Interviews with 4 priests about celibacy. I was a little troubled by the "it," but there's much more here than that. For example:
Being celibate means you are always able to be open to one more relationship. If you are in a relationship with another person, to a degree that has to be exclusive; other people have to be kept out.That is very profound and is helpful in ways not limited to those who have taken a vow of celibacy.
Do you remember the first time, as a child, you had the insight nothing is something?
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Profound indeed.
I was celibate until I was married and that understanding of openness to others was precisely how I processed my experiences.
Not only does it allow you to be open to more than one person it allows you to be truly open to people as they truly are--not trying to use or manipulate the other person for one's own gains.
It's a battle to keep at it, but that kind of openness--the kind that can be open without being corrupted or co-opted--leads to profound wisdom and human contribution in other parts of life.
That's the proverbial gift of singleness. Not being single in and of itself, but the ability to be a participant in a broader range of people's lives.
When I got married I made the choice to focus on my wife. And this meant a radical change in how open I could be with others. I am happy in this present, for sure, but there are friendships and interactions I miss.
That kind of openness even if not meaning something romantic on one side, after all, can often bring out feelings in others, and while that's a risk a single guy can take, it's not something a married guy should take.
I suppress my sexual feelings looking @ photos of narcisssistic, bloated women. Ironically, edutcher gets off on them. To each their own.
'God created it, but you are not allowed to play with it!'"
John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God.
God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it.
He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!
(A reading from the book of Pacino.)
That requires a certain strength of character lacking nowadays.
I always admired the old priests, not only for the celibacy, but their courage and devotion to their faith.
You heard about what happened to some of them when the Philippines fell and you wondered where they found that faith.
Ann Althouse said...
I was a little troubled by the "it,"
If that's how they dealt, (I know, objectification of women) you have to understand it had to be rationalized somehow.
ndspinelli said...
I suppress my sexual feelings looking @ photos of narcisssistic, bloated women. Ironically, edutcher gets off on them. To each their own.
Care to give any examples?
spinelli continues on his spiritual journey.
Have you been chased by women because you were considered to be 'safe'?
''I have experienced that. I was working in a seminary, and not infrequently I came across women who got very attached to religious men of all ages. They were often women who had been hurt by men; they saw safety in male company that was not dangerous.
I've always wondered about those priest groupies. Every Catholic church has them, regardless of the age or looks of the priest.
I can hardly wait to read Titus's thoughts on this topic.
Oh, wait. It's about being celibate, not sellabutt. My mistake!
Priests had considerable public support for their role in life. That is no more, at least in this country. In the 1960s, the seminaries were taken over by the equivalent of the sexual revolution. Gay activists took over and men were chosen by those who intended to "remake" the priesthood. It ended in disaster.
At this time, the Catholic Church needs to make celibacy voluntary. It is the only solution to the problems. There are still priests who follow celibacy and they should be respected. They aren't but that will change as the present generation fades away.
Just add it to the toll incurred by the baby boomer generation. One more traditional aspect of life destroyed.
hmm, priests suppressing sexual feelings ?!?
Let's be nice and just say many don't ie many priests have left the priesthood to get married. Or left just because. Many nuns also.
And no, I won't discuss sexual deviant priests and the bishops who covered up their sex crimes as that has been argued/debated ad nauseam.
>
A CPO friend of mine in the USN, who later became a warrant officer, was convinced 90% of priests are gay. Studies have shown it's around 30%.
I know, hard to believe I had a friend ...
There's nothing to be troubled over the word it. It's not like the word is, which troubles some people about the definition.
Woody Allen
When making love...when making love...in an effort...to prolong...the moment of ecstacy...I think of baseball players. All right, now you know. The two of us are making love violently, she's digging it, I figure I better start thinking of ballplayers quickly. So I figure it's one out, the ninth, the Giants are up. Mays lines a single to right, he takes second on a wild pitch. Now she is digging her nails into my neck. I decided to pinch-hit for McCovey. Alou pops out. Haller singles, Mays holds third. Now I got a first-and-third situation. Two out, the Giants are behind one run. I don't know whether to squeeze or steal. She's been in the shower for ten minutes, already. This is too...I can't tell you anymore, this is too personal. The Giants won.
If you don't believe in Free Will; celibacy is a joke. If you do believe; it can be an act of affirmation and more.
Contrapositive: If it's not something, it's not nothing.
"How did you suppress your sexual feelings?"
Honestly, I have no idea. It was a miracle. Thank God now due to age it's a lot easier. What could be scarier than the combination of senility and a teenage sex drive.
