Celibacy in Crisis - A Secret World Revisited (PDFDrive)
Celibacy in Crisis - A Secret World Revisited (PDFDrive)
Celibacy in Crisis - A Secret World Revisited (PDFDrive)
CELIBACY IN CRISIS
A Secret World Revisited
BY
A.W.RICHARD SIPE
FOREWORD BY RICHARD P.McBRIEN
Brunner-Routledge
NEW YORK AND HOVE
Published in2003 by
Brunner-Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
www.brunner-routledge.com
Published in Great Britain by
Brunner-Routledge
27 Church Road
Hove, East Sussex
BN3 2FA
www.brunner-routledge.co.uk
Copyright © 2003 by A.W.Richard Sipe
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.
Cover design: Scott Russo
Cover photo: Andre Burian/Corbis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sipe, A.W.Richard, 1932-
Celibacy in crisis : a secret world revisited/by A.W.Richard Sipe ;
foreword by Richard McBrien.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-415-94472-4 (cloth : alk. paper)— ISBN 0-415-94473-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Psychological Profile
• Categories of Vulnerability
• Four Case Studies
11 CAN CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BE 240
PREVENTED?
Screening
• Denial
• Ecclesiogenic Factors
• Systemic Elements
• Mandatory Celibacy
• Ethical Code
• Impediments to Ethical Definitions
• Elements of a Code of Sexual Ethics
INDEX 335
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 353
FOREWORD
For centuries the “secret world” of clerical sexuality has been securely
closed off from public scrutiny, both within and beyond the Roman
Catholic Church. If lapses from the code of celibate conduct came
occasionally to public notice, church officials quickly dismissed
them as aberrations, the priests in question were quietly reassigned,
and the civil authorities (if they had an interest in the matter) were
effectively neutralized. The secrecy came to an abrupt end in early
January, 2002, when The Boston Globe exposed the first of many
cases of sexual abuse by priests of that archdiocese—cases that were
as much about the malfeasance of the local cardinal, archbishop and
his top aides as they were about the predatory behavior of the priests.
In this revised and updated edition of his earlier, deservedly
praised work, A Secret World, Richard Sipe does the Roman
Catholic Church, its hierarchy, its many thousands of priests
worldwide, and its increasingly well-educated and well-informed
laity a real and distinct service. Now that the celibate cat is out of the
bag, so to speak, there is a deep and pressing need for the kind of
professional expertise and wisdom that Richard Sipe can provide—
expertise and wisdom born not only of study and reflection, but also
of years of experience as a priest and psychotherapist. Because of
the efforts of persons like himself, there is hope that the “secret
world” of clerical celibacy and sexuality will eventually be
transformed into what he calls a “better world.”
Until recently, clerical celibacy has not been studied in a
sufficiently thorough and objective fashion. If the subject was
broached at all in the past, the discussion was rarely, if ever, free of
particular theological justifications. The literature on celibacy, Sipe
points out, was almost exclusively inspirational and idealistic. In
xi
and as priests so that their celibate state can be described, for all
intents and purposes, as “irreversible.” Such priests, Sipe points out,
are persons of “unusual inner resourcefulness,” who possess “an
independence of spirit… not overly dependent upon institutional
props.”
There is another 6 to 8 percent, he suggests, for whom the practice
of celibacy is “firmly established” to the extent that it can be said
that they have been gifted with the “clear charism of celibacy.”
These priests have “consolidated” the practice of celibacy to such a
degree that it approaches the ideal achieved by the 2 percent, but
includes “some missteps, fumblings, and even reversals in the past.”
It requires no mathematical dexterity to see that for the great
majority of priests, celibacy either does not work at all or is
vulnerable to frequent compromises of one sort or another.
Many might ask whether seminaries have been asleep at the
switch. Is it not their responsibility to prepare young men not only
for a life of priestly ministry but also for a life of total abstinence
from sexual activity of any kind? Richard Sipe concludes that there
is no correlation between sexual abstinence maintained during the
years of seminary training and the individual priest’s later celibate
achievement. In fact, the seminary system “has not proved to be
particularly successful in inculcating lifelong celibacy.” It fails in
three ways: by avoiding direct and open discussion of sexuality, by
cloaking sex and celibacy in secrecy, and by providing no personal,
explicit witness to celibacy, its struggles and its achievements,
within seminary faculties and staffs.
But the author does not leave us without hope or a compelling
ideal to pursue. That ideal, however, does not pertain to
celibacy alone. It is a matter instead of human wholeness, of health
and well-being, of psychic as well as sexual integration. Successful
celibates are persons who have a noble cause to which they are
strongly committed, effective bonds with a supportive community,
vital intellectual and social interests, and a prayer-life that grows out
of their personality and ministry rather than one imposed artificially,
and in some traditionally stylized form, from the outside.
Such celibates have not only internalized but also de-sexualized
their ties with ecclesiastical authorities. They refuse to look upon
their bishops and religious superiors as father figures, nor upon
themselves as their “sons.” The successful celibate priest, in other
xiii
words, has become his own man, in spite of a system that reinforces
and rewards the opposite type of consciousness and behavior.
Those who read through to the end of this instructive and
challenging work will know that its author carries no brief for the
elimination of a celibacy that is freely chosen. Indeed, the themes
found in the final chapter are of the sort that priests might hear at a
well-structured and thoughtfully presented retreat. But other readers
will lay that otherwise inspiring material alongside the data and
conclusions sprinkled throughout the rest of the book, namely, that
obligatory clerical celibacy is “achieved” or “consolidated” by about
10 percent of the clergy at most. What pertains to the rest has, until
recently, been hidden from view, behind the veil of the “secret
world” that was so abruptly torn open by the revelations of
widespread sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic priesthood and
of cover-ups by their bishops.
Richard Sipe properly eschews the role of an advocate in this
important book. He has no wish to make the argument, on the basis
of his many years of research, observation, and clinical practice, that
the Roman Catholic Church should no longer require lifelong
celibacy for its priests and that it should return now to the practice of
the church throughout most of the first Christian millennium, when
there were not only married priests but married popes and bishops as
well. This practice remains in force today in the many non-Roman,
but Catholic, churches of the East.
