the idea of a priest as the necessary mediary between Christians and their God. The current revulsion against the Catholic Church is the result of the Church having aided and abetted criminal behavior. And since the crimes have been largely sexual, the scandals have shone a strong light on the ways the Catholic priesthood has been diminished and corrupted in the modern era by the rule of celibacy. The rule has cut the Church off from many men and women who have been called by God to the ministry. At the same time, it has allowed the Catholic priesthood to become a hiding place for men ashamed or uncertain of their sexuality. It is hard to see how the Church reforms the priesthood without eliminating the rule of celibacy - which did not exist for much of the Church’s history.
8
Mr. Douthat, before writing his "Why Celibacy Matters" should study the history of his church a bit more.
The fist Pope and Galilee fisherman Peter was married. The Council of Nicea in 325, called for by Emperor Constantine to stop the infighting among Christians, gave the world the Trinity but also put into canon law that priest can be married and have children, despite the opposition to such law by Spanish clerics.
Later in the Middle Ages the church decided that children of Catholic clerics could not inherit their fortune. The often vast fortune of Bishops, Cardinals and Popes stayed in the church.
A whopping thousand years after the establishment of the Catholic Church the celibacy law became doctrine.
22
How is the church different from any other large institution. It needs members for financial survival, thus the attitude about procreation of Catholic children and future membership: above all the hierarchy of any institution recognizes it must present itself in the the best light, thus the secrecy and blatant attempts to hide the sins of the organization - otherwise the institution will fall and more importantly so shall they.
The church shall survive this crisis, since everlasting life is the ultimate marketing tool. They cannot recruit sufficient numbers of priests (though the fallout from this longstanding sex crime issue may reduce the need for them). Ultimately, it is likely that the church will accommodate female and married priests for the practical reason that it cannot survive without them.
It is human nature that we shall always have some deviants in all aspects of society and as a result the vulnerable shall suffer. Maybe institutions can improve the situation, but history shows they tend to have short memories.
1
It strikes me that the tradition of celibacy derives less from the life of Jesus than from the life and beliefs of Paul, a man who condoned the institution on the basis that it is better for a man to marry than to burn.
Celibacy and a male-only priesthood will be historical artifacts by the middle of this century. That, or the Catholic church will be.
4
Here’s what Mr. Douthat fails to acknowledge: To commit to becoming a Catholic priest requires that a very young man, barely beyond adolescence, commit to lifelong celibacy. Is it possible that the appeal of priesthood to too many is avoidance over unresolved issues with their own sexuality, and that those struggles don’t vanish with a lifelong vow of celibacy?
20
@CMGruen
"... a very young man, barely beyond adolescence..."
Are you sure? Isn't there a minimum age below which a man is not allowed to enter the priesthood.
-- Source of my "information" (quite unreliable, I must say): conversation between my mother and grandmother, heard at the dinner table when I was about 10 or 11 (around 1945). I got the impression that the Church required would-be priests to have reached a certain age.
Well, it’s certainly clear that the “institution of celibacy” doesn’t really solve anything. If a priest, as a human being on earth, decides to be celibate that should be as valid as it is for a human who doesn’t.
But that’s not really the problem because the crimes priests are accused, and convicted, of aren’t about sex. It’s about power over children and others so they can satisfy themselves. That priests are heterosexual, homosexual, sexually active or not doesn’t matter when a priest uses his power in the community to force himself on another person.
The church wants to make this about sex and sexuality because it conveniently pulls the debate into a sphere they wish to control anyway. Clergy sexual abuses, in all forms, are about men using their power to get what they want. Celibate or not celibate has nothing to do with it.
20
In the public conversation many are suggesting that opening the priesthood to women and/or allowing clergy to marry would both be solutions to the problem of clergy sexual abuse. While these actions would change many things about the environment in which clergy work it would not address the entire problem. Rape and sexual abuse of children are both crimes. These crimes should be reported to the authorities and allowed to play themselves out in the legal system. It is infuriating that even the reporting media have not made distinctions. Sex between consenting adults might be a sin in the eyes of the church and certainly is a violation of the clergy vows but it is not a crime. Forced sex on adults and/or children is a crime punishable in our courts.
9
Arguing the minutia of Catholicism, like celibacy, masks a far greater point, which is the legitimacy of the church itself. Catholicism wins when it can keep the conversation focused on the intricacies of this or that policy. If the interested parties are battling over policy, it leaves no space to look at the big picture. What big picture? The Catholic church perpetrated the biggest con in the history of civilization. They usurped a religious movement that offered a personal relationship with the Creator and inserted themselves as intermediary. There is no scriptural justification for the Catholic church. None. I have no skin in this game, I'm an atheist, and any dispassionate evaluation of Catholicism renders it indefensible. It was conceived as a vehicle for oppression, and it persists as such to this day.