Nothing (taken narrowly) is something (taken broadly enough to cover it), on the model of might is right, or right is might (which are more or less opposite doctrines).
Something is nothing is likewise more or less an opposing doctrine.
You know the other profession in which its members are always open to "another relationship"?
Prostitution.
Ed, Spinelli is either a grotesquely mean-spirited person or the sock puppet of same. One of his favorite themes is that because Althouse enjoys car trips, she's afraid of flying. Supposedly a former private investigator...I don't buy it. Don't give him the time of day.
Nothing is something? I suppose that would depend on whether you define nothing as the empty set or as short for "no thing". The empty set is something--it exists in the sense that there is a set which contains nothing; at least math works best assuming so. On the other hand, there are predicates that can't define a set that exists. For instance (Russell's paradox), there is no set U of those sets V which aren't elements of themselves. (If there were such a set U, would U be an element of itself?)
As to whether no thing is something, that would only be the case if there were no things, which is implausible.
Some choose lives of celibacy, others have celibacy thrust upon them.
I believe the oath of celibacy is partly to blame for the priest sex scandals. Someone troubled by his sexual urges might find the priesthood attractive. Disturbing sex fantasies? Priests have no sex, problem solved.
Except the fantasies don't go away; instead the priest gets lots of opportunity to act on those disturbing urges.
Do you remember the first time, as a child, you had the insight nothing is something?"
Yes, but too much of nothing can make a man feel ill at ease, turn him into a liar, sleep on nails and do many strange things.
As an active practicing Catholic the linked article is old news. The kind of things you will hear all the time if you are listening in the Catholic church.
It is always interesting to see what you take as commonplace treated as completely foreign.
I think that the 'it' to which the priest is referring is his sexual urge, not the woman who promoted them.
Someone above said that priests are somehow 'not worldly'. That is not my experience. Often they have had all sorts of careers before becoming priests. Some have even raised families and become priests after they were widowed.
I have known priests who have worked all over the world as priests. Not having a spouse and family depending on you gives a priest the freedom to work wherever they may be needed.
One more thing that may lead to Catholic priests having serious insight into the human sexual condition... confession. Priests have a unique insight into just how much we can all mess up our lives and our relationships through poor sexual choices.
The main reason priests are not allowed to marry is $$$ as in it would cost the Vatican/parishes more money if priests had families.
Yes Virginia, the bottom line, as always, is the bottom line.
ie the Church does not have to worry about a Deacon's family health care, etc.
Reminds me a bit of this: Some of the other bishops asked my superior, Nonnus, whether he had any edifying comments for them, and without delay our holy bishop began to tell them something for the instruction and salvation of all who were listening. As we were all listening with enjoyment to his holy teaching, suddenly there passed by in front of us the foremost actress of Antioch, the star of the local theatre.
She was seated on a donkey and accompanied by a great and fanciful procession. She seemed to be clothed in nothing but gold and pearls and other precious stones. Even her feet were covered with gold and pearls. The male and female slaves accompanying her were extravagantly clothed in costly garments, and the torcs round their necks were all of gold. Some of them went before, others followed after.
The worldly crowd could not get enough of their beauty and attractiveness. As they passed by us the air was filled with the scent of musk and other most delicious perfumes, but when the bishops saw her passing by so immodestly, with her head bare, and the outlines of her body clearly visible, nothing over her shoulders as well as her head, and yet the object of such adulation, they all fell silent, groaned and sighed, and averted their eyes as if being forced to witness some grave sin.
The most blessed Nonnus, however, looked at her long and hard, and even after she had passed by he looked after her for as long as she remained in sight. Not till then did he turn round and speak to the other bishops.
"Weren't you delighted to see such beauty as hers?"
They answered nothing. He leant his head down on to his knees and shed tears into the handkerchief which he held on his lap between his holy hands. He sighed deeply and turned again to the bishops.
"Weren't you delighted to see such beauty as hers?"
Again they answered nothing.
"Truly, I was extremely delighted. Her beauty pleased me very much, for God has preordained to bring her here into the presence of this worthy and eminent bishop of Antioch as a judgment on us all personally as much as on our episcopacy. Think, my beloved brothers.
How many hours did this woman spend in her dressing room, washing herself and dressing herself and decorating herself with the utmost care and attention, so that there might be nothing lacking in the beauty of her ornamentation, simply so that she would not disappoint all her various admirers, who are here today and gone tomorrow?