Sipe’s self-imposed restraint, however, does not bind the author
of this foreword. Obligatory celibacy and the church’s official
teaching on human sexuality are at the root of the worst crisis the
Catholic Church has faced since the time of the Reformation. If the
church is to resolve and transcend that crisis, it must address such
issues as these in an objective and straightforward manner. Only
then will this corrosive “secret world” give way to the “better world”
toward which Richard Sipe and so many others in the church direct
their labors and their hopes.
—Rev. Richard P.McBrien
Notre Dame University
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• What is celibacy?
• How is it really practiced by those who profess it?
• What is the process of celibacy?
4 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
1965 and 2002 (45,000). The leveling of the total priest population
is another factor that made this study possible. The concomitant
decrease in candidates for the priesthood, from 9,000 to 3,000, is at
least in part due to a decline in the understanding and appeal of
celibacy (Hoge, 1987, 2002).
This work is not a sociological study (cf. Sobo & Bell, 2001).
Harvard population geneticist, Richard Lewontin, points out that
even in the most careful sociological research, investigators don’t
know how many people lie. He cautions investigators “to be less
ambitious and stop trying to make sociology into a natural science.
There are some things in the world that we will never know and
many that we will never know exactly” (New York Review of Books,
2000).
This long-term ethnographic search gets at facts useful for
subsequent research. It is distinct from surveys and polls. The value
of this study is in its ability to disregard assumptions and to proceed
to asking questions and collecting data without a set hypothesis. It is
not bound by the constraints of surveys and certainly suffers from
the limitations of informal design. But its conclusions can be
verified and duplicated. The facts, estimates, conclusions, and
analysis presented here invite challenge and verification.
Of course, there is always a societal context to sexuality, and
sexuality is important in every known culture (Marshall & Suggs,
1971). No culture is indifferent to sexuality because physical
pleasure and self-disclosure are the building blocks of all human
relationships. Ira Reiss (1986) worked extensively to develop a
comprehensive sociological theory of human sexuality. His
perspective has profound implications for the understanding of
celibacy, which, like sexuality, has deep societal implications—
certainly in terms of ecclesiastical societies.
Celibacy is learned and maintained within the church structure.
Since the priesthood exists in many cultures, the cross-cultural
comprehension that Reiss advocates is open to those who would
study celibacy in its broader context. The current development of the
Catholic Church in Africa—a culture with distinct sexual traditions
compared with those of Europe—will challenge the coming decades
(Otene, 1982).
Celibacy has economic implications and special links to
authoritarian structures and power; these important considerations
are not within the scope of this study. (Cf. Sipe, 1995.) Likewise
gender roles and biological determinants of celibacy are only
introduced. Both areas need more study.
WHY STUDY CELIBACY? 13
The man who first inspired me to search more deeply for the
dynamic of celibacy was the Very Reverend Ulric C.Beste. I was a
student in Rome at the time that he was a professor of canon law and
on the staff in the Vatican’s Holy Office. I had chosen him as my
confes sor and made my weekly confession to him. He was 75 years
old. A foot injury incapacitated him during the summer of 1956, and
I served his mass each morning and delivered his supper tray each
evening.
After supper, we would sit on the upper courtyard of the Collegio.
He would talk about his work in the Vatican Curia. He had been in
Rome since 1939 under Pope Pius XII and was privy to the
workings of the Vatican. He reminisced about his early development
in a small Minnesota farming community and his life in the
monastery. He also revealed his own sexual development and his
celibacy as easily as he had spoken about all the rest. “He has truly
achieved celibacy,” I thought to myself. Of course, that revelation
also brought about my awareness that not everyone had.
Father Ulric had a quirk that also proved decisive for me. He kept
numerical count of all of the confessions he had ever heard and of
the masses he had said. He had done this since his ordination. After I
was ordained, this factor inspired me to keep data I thought would
be useful in understanding and helping others.
As a Benedictine monk and ordained Roman Catholic priest, my
interest in celibacy was spurred by my desire to understand its
meaning, to live it, and eventually to teach it. I quickly discovered
that, while there were an abundance of theological and/or
inspirational treatises and a few historical studies of celibacy, there
were no practical studies about how celibacy was really lived in
daily life. Nor were there any based on a comprehensive
understanding of sexual nature beyond spiritual ideals.
Immediately after ordination to the priesthood in 1959,1 was sent
on a temporary summer parish assignment in a Midwestern state.
There I learned of two exemplary and productive pastors who had
long-standing, intimate relationships with a partner. They were both
well accepted by fellow priests who knew their living
circumstances.
In the fall of that year I assumed an assignment to a four-priest
rural parish and area high school. Two priests left the parish
simultaneously with my arrival. One of the priests was reassigned as
WHY STUDY CELIBACY? 15
Priests striving for celibacy live, move, and have their being in a
distinctly sexually aware and sexually active world. This has been
high-lighted in the last half-century.
Multiple elements influence the perception of celibacy and
condition the framework of understanding celibate practice. Public
awareness of clergy sexual abuse has set the stage for the current
crisis of celibacy But it is not the only problem contributing to the
chaos around the question, What exactly is celibacy? That question
must be addressed in the total context of our time.
These are exactly the questions that should, but cannot be discussed
under the current doctrinal stance to the church.
ABSTINENCE
Most training for celibacy remains deficient. Celibacy is not simply
sexual abstinence, any more than honesty is simply not stealing. A
few years ago a rock star, on a late-night talk show, expounded on
the “new celibacy.” He said that for the first time since he was a
WHAT IS IT? 27
LOVE
Writers extol the nature of celibate love: “So love is to say yes to
another, to say yes not merely with the lips or even with the heart,
but with one’s whole being. The yes is uttered before the total
giving, and yet it is the yes which guarantees the certainty of love”
(Raguin 1974, p. 11). The images ring true, but the day-to-day
directives are completely vague. What the ideal means as applied by
a particular person and how it is achieved in the face of conflicting
demands are nowhere spelled out.
The goal of Christian celibacy is the enhancement of love. The
nature of love makes easy philosophy, but complex reality. “What in
primitive religions had served to idealize the natural functions of
man now became a means of transcending nature. Love turned into a
supernatural device, and in Christianity it became the very essence
of God. “In the ancient and the medieval world philosophical
idealizations were primarily transcendental” (Singer, 1984, p. 42).
The celibate, removed from sexual activity and involvement, is
forced to grapple with that transcendental nature of love. That struggle
has proven pregnant for Western civilization and culture precisely
because the transcendent reality of love had to be translated and
activated into projects that transform him, but making him a “man
for others,” a man of service to humanity.
