Celibacy

[poliphilo]

"No-one chooses the monastic life," said the monk, "unless they have serious problems with their sexuality." That took me aback. Up until then I'd supposed- if I thought about it at all-  that monks and nuns and celibate priests were heroes of spirituality.

So that's the first and biggest problem with the celibacy rule. You're going to attract a whole lot of people to the priesthood who are running away from themselves-

People who are confused,  immature, cowardly.

And the second problem is that you're attracting them on a false promise. The Church isn't the refuge from the world they think it's going to be. The new priest is the man he always was- with the same old urges- only now he can only satisfy them furtively.   Shut the door on  sex and it'll walk through walls to find you. So there you are- you and your sexuality- and instead of having the whole wide world to prance about in you're locked up together in a teeny-tiny cell.

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Interesting...I guess he's a monk, so I would have to take his word for it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a long time ago now, so I'm not entirely sure who he was. He may have been the Anglican theologian Harry Williams- who was- by the end of his life- openly gay and remarkably cool.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

That makes sense - I knew him fairly well - and I'm sure tha this was true of him - but he wrote some remarkable books, and was a huge influence for good in many lives.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't know him personally- but he once lead a retreat I was on. He was, I think, one of the outstanding Anglican personalities of the second half of the last century.