But for us there is an almighty father in heaven, an immortal spouse who makes promises to those who serve him, who offers heavenly riches and eternal rewards which are beyond estimation, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet have entered into the heart of mankind, which God has prepared for them that love him (1 Corinthians 2.9).
"What more can I say? We have his promise that we shall see the great and splendid and inestimable face of our bride, which Cherubim dare not gaze upon, but we do not take care to adorn ourselves, or purge ourselves of all the filthy thoughts of our wretched souls. We just let them lie there."
Blogger edutcher said...
ndspinelli said...
I suppress my sexual feelings looking @ photos of narcisssistic, bloated women. Ironically, edutcher gets off on them. To each their own.
Care to give any examples?
12/1/12 10:29 AM
___________________________
Andrea Dworkin
Shiloh,or the termite view.
I've always found it interesting that the opponents of clerical celibacy never look to the experience of the Orthodox Churches, who have married diocesan clergy but celibate monastic clergy.
Think about the Tolstoy & Dostoyevsky you've read. Who are the "good" clergy in these novels? Always the monastic celibate clergy. It's almost as if the married clergy don't exist!
"Do you remember the first time, as a child, you had the insight nothing is something?"
As a child? Well, yes - a 50 year-old child.
Among my clergy friends, what I see, as an outsider, to be a real issue for them is that they are all, to a man, introverts. But they must deal with people in all walks of life for hours a day, and it simply exhausts them.
I have one priest friend who deals with it by every year disappearing to the mountains for two weeks by himself to recharge his "people batteries".
I know a lot of priest jokes. I shouldn't attempt to tell them here, but I hope you'll laugh anyway.
If life is suffering, then to experience the suffering that a celibate priest endures in his first twenty years and the practice gained in enduring that suffering, may give him a perspective on the laity that is paradoxically closer, more insightful, than would be the case if he had not been forced to go through the fire.
I wouldn't put too much store in the priest's use of 'it'. St Bernadette described her vision of the Virgin Mary as aquero, which means 'it' or 'that there' in the Occitan dialect.
" shiloh said...
The main reason priests are not allowed to marry is $$$ as in it would cost the Vatican/parishes more money if priests had families.
Yes Virginia, the bottom line, as always, is the bottom line.
ie the Church does not have to worry about a Deacon's family health care, etc."
Family health care? The Church is over 2000 years old, health care insurance hardly existed prior to WWII. Why can't church dogma just be church dogma?
His first twenty years as a priest.
The main reason priests are not allowed to marry is $$$ as in it would cost the Vatican/parishes more money if priests had families.
That is actually, sort of, the original reason. In the feudal times, Priests were the equivalent of Lords or nobility in that they controlled lands and accumulated wealth and could in effect order people to do things for the church or the parish. To avoid the individual priests from becoming too powerful and more importantly creating a dynasty by passing on their 'parish' or church holdings to their children or to create alliances by marrying their children to other powerful people, the Church declared celibacy.
The priests [and nuns] were considered to be married to the Church and they could not have any [legitimate] children to inherit or interfere with the control of the wealth of the Church from Rome. Nor could they have inconvenient children to create chaos or put claims upon the substance of the Church property.
I believe that the priests do have health care etc, depending on the diocese ....so that cost really isn't the issue today.
The topic was dealt with in SATC in the episode called Friar F*ck.
Spoiler: the priest resisted Samantha's advances.
""I think they are natural. If I tried to suppress them I'd be storing up trouble for myself in the future. So I acknowledge to myself: 'Yes, that is a beautiful girl'. The thing that stood by me was: 'God created it, but you are not allowed to play with it!'""
"it" refers to one's sexuality. God created one's sexuality, 'it' doesn't refer to the girl.
People freak out that my husband and I abstain during the fertile phase. Do I acknowledge my husband, especially when my body is ovulating and my body is spiked with estrogen? Well yeah, then we plan on doing something that isn't remotely close to being a date night, like cleaning out the fish tank.
"Why can't church dogma just be church dogma?"
As DBQ implies ...
Yes - many early priests in the Catholic Church were married, although there were occasional, local prohibitions against their marriage. It was not until the First Lateran Council of 1123 that priests, deacons, subdeacons, and monks were absolutely forbidden to have concubines, contract marriage or even remain married. However, Pope Alexander VI (1492- 1503) is known to have fathered nine illegitimate children and openly kept a mistress in the Vatican.
An exception is now made for Protestant ministers who convert to Catholicism. If they were already married, they are allowed to remain married.