DEFINITION OF CELIBACY
These are roots of any viable definition of celibacy. My definition of
celibacy includes seven essential interrelated elements:
1.
Freely Chosen
To be free in sexual matters is not easy. There were many priests in
our study who said after years in the priesthood that they had had no
real idea of what celibacy was all about when they were ordained.
They had been happy as seminarians and somehow assumed that a
supportive environment would follow them into their pastoral
settings. The fact that one is not initially free or not fully aware does
not vitiate one’s pursuit of celibacy.
To be celibate a person should be free from sexual dependency—
that is, his sexual orientation and internal adjustment should not
interfere with his physical or mental health, his interpersonal
relationships, or his effective and efficient functioning. This does
not mean that he must be virginal; but one who has been subject to
any compulsive sexual behavior such as pedophilia, committed
homosexuality, or heterosexual activity without regard for the reality
of relationships will have a hard time choosing the state of celibacy
convincingly. Celibacy is not a running away from sex. It knowingly
embraces reality with the subjective conviction that one existentially
is not able to do otherwise. And one freely accepts that.
In short, it is the sense of personal vocation. Freedom is itself a
process. Gandhi (1960) records the struggle in a way to which other
celibates can relate when he says:
2.
Dynamic State
Life and sexuality are dynamic. Demands and opportunities always
change. Struggle is necessary to enter and live in a “state,” that is, a
lifelong situation that is free of sexual involvement. The process of
engaging celibacy differs after 5 years from after 1; or 25 versus 10.
The process is to become a celibate, not just be celibate.
The neglect of the sense of dynamism in celibate pursuit has
harmed those who want to be celibate, and those with whom they
associate. The constantly changing circumstances and demands of
living—growth and development—require adaptation and new
coping mechanisms.
Traditionally great emphasis has been placed on the “state” of
celibacy. All of the idealistic treatments emphasize the stability and
constancy of the practice. The sense of unchanging demand for
compliance leads churchmen to shy away from dealing with the
complexities and challenges that engaging the reality of sexual
nature requires. Fear and avoidance are not helpful in making
rational decisions. They don’t support or encourage growth.
Neglecting the dynamic undermines the state.
3.
Usually Vowed
Although there may be exceptional instances where celibacy is
pursued without a conscious or public declaration, I do not know of
many. For Catholic priests, the vow precedes ordination as a
requirement, and the church places such emphasis on the vow that it
remains even if one loses the clerical state. According to canon 291,
“Loss of the clerical state does not entail a dispensation from the
obligation of celibacy, which is granted by the Roman Pontiff alone”
(Code of Canon Law, 1984, p. 103).
There is something about the public nature of the commitment and
the declaration of one’s intent that is necessary for the
efficaciousness of the endeavor. Celibacy is not meant to be a harbor
32 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
for the fearful or a refuge for the sexually incompetent, but a witness
by those dedicated and concerned for humanity. A powerful impact
is made, even on nonbelievers, when a believer is so convinced of
his cause and so dedicated to his beliefs that he is willing to give up
all sexual pleasures in their behalf. It is the kind of admiration one
has for those who give up their lives for the country they believe in
or for the person they love. The connection between martyrdom and
celibacy is not accidental. There has to be an element of the heroic
striving in both, and there has to be a relatedness to the community.
It declares the most private—sex—as a most public promise. One
example of this:
4.
An Honest and Sustained Attempt
The fulfillment of the vow of celibacy is not accomplished by the
public declaration. The constant daily living and implementation of
leading a sexless life demand a quality of control and inner freedom
which is devoid of self-deception and rationalization. In short, it
takes a kind of integrity that has balance, self-knowledge,
consistency, and commitment.
A key factor is the equilibrium of needs and demands. Many priests
throw themselves into their work without regard for their other
personal needs. All of their sexual energy is thus translated into their
work effort. Breakdown and oftentimes rebound are inevitable. This
unbalanced approach is matched at the other extreme by priests who
feel that because they are deprived of sexual gratification they have
a right to every other comfort.
Celibacy requires that a person find a parity among internal versus
external demands, individual versus communal forces, and
immediate versus ultimate needs—not an easy task for anyone.
However, if one is to renounce sexual gratification as a means of
tension reduction, then the building of relationships and the
transmission of spiritual life challenge that person to a level of
creative living not commonly experienced.
Self-knowledge is absolutely indispensable for the celibate
pursuit. Denial is the great betrayer of celibacy.
Accepting and living with the reality that God made us bodily
creatures does not mean that we must voluntarily indulge in sexual
pleasure. It does mean recognizing that our sexuality will often be felt
and experienced in many ways. Because sexual expression in its
highest form is linked with tender emotions and the need for
intimacy, the person seeking to be a chaste celibate need not
suppress tenderness and emotion while seeking to avoid pregenital
or genital behavior. As in most areas of human accomplishment,
advance is along a knife-edge, avoiding on the one hand an
unrealistic Puritanism and on the other an indulgence of
inappropriate behavior which is disguised as virtue. I have come to
suspect both the angelic battle of the 1940s and the “third way” of
the 1970s as being denials of sexual reality (Groeschel, 1985, pp. 35–
36).
34 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
The celibate must face honestly his physical and spiritual assets
and liabilities. A deep search of one’s personal history and a social
awareness will keep the daily struggle in perspective.
There is an intensely private and personal side to the sustained
attempt to be celibate. Some transgressions can be incorporated into
the attempt to be celibate, but a sexual incident that can very quickly
turn into a pattern obliterates celibacy as a reality. The priest, for
instance, who regularly, even though infrequently, seeks out a
sexual liaison, is not a practicing celibate. There are scores of
examples of priests who have had to abandon celibacy for a time in
order to find out what it is and later practice it, but that abandonment
must be honestly acknowledged lest the public image become a
cover for hypocrisy.
The masturbations pose a specific and special problem for the
celibate. Although masturbatory activity is technically and legally
forbidden in celibate practice, our study shows that it is a common
activity even among those who in every other regard observe
celibacy and strive honestly to attain it.
Each person pursuing celibacy develops adaptive patterns that are
consistent with his characterological formation. Some personality
structures are more readily compatible with the discipline required
of a celibate. Others have to work harder for constancy. The
impulsive or narcissistic character will have great difficulty to
incorporate the necessary constancy self-control demands. These
qualities are very frequently observed in priests who sexually abuse
minors.