If you read the Bible and then look at the Catholic church, making a case that the latter is inspired by the former is nonsensical. The Bible has nothing to say about popes, communion, confession, vast cathedrals, burning witches or denouncing science. Catholicism is a man made institution designed to control and fleece the populace by claiming authority over spirituality. It's continued existence in the 21st century is a shame on the human race and our potential for growth. But yes, let's throw our energy into debating the merits of a celibate male clergy. That's what matters.
37
@Ro
Wish I'd said that. Thank you!
1
While the focus of the piece is sound - the contemporary sexual mores of any period, and certainly of the current period, provide at best a shifting foundation for theology on this point and are thus poor grounds for criticism - that should not obscure fact that there are excellent arguments grounded in the history of the Church for abandoning both the exclusively male priesthood and the vow of celibacy. Jesus certainly did have radical ideas about the value of a biological family - ideas that most "Christians" would find abhorrent were they to encounter them outside of the New Testament. But otherwise, the idea that the example of Jesus should justify either or both is kind of silly, since it's far from certain that He was either unmarried or celibate. Even if he was both, most of those who knew him or knew those who knew him, clearly considered both women "priests" and married "priests" (the concept of a "priest" as currently understood hadn't yet emerged) to be an utterly unremarkable feature of the early Christian church. The emergence of a patriarchal priestly monopoly emerged later as Church culture became indistinguishable from the dominant Roman culture, and the concept of a celibate priesthood became established only hundreds of years later as the preservation of the Church's material wealth from dissipation to widows and children began to take precedence over other considerations. THAT's why this needs to change.
12
I would submit that it's still all about the money. The Pope doesn't want married priests because parishes would have to pay them more to support a family. That would lessen the amount of money that flows to the Vatican.
4
Ross, I think there is quite a bit of historical data that suggests the early church was not as obsessed with celibacy and sex. It came about later through Augustinian influences. The fact is - human sexuality is diverse, complex and developmentally driven. The first two adjectives would suggest that celibacy can be a legitimate form of human sexuality. But, the developmental requirements of sexuality, for all us, through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, maturity and into our geriatric years, requires a continuous reworking of our connection to sexuality, both within ourselves, with our bodies, and within our relationships.
My concerns with the church's primitive position toward sexuality is that there is there is no room for growth or exploration (even within the concept of celibacy). As a result, those in the religious order are sexually stifled, and their own sense of sexuality is developmentally stunted. It is no wonder that sexual deviancy would result from this (and I'm not talking about homosexuality). Hidden trysts, warped, twisted and coercive relationships result. I may be naive, but I don't think there are any lectures, seminars, study groups, etc. for priests or nuns that focus on "Understanding my sexuality within a vow of celibacy." And why would that be? Because the thought of human sexuality entering the Catholic church is terrifying to the leadership. But, as we see (and as could be predicted based upon human behavior), it is already there.
1
If clerical celibacy is there because it connects directly to the New Testament perhaps either the New Testament is wrong or the Catholic interpretation of the New Testament is wrong. As an institutional doctrine clerical celibacy is not working.
2
"...particular kinds of predation have flourished in the priesthood, and the worst of that predation looks like an anti-Catholic polemic brought to life."
Yes, Ross, it does. One obvious solution is for the church to accept gays, ordain women, and accept married priests.
"...Catholicism is constantly asked to 'reform' away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life."
Yes, we ask for reform, because no one knows whether Jesus was married or single, perhaps gay, and his gender is irrelevant. We know very little of the historical Jesus; he may not even have seen himself as God. The church, however, early on established itself as male and Roman, obliterating alternative Jesus and Christian communities and ways of thinking. Their best strategy was to subsume other challengers into the church, which allowed or encouraged them to exist as "orders" within the larger body.
I was taught that addressing church leaders as "father," "sister," and "mother" was a way of establishing boundaries as well as close bonds between them and the people they serve. If the church cannot make that a reality what is left?
4
I am a practicing Catholic and I love my Church. All the failing Catholicism is accused of, are human failures. Christ established Christianity and the Catholic Church was the first ever Christian Church. Whatever is wrong with the dogma, is not the original Church's failure , it is the humans who made them up. The communion of the faithful is what is important, not the human failures of individual representatives. That said, priests should be allowed to get married, as probably all the apostles were, celibacy is too hard and too lonely. There would be a much larger pool of possible priests to choose from. Also, the Church may expect the abidance of certain rules among their own, but definitely should not try to impose them on non-catholics.