In the Eastern Rite Church, they have married priests (Married and priest at the same time). In the Roman Rite, they are not allowed to be, though men whose wives have died may be ordained afterwards. There were probably a few married priests in the early Church as well.
"I believe that the priests do have health care etc, depending on the diocese ....so that cost really isn't the issue today."
As mentioned, the additional cost of a priest having a family ie health costs, food, housing, education, insurance etc. was my point as yes, I'm sure all priests have some sort of health protection.
Reality er practicality will force the church's hand in changing their "dogma" ie their aren't enough Catholic priests, which is why their are more deacons nowadays.
Times change and re: the church's (40/50) year cover-up of child molesters ie how much $$$ has that cost the Vatican in court damages, not to mention the damage to the Catholic church's reputation.
Again reality will trump dogma! Eventually.
there not "their" ~ carry on ...
shiloh said...
The main reason priests are not allowed to marry is $$$ as in it would cost the Vatican/parishes more money if priests had families.
As always, the little weasel is as much Catholic as he is a vet.
No, moron, the reason is too many priests taking advantage of peasant women and supporting mistresses with Church funds.
Read The Decameron.
I know, hard to believe I had a friend ...
I note past tense.
So, where were you hiding out 10/5 - 11/5 when the Romster was winning?
Wishing you could be abusing altar boys?
LarsPorsena said...
I suppress my sexual feelings looking @ photos of narcisssistic, bloated women. Ironically, edutcher gets off on them. To each their own.
Care to give any examples?
Andrea Dworkin
Somebody has a sense of humor.
"Your family needs a clean the fish tank ritual to avoid the primary blessing you accepted in receiving the Sacrament??"
You do not know our 'grave' reasons, and you should trust us why we had to stop at four. I would love to have more, but I can't. I did not sterilize myself nor did my husband get himself fixed.
So for now it's fish tank cleaning and reorganizing the file cabinet on fertile days.
Believe me, we make up on receiving the Sacrament on non-fertile day. :)
BTW For those who do not know, the outward sign of the Sacrament of Marriage is sexual intercourse, the conjugal act. It's not the ring on your finger.
Do you remember the first time, as a child, you had the insight nothing is something?
Vividly.
I rode my bike way past the area my parents allowed me to go alone. When they found out, they took my bike away and gave it to an orphanage.
As I contemplated the void in my bleak existence I thought, "Wow. Having nothing is really something terrible."
It's called delayed gratification. Try it sometime.
ChipS, Tough love!! Made you a responsible citizen.
deborah, You're so wrong on everything you said about me you should reconsider commenting ever again.
You do not know our 'grave' reasons, and you should trust us why we had to stop at four.
As a practicing Catholic, my mother also 'cleaned many a fish tank' to avoid pregnancy. This was before there was such a thing as the pill. The alternative to natural birth control, for her, was death.
So all in all, the sacrifice of a little sexual activity once in a while during the month versus bleeding to death, not a bad trade off.
As to the original article and the question. How do you suppress your sexual feelings. This is also relevant to people like my mother and probably Renee.
You don't suppress them. You just don't act on the feelings. And it bears repeating. Delayed gratification.
Tough love!! Made you a responsible citizen.
Not entirely.
It made me hate orphans.
Before I was married, I worked at a large investment firm. A woman was showing off her latest pictures from her trip to Europe. A young non-married man, asked when she was going stop traveling and to have children. Very casual, it was an innocent question, more of the water cooler variety. She had to tell him she experienced four miscarriages.
I do know of larger families, God Bless them, but unfortunately there are Catholic families who end up only having one or two. They're no less Catholic, based on that.
Maybe it refers to the beauty not to the person.
From the comments instructions, a reminder: "Some good faith comments get deleted because they respond to comments that we have to delete."
Don't feed the troll.
Sorry, but these priests are rather poor representatives for celibacy, perhaps intentionally by the reporter, perhaps because of ignorance.
For one thing, whether it is priestly celibacy or consecrated virginity, it is not a matter of giving up anything, it is not a matter of "nothingness." Rather, it is a matter of loving God, loving the Lord fully and completely -- so fully and completely that one gives the entirety of himself to God, including his or her sexuality.
The relationship of love formed with God in this way -- a love that might be likened to a spousal relationship -- is not a detraction, it is an addition, and it is a love that is both unitive and fruitful. The priest, the consecrated religious, or the consecrated virgin love the Lord in the same way that Jesus, the Bridegroom, loves the Church, His Bride, with a pure and virginal love that is more vital and dynamic than the thrill of merely rubbing a couple of body parts together.