Commitment to others and to one’s self is measured by the
allegiances and loyalties one has; but above all by the quality of
one’s existing relationships and the capacity one has to develop new
ones. Sustained celibate living is really not possible in a schizoid
vacuum. Without the commitment to others, celibacy breaks down,
if not in technique, at least in its goal.
5.
To Live without Direct Sexual Gratification
The core of celibacy involves necessary sublimation. The sexual
instinct of the celibate is defused and directed to the service of other
pursuits. Not a few priests have said that celibacy means that they
WHAT IS IT? 35
will not marry. They hold that chastity—that is, the virtue of purity—
is reserved for those who, like nuns, take a specific vow of chastity.
As celibates (unmarried), therefore, they feel they can engage in
sexual activity without breaking their vow or violating their state in
spite of the fact that they may sin. This is simple rationalization and
has no merit.
At first glance celibacy seems an impossible and even outlandish
course of life. For most people direct sexual pleasure is a necessary
component of their personal growth and development and a means
of loving and serving. Upon reflection, however, one realizes how
many of the joys of life and truly meaningful interactions do not
involve direct sexual gratification: the love between parents and
children, brothers and sisters, and friends; and work and career
accomplishments. In addition, there are those few persons who are
so in touch with the transcendent that they achieve profound
relatedness and universal love of other humans almost
constitutionally.
6.
In Order to Serve Others Productively
Sexual denial that is without a social or community goal is
meaningless and probably not possible. Again, celibacy is not
merely abstinence. By its essence it has to be on account of
something, and that something has to be perceived as valuable and
worth the sacrifice. Canon law speaks about “chastity assumed for
the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” It establishes the person as a
sign of the future. It produces an undivided heart. Perfect continence
in celibacy is intended to facilitate meaning and usefulness (Code of
Canon Law, 1984, #227).
Celibacy reaches beyond self. It aims first at the familial model of
early Christianity, where all men and women are brothers and sisters,
genuinely loving, and serving because Christ is present in each.
Genital behavior is excluded not because it is evil—that was a later
development consolidated by St. Augustine (cf. Pagels, 1988)—but
because of the relative superiority of building up the kingdom of God
—that what Christ taught could become a reality so “that all may be
one” (John 17:23). Celibacy is meant to be witness to these values.
36 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
7.
For a Spiritual Motive
There should be no question about this: Celibacy is not proposed as
a natural phenomenon. Several priests recalled that they were told in
school that every boy is called to the priesthood but only a few
respond. The priesthood may be an option for every Christian;
WHAT IS IT? 37
The intensity of his desire led him to the source of power itself.
Deep in meditation Gandhi began to see how much of his vital
energy was locked up in the sexual drive. In a flood of insight he
realized that sex is not just a physical instinct, but an expression of
the tremendous spiritual force behind all love and creativity which
the Hindu scriptures call kundalini, the life force of evolution. All
his life it had been his master, buffeting him this way and that
beyond his control. But in the silence of the Natal hills, with all his
burning desire to serve focused by weeks of tending to the wounded
and dying, Gandhi found the strength to tap this power at its source.
Then and there he resolved to be its master, and never let it dictate to
him again. It was a decision which resolved his deepest tensions, and
38 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
released all the love within him into his conscious control. He had
begun to transform the last of his passions into spiritual power.
There is currently a sharp debate in theological circles about the
legal requirement of celibacy for the priesthood. There are many
priests who firmly believe they are called to the ministry of the
priesthood and at the same time called to the married state.
I remember psychoanalyst Dr. Gregory Zilboorg commenting on a
consultation he had conducted with a Jesuit scholastic. He judged
him “obviously schizophrenic.” His conclusive proof was that the
man wanted to be both a priest and married. Zilboorg’s diagnosis
might have been correct, but his criterion would be very unreliable
in any consultation office today. I have always wondered,
incidentally, whether that patient was truly psychotic or merely
ahead of his time!
This distinction between celibacy as a discipline and as a charism
has always existed. The shift in support systems that used to
surround clerical life brings the question into painful focus for many
priests. Privilege, prestige, educational advantage, social, political,
and spiritual power, exclusivity, and secrecy all conspired to form
a protective barrier for the priest dealing with his sexual drives.
Within such a system it was not so essential to deal with the
distinction between charism and discipline. The celibate charism
will always remain, as it has in the Buddhist tradition; however, the
discipline primarily—and even secondarily the charism—is greatly
strained without significant external supports.
Seminary education has been gravely remiss—certainly from the
psychological perspective—by not examining actively enough the
distinction between charism and discipline. The church also does
itself a grave disservice as well as personal injustice by requiring the
practice of celibacy without actually supporting it (cf. Sipe, 1988, pp.
45–47).
Only a spiritual (i.e., transcendent) motivation can sustain celibate
striving. Gandhi makes this clear in his pursuit. Only a love that can
match or exceed what is possible with sexual love can sustain
celibacy.
Legal and ideal frameworks situate celibacy. The ideal defies easy
understanding or easy practice. As with all ideals, some merely
profess, some strive, and a few achieve. Our definition of celibacy is
operational. It does not impose on either the ideal or legal
WHAT IS IT? 39
constraints, but makes both more attainable. This chapter gives the
reader sufficient background to proceed to the second question of our
study. How is celibacy really practiced and not practiced by those
who profess it?
The sexual turbulence of the past half-century, with its discoveries
and consciousness of equality will have its lasting impact on celibate
practice and achievement. The generation of priests who were part
of this time have been in a unique position to expose and examine
their celibate practice. A closer examination of celibate practice is
inevitable in the wake of the exposure of the abuse of minors. More
revelations about the dynamics of celibacy will come. They are a
necessary contribution to the understanding of this mysterious “sign
of contradiction’ that coexists with and participates in culture and
history (Cf. Williams, 1999; Abbott, 1999/2000).
3
HOW DO THOSE WHO PROFESS
CELIBACY PRACTICE IT?
concerns of folks who came to them for advice took on new meaning
as they grew in appreciation of psychological dimensions to pastoral
problems.