3
@Elizabeth Sorry, Elizabeth. Did the Roman Catholic church teach you that Christ 'established' Christianity? That is wrong. Period. Paul established the church. Jesus was THROUGHOUT his life, a Jew who wanted to reform Judaism.
The underlying purpose of celibacy is quite simple. It's supposed to prevent priests from trying to pass on their parishes to their progeny, which was apparently a problem in the Middle Ages. If I recall correctly the rule wasn't enforced until the eleventh century or so, though some scholars dispute this.
8
A requirement for celibacy in the priesthood does not work well. It's not in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus. Just because it's been around a few centuries does not mean it should not be changed.
I truly do not understand the Church's desire to hang onto this anchor as it drags the institution down. It reeks of pride.
9
Wasn't celibacy introduced in the Middle Ages to avoid inheritance of church property? Aren't there affiliates of the Catholic Church that have married priests? Also I gather that in Latin America the priests were not married but never assumed to be celibate. They were assumed to have relations with married, maritally estranged (divorce not allowed) or widowed women. So while it might be a spiritual calling for some, celibacy doesn't go back to Jesus.
9
The best thing about this column is that Mr. Douthat writes of "Catholicism" and not of " The Church," for the sexual issues raised are largely, although not entirely, those of the Roman Catholic Church and not of Protestant Churches.
It is pretty well known that issues of celibacy are largely out of the second millennium. Half-a-millennium the Protestant Reformation ended celibacy for the clergy.
Where Mr. Douthat sees criticism of Catholicism's teachings on sexuality as anti-Catholicism, he would better address criticisms as reasonable objections by Roman Catholics as guides to their own lives and by non-Catholics as simply bad policy for the world at large.
Catholicism's teachings on sexuality that ban almost all but not all means of birth control are inconsistent. That Roman Catholics by-and-large do not follow those teachings and that others see in them bad policy for the world at large is not anti-Catholic. Insofar as Catholicism denies ordinary human sexuality, it sets itself up for the current clergy crisis.
8
Thanks you. Refreshing and convincing, better that many "clerical" commentaries with a aftertaste of inferiority complex when the role of the Church as a reference and ethical authority is most needed.
Retroactive reality enshrined in papal infallibility combined with rejection of science, historical accuracy, and overall at core condemnation of women is the problem. Celibacy was not part of the early church. It is not part of the parish Greek Orthodox church which really can claim a more continuous faith tradition.
Critique comes from outside because the Roman Catholic church has consistently attacked, persecuted, and condemned other faith traditions and continues to do so today. Perhaps it fears they are better, not that they have a lack of celibacy.
While we are at it, stay out of my medical care, science, hospitals, doctors offices, end of life decisions, law courts (SCOTUS), government, and environment. Catholic intrusions there is the biggest problem. The church deserves the attacks and they should be stronger yet.
30
"But at the same time, the way the “healthy sexuality” supposedly available outside the church seems to change with every generation"
That is not true. What has changed is the realization that sex between husband and wife isn't the only normal and approved version of sexuality.
This statement makes it seem as if each generation is turning a blind eye to all forms of sexual deviancy.
What is happening is each generation is starting to learn that families and love and relationships is not some binary choice.
Love always wins and the Church shouldn't be able to confine and define acceptable love to some narrow parameters. Well they can of course, but that dogma leads to their own demise.
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The Catholic Church is an institution related to God and Priests and Nuns are its ambassadors to the outside world. The outside world is for human life and God is only a small part of this life - technology has made God in the heaven irrelevant. The celibacy tradition and an organization of celebrate God seekers was started by Buddha as a Sangh. Why celibacy- it is the quality that a seeker of God needs to walk on the razor edge on his chosen path. Catholic Church should not compromise this tradition on the changing social culture of the outside world. The challenge is priests and nuns come to Catholic Church from outside world - the changing social culture molds them in their worldly life before joining the Church. The need is a rigorous selection process to identify the true seekers of God - candidates who are intelligent and logical but understands the limit of logic in seeking God, who knows the futility of the human body and mind and willing to use mind to go beyond that. If the selection and disciplinary process is right, celibate presets and nuns will come out of the Catholic Church and they will do immense good to the society by their example of life in this world. God seeking is the life style of the true seekers - it is not talks and lectures and writings, though those aspects are important.
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