Again, it is not a matter of having to struggle in giving up something, but it is a matter of grace. With grace, one is free. He is finally freed of the slavery to sexual desire, a desire that can be all-consuming, even to the extent that the President demands that we all subsidize the sex lives of other people.
When considering the line "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" I have considered that one interpretation is that "nothing" rather than meaning "not anything" had a specific content in referring to Nothing as death or nothingness -- a particular state the significance of which is evidenced by the sound and fury of life.
I don't find "it" troubling, because the "it" encompasses more than the woman, doesn't it? How does a person say what English grammar doesn't encompass? Usually you do it by twisting the grammar. If the statement has layers of complexity it would be incorrect to say "her". God made beauty and God made sex and God made the physical and God made your own desire and God made your physicality and God made the woman... but you're not allowed to touch it.
Pope Benedict on celibacy: The centre of our life must really be the daily celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Central here are the words of consecration: "This is my Body, this is my Blood", which means that we speak "in persona Christi". Christ allows us to use his "I", we speak in the "I" of Christ. Christ is "drawing us into himself" and allows us to be united. He unites us to his "I". . . .
This unification of his "I" with ours implies that we are "drawn" also into the reality of his Resurrection; we are going forth towards the full life of resurrection. Jesus speaks of it to the Sadducees in Matthew, chapter 22. It is a "new" life in which we are already beyond marriage (cf. Mt 22: 23-32). It is important that we always allow this identification of the "I" of Christ with us, this being "drawn" towards the world of resurrection. . . . Therefore, celibacy is an anticipation, a foretaste, made possible by the grace of the Lord, who draws us to himself, towards the world of the resurrection. It invites us always anew to transcend ourselves and the present time, to the true presence of the future that becomes present today.
And here we come to a very important point. One great problem of Christianity in today's world is that it does not think anymore of the future of God. The present of this world alone seems sufficient. We want to have only this world, to live only in this world. So we close the doors to the true greatness of our existence. The meaning of celibacy as an anticipation of the future is to open these doors, to make the world greater, to show the reality of the future that should be lived by us already as present. Living, then, as a testimony of faith: we truly believe that God exists, that God enters into my life, and that I can found my life on Christ, on the future life.
(to be continued)
Pope Benedict continued:
It is true that for the agnostic world, the world in which God does not enter, celibacy is a great scandal, because it shows exactly that God is considered and experienced as reality. With the eschatological dimension of celibacy, the future world of God enters into the reality of our time. And should this disappear!?
In a certain sense, this continuous criticism against celibacy may surprise in a time when it is becoming increasingly fashionable not to get married. But this not-getting married is something totally, fundamentally different from celibacy. The avoidance of marriage is based on a will to live only for oneself, of not accepting any definitive tie, to have the life of every moment in full autonomy, to decide at any time what to do, what to take from life; and therefore a "no" to the bond, a "no" to definitiveness, to have life for oneself alone. While celibacy is just the opposite: it is a definitive "yes".
It is to let oneself be taken in the hand of God, to give oneself into the hands of the Lord, into his "I". And therefore, it is an act of loyalty and trust, an act that also implies the fidelity of marriage. It is the opposite of this "no", of this autonomy that accepts no obligations, which will not enter into a bond. It is the definitive "yes" that supposes, confirms the definitive "yes" of marriage. And this marriage is the biblical form, a natural way of being man and woman, the foundation of the great Christian culture, of great cultures around the world. And if that disappears, the root of our culture will be destroyed.
So celibacy confirms the "yes" of marriage with its "yes" to the future world. So, we want to go ahead and make present this scandal of a faith that bases all existence on God. We know that besides this great scandal that the world does not want to recognize, there are also the secondary scandals of our shortcomings, our sins, which obscure the true and great scandal and make people think: "They are not really living on the foundation of God". But there is also so much loyalty!
Celibacy - as its adverse criticism shows - is a great sign of faith, of the presence of God in the world. We pray to the Lord to help us, to set us free from the secondary scandals in order to make relevant the great scandal of our faith: the confidence, the strength of our life, which is founded in God and in Jesus Christ!
What does a military spouse, or anyone else do, over the course of a year long separation? What do you do if your spouse is ill or injured? How does anyone stay faithful at all?
Celibacy isn't strange. The notion that if you are hot for someone or something that you've got a nature dictated *mandate* to f*ck it, is strange.
Yes, my language has gone completely down the tubes. Gotta work on that.