Bishops and religious superiors consulted a number of Catholic
psychiatrists (and others) about some of their men who presented
difficult management problems. Some had personal stresses from
which they sought relief. As comfort with the new helping science
grew some superiors wanted their own men to be trained in the new
skills in order to apply them to spiritual direction. Psychiatry
intruded into the secret system. Psychiatry—still extremely
conscious of the centrality of sex—was penetrating the system.
Legal procedures and press coverage about priests who have
abused minors has opened the secret world of celibacy to broad
public scrutiny. There are responsible and informed voices that have
made profound historical and psychological observations about how
the celibate system works (Wills, 2000; Kennedy, 2001).
Authoritative observations have been recorded from within the
Vatican without any effort to make quantifiable estimates of
behaviors (The Millenari, 2000). But the world is observing in new
ways and with unique intensity the celibate/sexual world of priests.
LEVELS OF OBSERVATION
In my research of celibacy, I organized my data into five levels of
observation. I base my estimates of the celibate/sexual practice of
priests and my analysis of the structure of Roman Catholic clerical
life on this data.
Church are those who were involved in the process of living it.
Those who wanted their stories told are priests who shared their
ongoing experience of life. Part of this group was involved in
psychotherapy or counseling. They discussed and shared the
complexities of their celibate/ sexual development in that context.
Others shared their life experience outside any form of therapy.
Second Level Observation: FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE OF
SEXUAL PARTNERS OF PRIESTS. From the very beginning, I
noted firsthand experience reported by men and women who had
been involved sexually with priests. These included priests, nuns,
and seminarians, married and single women, and married and single
men. I retained this information almost instinctively. At first I was
ignorant of the real significance of the data. But it provided
information from the celibate/sexual structure of the priesthood
about that group of men who would not self-report their adjustment
or activity Throughout the period from 1960 to 1985 few of these
people thought of themselves as “victims”; certainly not in the well-
defined sense of 2000. Likewise, the appellation “survivor” was not
available to support this group during those years. Litigation was not
a serious consideration for the vast majority of these people.
Although this group was working out relational conflicts, many
talked about their involvement as a matter of course in recording
their psychosocial histories.
Some reported the priest or brother to a bishop or religious
superior. They seldom received any satisfaction or compensation for
their abuse. In some cases child support was provided for a birth that
involved one of its clergy. I began to realize the value of these
accounts as reliable and authentic observations of priests’ behavior
because there was no secondary gain from sharing them. This group
of informants alerted me to the scope of sexual involvement of
priests with minors.
Third Level Observation: QUALIFIED OBSERVERS. One group
of reporters were people who were not direct participants in the
sexual behavior of priests but were in positions to observe the
celibate/sexual conduct of priests. That is fellow clergy,
housekeepers, concerned superiors or clinicians who spoke in case
study fashion about priests where the anonymity of the patient and
confidentiality of the therapeutic bond could remain in tact. These
reports were extremely important because often reports from
HOW DO THOSE WHO PROFESS CELIBACY PRACTICE IT? 43
decades of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. The helping professions were
subjected to over-expectations. These circumstances allowed
clinicians unprecedented entrée into the inner workings of celibate/
sexual life during this era. My studies reflect these sets of
circumstances.
Fifth Level Process: VALIDATION. My estimates of the celibate/
sexual behavior of priests are based on observations and revelations
within the four levels mentioned above. They produced
approximately fifteen hundred narratives about the sexual/celibate
adjustment of priests: approximately one-third (497) involved priests
who were in some type of therapy; another third (512) were priests
not in therapy; and one-third (504) were from sexual partners or
victims of clergy. I refined my definition of celibacy and established
my estimates of celibate/sexual behaviors and outlined the process
of achievement of celibacy by 1985.
My estimates were not made from a random sample population
nor were the observations made in the form of a survey or a poll.
Nonetheless, these estimates can be validated. First of all, those who
have lived a celibate/sexual life and existed within the celibate
culture can verify practice in their lives and experience. They can
estimate the celibate/sexual adjustments within their group.
Exposure of clergy sexual activity and sexual scandals has
proliferated in the media since 1985, remarkably so since 2002. By
exploring certain examples the media validates that sexual activity
by clergy does indeed exist. The media is selective in its reporting
and cannot establish numerical estimates for the group. But public
incidence can contribute to validation of broader observations.
Court reports in criminal or civil proceedings provide another
source of validation of sexual abuse and confirm the existence of
sexual activity by some priests. Analysis of the numbers revealed in
these arenas and the record of allegations by victims has contributed
to numerical estimates. Records of reports of priests who abused
minors exceed 1,800. These figures will, of necessity, always be
incomplete. Public exposure of failure cannot vitiate the obvious
achievements of clergy and celibate practice that does exist within a
goodly proportion of those who profess it.
Numerical valuations are important factors in organizing and
validating data. Scientific studies must be verifiable, measurable,
and replicable. Ethnography meets these criteria. There will be
46 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
NUMERICAL SUMMARY
I considered reports of or from a total 2,776 priests from five levels
of observation for my estimates of celibate/sexual behavior. My goal
always was to provide a baseline for understanding the practice,
process, and achievement of celibacy. Of these 2,776 priests:
The 512 priests not in therapy were between the ages of 26 and
78. This group contributed information on levels of
observation 1,2,3, and 4. Their narratives were invaluable for
the understanding of the celibate process and for the
achievement of celibacy among Roman Catholic priests in the
United States.
Three hundred five priests had some form of therapeutic
contact with the principal investigator and, from this context,
contributed data to levels of observation 1, 2, and 3.
Material from case study reports of 192 priests in
psychotherapy with analysts, psychiatrists, and psychologists
added primary and corroborating data for level 3 observations.
The 504 people who had been sexual partners or victims of
priests or were in a position to observe it directly provided
an essential and valuable fund of data for level 2 and 3
observations.
One thousand two hundred sixty-three priests belonged to 10
religious groups (diocesan or religious) in which I had
sufficient, knowledgeable contacts (bishop, major superior,
novice master, personnel director, vocations director, or other)
who supplied observations and estimates of the sexual
functioning of men in their groups. Reports from these groups,
along with reports from private and public sources, contributed
to level 5 validation of our estimates from other data.
HOW DO THOSE WHO PROFESS CELIBACY PRACTICE IT? 47
NARRATIVES
The narratives that follow are from the histories as told by
informants. They have given permission for inclusion. In some
instances, the histories are of people now deceased. Other examples
are so common that the example cited is an accurate representation
of a whole subgroup.
In all cases, the identity of informants is carefully guarded. The
reader should be aware that there is no likelihood that he or she will
guess the informants’ identities. There is, however, a very good
chance that the informed student will recognize someone “like” that.
In fact, if this study has really tapped the essences of the practice,
process, and achievement of celibacy, every priest will find himself
included, and no person will find himself exposed.
PART II
NATURE
Masturbation is normal and universal among healthy infants. In fact,
it is necessary for development. It would be ridiculous to hold that
an infant should discover every other appendage and orifice of his
body and selectively neglect his genitals. As early as 1949, Spitz and
Wolf wrote about autoerotic activity in one’s first year of life. The
results of their observations are especially significant since they
established the link between good object relationships and the
manifestations of spontaneous genital play at that age. They
determined that “a certain level of development is a prerequisite for
the appearance of genital play” (p. 91), and “the closer the mother-
child relation…the more infants we find manifesting genital play” (p.
97). By contrast, a parallel link exists between the deprivation of
54 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
PATHOLOGY
Most health professionals and clergy now believe that masturbation
itself is natural; however, it does involve some psychic compromise,
and can become pathological. Fenichel (1954) described the
problems:
super slow motion, one action frame at a time. Other priests delay
the whole identity process until after they complete seminary studies,
when at some future time the floodwaters of adolescence break
through their dam of repression.
A priest had been a successful and affable student during his
seminary years, during which time he had not masturbated, and had
no memory of ever having done so. For the first 3 years after his
ordination, he was relatively happy in his ministry, part of which
involved hearing the confessions of adolescents. He became curious
about masturbation, because so many of the young people he
admired confessed frequent masturbation. The priest began to read
books on sex—something he had avoided doing. He had, in fact,
never allowed himself to think about the whole area of sexuality.
When 28 years old, this man discovered masturbation. Along with it
he was inun dated by all the thoughts and questions he had been side-
stepping. He became profoundly confused, feeling deceived by the
teachers and the system he had taken literally. By confronting his
previous denial, avoidance, and over-dependence, he began to re-
evaluate his life in light of his new-found sexuality.
This phenomenon is common. Repression and denial sustain a
man in unchallenged celibacy for long periods of time. It is
especially so among men of superior intellect who do well in their
studies and are successful in the clerical system. They are popular
with their peers and superiors. A number of this group of informants
registered anger—also adolescent-like—at the system they believed
betrayed them. Having kept all the rules of that system, the men
were surprised and felt sabotaged by the force of their internal fire.
These were men who thought they had come to terms with their
celibacy because of their intellectual success. As one man said, “I
have never before had a problem I could not reason my way
through.” Body, emotion, and sex were foreign territories where all
the acquired skills now apparently had no meaning or effectiveness.
The coin of the realm had changed.
Some priests react strongly against their own sexual impulses and,
at least temporarily, reinforce their resolve by reaction formation.
They rebuke with disdain adolescents who confide their
masturbations. Harking back to the pathological model, others
threaten the penitents with impending insanity if they continue their
self-stimulation. Both of these kinds of responses have decreased
THE MASTURBATIONS 61
over the decades. Now more priests seem to be in tune with the
cartoon that showed two boys sitting on a curb, their feet planted
firmly in the gutter, with one boy saying to the other, “The way I
understand it, you go crazy if you don’t do it.”
The line between pathology and immaturity seems to blur when it
comes to masturbation. I remember hearing a retreat master who had
long experience both as a hospital chaplain and as a minister to the
inner city indigent. He drew a picture of the futility and deprivation
of masturbating by telling how these poor souls masturbated even on
their death bed while he was administering the last sacraments. The
equation in his mind was clear: Masturbation equals deprivation
equals death, much in the same way the medical manuals of
the 1800s equated all manner of ailments with “the habit,” as it was
called. Today, what most health care workers who attend the dying
know is that masturbation near the time of death is a common
phenomenon without moral implication. The process of dying is
regressive. Union with the Ultimate Other also entails a trip
backward to the womb; thus, the life circle is complete (Schnaper,
1984, p. 282).
Clergy were not alone in relegating masturbation to the category
of the pathological and immature. Entrance to the Naval Academy
as recently as 1947 was barred to anyone who, on medical
examination, was found to masturbate habitually. (How this is
discovered on physical examination remains unclear to me.) The Boy
Scout Manual dropped its negative reference to masturbation only in
1973.
Quite simply, under ordinary circumstances, masturbation can be
a natural, healthy, unselfish act, expected at any stage of life as a part
of the process of growth, self-definition, and normal sexual function.
The basic question really is how well a person relates to reality and
to other people.
The place of masturbation in the life of a person vowed to
celibacy becomes a serious conundrum. Does it violate celibacy?
Two bishops from the same diocese, required to give legal
disposition in 1988, were asked that very question. One answered,
“Yes,” and the other “No.” The correct response is probably “Yes
and no”
Like the informant described earlier, there are priests who claim
never to have masturbated. (A few of these men are victims of
62 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS
In order for the church’s teaching on sex and masturbation to be
credible, involuntary or nocturnal emissions would have to provide,
in Kinsey’s words (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Wardell, & Martin, 1948),
“sufficient release to keep an individual physically and mentally
balanced.” I have no evidence that this is the case. I hope our study
will provide the impetus for further refinement of data from
observant celibates to determine the place of nocturnal emissions in
the life course of a male. American priests are the logical group to
provide this service to science and to clarify a moral position the
Church adamantly defends without sufficient cause.
FASTING
Most ascetic authors draw a connection between fasting and
controlling the sexual appetite. There is evidence that the link
existed early in Christian tradition. It is probable that some of the
early monks were anorectic and experienced the elation and
euphoria of negative nitrogen balance, ketosis, or chemical reactions
that alter mood in severe diet restriction. Rudolph Bell (1985)
explored the effects of anorexia in certain of the female saints.
In talking about his own celibate struggle, Gandhi said that if a
man can control his appetite for food, he can control all of his
instincts:
Priest informants who had been POWs during World War II reported
that they experienced either a significant diminution or complete
cessation of their sex drive during their capture; their nocturnal
emissions also stopped. They associated the change with their
severely restricted diet. As one priest said, “During that time, I never
once dreamt about sex; I always dreamt about food.”