Another explanation by the Pope:
24. While respecting the different practice and tradition of the Eastern Churches, there is a need to reaffirm the profound meaning of priestly celibacy, which is rightly considered a priceless treasure, and is also confirmed by the Eastern practice of choosing Bishops only from the ranks of the celibate. These Churches also greatly esteem the decision of many priests to embrace celibacy.
This choice on the part of the priest expresses in a special way the dedication which conforms him to Christ and his exclusive offering of himself for the Kingdom of God. The fact that Christ himself, the eternal priest, lived his mission even to the sacrifice of the Cross in the state of virginity constitutes the sure point of reference for understanding the meaning of the tradition of the Latin Church.
It is not sufficient to understand priestly celibacy in purely functional terms. Celibacy is really a special way of conforming oneself to Christ's own way of life. This choice has first and foremost a nuptial meaning; it is a profound identification with the heart of Christ the Bridegroom who gives his life for his Bride.
Sure if I see a hot girl I get, uh, excited, but try not to stare.
Is it normal? Yea! Without that attraction there would be no species call homosapien.
I most certainly don't hit upon them (I'm married), and even if alone I would not make a pass.
Why? Things like character, discipline, loyalty, integrity etc...
But to be attracted to the opposite sex is quite normal. And to have the fortitude to not act on them due to moral issues is a sign of maturity.
Do you remember the first time, as a child, you had the insight nothing is something?
I am afraid there are those who go through life never having that insight. Some of them may have posted a comment here.
If you want to suppress your sexual feelings it is quite simple.
Simply think of Helen Thomas.
Baron, Now see, Helen Thomas gets me stiffer than a starched collar on a cold Wi. morning. To each their own.
What could be scarier than the combination of senility and a teenage sex drive.
Hugh Hefner?
Ann Althouse said...
From the comments instructions, a reminder: "Some good faith comments get deleted because they respond to comments that we have to delete."
Don't feed the troll.
Got it.
That is only because looking at Helen Thomas is like looking in a mirror for you. So you get off on fucking yourself. So to speak.
"But to be attracted to the opposite sex is quite normal. And to have the fortitude to not act on them due to moral issues is a sign of maturity."
That and not wanting to destroy the person you most love.
Chocolate.
We need to think of Colin Powell saying "if you reach your goals you didn't have high enough goals" or something along those lines.
The Catholic zeitgeist is about drawing that fine, perfect line in the sand such that Catholics aim for that ideal, though it is Saintly to just be a tremendous human and not come close to the ideal of Catholic belief regarding all things always.
There's nothing wrong with this; much right in fact.
WFB wrote of "The Perils of Baptism" on April 23, 1985.
You might be able to find it and read it, instantly, with nothing stopping you like some registration or pop up advertisements or anything of the sort.
https://cumulus.hillsdale.edu/Buckley/
Baron, Looking @ Helen Thomas is like looking @ your mama. And I tapped that on your trailer park sofa out on the front porch!!
There's an Irish, I think, saying that "anything worth doing can't be done in a lifetime."
"It is not sufficient to understand priestly celibacy in purely functional terms."
No, but if you have to function while celibate it helps to have more than purely theoretical or spiritualized terms. One need functional terms as well.
That's the brilliance of the early monastics, they were honest and open in the struggles and so gained a greater wisdom.
The sort of high theologizing of Benedict may be true, but it's the sort of truth that leaves real struggles with nothing to hold onto. Maybe that's why the church hasn't exactly been on the forefront of sexual righteousness the last many decades.
The priests in the interview were talking honestly and humanly. If you see that as lesser, than the incarnation must likewise give you a bit of trouble.
If the desire itself is considered sinful it seems there'd be a huge disincentive to get help coping with it.
Paddy O: I was celibate until I was married...
Axiomatic, in terms of Catholic doctrine, since there the word "celibate" means simply "unmarried."
Catholic doctrine does not require priests specifically to abstain from sex. It requires priests to abstain from marriage, and requires all unmarried people to abstain from sex.
edutcher,
"You heard about what happened to some of them when the Philippines fell and you wondered where they found that faith"
This one, too.
And yet, priests are remarkably happy and view their celibacy in a positive way. Study.
I bet meth addicts think other people are crazy for not using meth.
What about chaste-celibate women religious? or those who are single for the Lord in the world without a religious profession?
Oops forgot to linky.
Oops forgot to linky.
ndspinelli said...
Baron, Now see, Helen Thomas gets me stiffer than a starched collar on a cold Wi. morning. To each their own.
I'd rather fuck 2 week old roadkill.
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