From the 1940s through the 1960s, priests in training were
cautioned against the use of certain spices or condiments that might
increase their sexual desire or cause nocturnal emissions. There were
many jokes and rumors (with some justification in certain places) to
the effect that saltpeter was added to the seminarians’ food to reduce
their sexual response. Fasting was regulated by church law, during
Advent, Lent, and the vigils of certain feasts, for example.
Some religious orders still maintain stricter dietary regimens
among their members than those followed by other celibates. There
66 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
SPONTANEOUS EMISSIONS
There are individuals whose powers of imagination are sufficient to
cause an emission. One celibate, 35 years old at the time of his
interview with us, could sit in a library, his room, or even church,
and without any physical movement at all could bring on an
ejaculation. He struggled greatly with the morality of this ability and
worried about his “normality.” He would not allow himself to
“masturbate” and never consciously used his hand to stimulate
himself. He had joined the seminary as a teenager and his first
conscious memory of sexual excitement was awakening from a
nocturnal emission. Over the years he developed an ingenious
compromise by re-creating dreams in his imagination. Visual
stimulation—especially movies— were invariably sexually arousing
to him. He had no other sexual contact or activity.
Another priest frequently experienced an erection while he was
saying Mass and, on occasion, had a spontaneous ejaculation at the
time of consecration or communion. He was greatly troubled by the
experience, since his conscious thoughts were on his prayer and on
the ritual he was performing. He was a spiritual man, not neurotic in
any observable areas of his functioning. He used confession and
incorporated into his spiritual goals occasional masturbation to
reduce his excess sexual tension, forestalling the surprise of a
spontaneous emission at Mass. At 45 years of age, he felt he knew
himself and the rhythm of his life sufficiently to modulate his
masturbation in the service of his vocation.
A third priest, in his late 20s, would fall asleep at his desk while
preparing a sermon and would awaken at times during an emission.
He wondered if he had some unconscious participation in the
occurrence and felt he really did not have his sexuality “sorted out
yet.”
Some conscientious priests who have not allowed themselves to
masturbate while awake have reported that they do so “in their
sleep. “They are half-aware of their involuntary movements on
awakening, or they wake up shortly after the experience. All of the
men reporting this behavior masturbated prior to their vow of
THE MASTURBATIONS 67
GUILT
Priests demonstrate a spectrum of guilt reactions to their
masturbatory activity—a spectrum that has no demonstrable
relationship to the act or its circumstance. One priest may be
completely devoid of any guilt feeling after some very pathological
masturbatory activity (i.e., in the confessional or in connection with
child pornography), while another may have deep pangs of
70 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
I’ve been thinking a lot about spirit and flesh and the
relationship that results. I know that theology splits the two in
order to understand them.
Now there is the “whole-person.” We are spirit-life, or
spirit and flesh. What are we going to attach ourselves to? We
must be in the flesh but dedicated to the spirit. This has
implications for my personal life, Christian living, religious
life, and social justice.
As for me, I’ve had to let go of friendships, material things,
…But the more of those things I let go of, the more I’m left to
deal with myself. My supports and crutches are gone, and it's
just me and the Lord.
Let me share some reflections on celibacy.
Masturbation is to celibacy what intercourse is to marriage.
Intercourse in marriage celebrates love, forgiveness,
dependency, togetherness, unity, and commitment of my body
to another. Masturbation in celibacy is not so much a
celebration but a reminder of my humanness, dependency on
God, humility, loneliness, and commitment of my body to God
—it’s not as real and concrete as another person, but then I
believe it can support my growth in dependency on God. It’s
kind of like saying, “God, it’s only me in here, but it’s all I
have and it’s for you and your people.”
Intercourse is personal, private and shared with another
person I deeply love and respect. It takes a while for a
relationship to move to that point. Masturbation is personal,
private, and shared only with myself as a celibate as many
things are because that’s the life-style. It brings me face to
face with myself. Do I still want it? Is ‘it still worth it?
If intercourse in marriage is the ideal sexual response, then
masturbation in celibacy is less than ideal—but it is the sexual
response celibates are committed to by virtue of their celibate
vow. Masturbation as a sexual response may not last all of a
celibates life, just like intercourse may not last all of a married
persons life. If celibacy is to have masturbation as a sexual
response, then we cannot talk of celibacy by default—there is
no such thing.
Letting go is the ideal for the celibate so that the total giving
of self to God may be accomplished through my humanity.
THE MASTURBATIONS 75
Greeley also feels that there is every reason to believe that priests in
the United States keep their celibacy; “While celibacy is not
necessarily honored all the time, perhaps, it is nonetheless the normal
behavior of most American priests,” he says (1983b). It is that not
necessarily all the time that needs to be respected, understood, and
researched.
Celibate fidelity and married fidelity are not parallel sexually.
Both infidelities may involve a betrayal of trust or promise; but the
experience of celibacy and of marriage are psychic horses of very
different colors.
To be precise, they are not even both horses. Celibacy and active
sexual involvement operate on two separate circuits of tension
reduction. To blur this fact minimizes the significance of reality and
perniciously undermines the achievement of both. Celibates do not
help themselves or each other when they deny the reality of this
difference.
The average healthy and stable vowed celibate has to use inordinate
amounts of unconscious mental defenses to move from the celibate
mode to an active sexual mode: denial, rationalization, reaction
formation, and splitting are the most common.
A married person, even to be unfaithful, does not have to go
through a shift in psychic mode. Direct sexual activity—already
78 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
chosen—is free from the need to defend it. The married man may
have conflicts over his choice of partner; he may have guilt; but he
does not move from one psychic mode to another.
Celibacy cannot be kept in place without honesty. If the celibate
chooses sexual activity, some distinct mental mechanism must be
employed to keep him “balanced” while he compromises the
incompatibility between some sexual activity and no sexual activity.
Celibacy that does not involve the attempt to channel sexual energy
into nonsexual outlets is a sham and pretence. Periodic sexual
abstinence is not celibacy.
Second, it is not usual or ordinary to be celibate. One is different,
if one chooses to live one’s life—even for the highest of motives—
without direct sexual gratification. Spiritual tradition is constant: a
celibate is a man set apart. Special grace (charism) is given him. To
argue that celibates are ordinary men is simply to avoid the
questions of what is different about the person who chooses to live
without sex, and what nature the grace of celibacy transforms.
Research published by the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops points to traits that are stronger among seminarians studying
for the priesthood than among the general population:
HETEROSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
There is no question that some priests—cardinals and bishops, too—
have sexual relationships with women. These liaisons can endure for
years with willing partners, be less long lasting, or be furtive and
exploitative.
It would be incorrect to think that priests or bishops who have
long-term relationships with women are unsuccessful in their
vocation. The following is a description of a priest who had a 40-
year mutually satisfying love relationship with one woman.
Housekeepers
This group of hardworking and dedicated women has been maligned
and often unjustly accused of being the sexual partners of the priests
they serve. Most are not—which, of course, does not mean that the
practice is unknown. The problem of the living arrangements for
priests and bishops is an old one. Legislation by the early church
councils regulated the clerical household and in some instances
limited the women living there to close relatives. Obviously, there
were abuses, especially with the growing custom of dedicated virgin
women serving in the houses. (Fox, 1987, p. 369)
Many early tracts were addressed to the clerics and condemned
the custom followed by some priests of having consecrated virgins
in their homes to keep house for them, pretending to live with them
as sisters in devotion. (Quasten, 1960, p. 464)
Church authorities’ efforts to protect women were absent from
reports in our study. On the contrary, we have dozens of informants
who were told by a bishop or pastor that if they had a problem with
celibacy, they should take a housekeeper, or a mistress.
Arrangements that were private and did not give scandal were seen
as preferable alternatives to resignation from the priesthood. Time
PRIESTS AND WOMEN 83
Married Women
For priests without sexual experience prior to their ordination,
married women are the most frequent sources of their first sexual
relationship. Next in frequency are alliances with younger women
(even minors) who themselves have had limited sexual experience.
The naturalness of a priest as a family friend is often the context
in which a sexual relationship grows. This seemingly safe
arrangement is extolled even by serious priests, who say:
Our informants confirm both the frequency and the viability of these
relationships, but they also report that the friendship does not always
remain nonsexual. Marriage is frequently the setting for a longterm
love relationship with a priest, although at other times it is only a
brief excursion into sexuality and part of a priest s experimentation
and education.
One relationship that ended with the death of the priest and
divorce for the woman may seem extreme, but the dynamic is not.
The priest was in his early 40s, and was befriended by a couple and
their five children. The priest was a welcome companion to the
husband on the golf course on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday
mornings. He related well to the children—the younger ones were
fascinated by the stories he would tell, and the teenagers could argue
freely with him. He was a family delight. It was one of those
situations that Greeley glorifies, in which the wife becomes the
PRIESTS AND WOMEN 85
The 12 years prior to this one were beyond a doubt the best
years of my life. I grew and had a reason to live. Church and
priest. Or the other way around. I was wanted and needed and
loved by both. I guess priest and Church all ran together; I
couldn’t imagine a life without either one.
I would give almost anything to have them again. But that is
impossible. I’ll never have them again. Now I don’t know what
to look for to fill the space that they left. There is a big part of
my life that doesn’t exist any more. I guess a woman who
86 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
She also added that she knew Father would find a new friend in his
new parish.
I was not the first, and I know I won’t be the last. I always
knew that. But I also know his needs. He can’t get along
without a woman. I wouldn’t expect him to.
Well, why not find another church? Easier said than done. It
all comes back to Father. See what happens when you fall in
love with a priest? He made me happy. He was my best friend.
He gave me things to do to keep me busy. He cooked me
dinners. Told me stories. Introduced me to interesting people.
Listened to me ramble on about things. Asked my opinion.
Gave me a wink when he thought no one was looking. I miss
him very much.
The burden of the loss of virginity seems eternally to rest with the
woman. Certainly, after St. Augustine, the idea of women and sex
as the sources of evil was solidified in the Western theological mind
(cf. Pagels, 1988, Chapter 5). And early literature
To the Served
Pastoral work is a source of great satisfaction. Teaching, preaching,
counseling, crisis intervention, comforting, and facilitating the
growth of people is what many a priest states “I was ordained for.”
The sociological study of priests said that 80 percent felt that their
ministry was aided by celibacy—that because of celibacy they had
an enhanced measure of availability of both time and energy. The
denial of sexual gratification should in theory promote their
development toward the goal of universal love for all mankind.
The Outsider
Priests who assiduously avoid sexual contact with women in their
social circle—co-workers, parishioners—at times find a relationship
in a surprising quarter. They find safety and excitement in the
uniqueness of a sexual relationship with a woman from a religious
background, value system, or social circumstance entirely different
from their own. They are attracted by not being treated in the
manner to which they are accustomed. Some of these men find a
freedom of self-expression for the first time in their lives—
sometimes after years of ministry and celibate practice. These
women are either unacquainted with or not overwhelmed by the
social reverence and reserve that surround a priest. To them, he is’
just another man,” and it is this lack of constraint that seems to be
refreshing and attractive.
A 50-year-old priest entered into a sexual relationship with a
woman—an avowed atheist—whom he met at a convention. She
was “not like any other woman” he had ever encountered. She
related to him as an intelligent and interesting man, not as a priest.
She was singularly unimpressed by the trappings and ready answers
others seemed to relish. For the priest, she was a first—enabling him
to make challenging and stimulating exchanges. He was delighted
with her intelligence and by her view of life, so unlike his own. “I’m
in love for the first time,” he confided, “and it’s the most wonderful
92 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
pope’s death in 1958. They lived together both in Munich and in the
Vatican (Murphy, 1985). These long-term affective relationships are
not infrequent among the ranks of ordinary priests or men in
authority.
I have often heard it said, “Power is the lust of the clergy.” The core
of the dynamic of the asexual marriage is that, to one degree or
another, power replaces adult sexual strivings. Fenichel commented:
In our study, both priests and women who revealed this kind of
power-based relationship reported that for them sexual intercourse
was always secondary and could be absent entirely for long periods
of time. In general, deep, affective and often romantic bonds are
reinforced by regular contact and sharing, and since physical
affection is limited, the relationships can flourish at a great distance
and sustain prolonged separations.
The telephone is the great gift to such people. Every emotion and
secret is shared, and the parties have no doubts that each is the
other’s best friend. In most emotional ways, the relationship is like a
marriage—long term, but based on a shared alliance with and
devotion to the authority structure of the church. Also in practice there
is what amounts to a tacit agreement that neither party will elevate
adult sexuality above a minimal level.
Covert Marriage
There are some priests who enter into civil marriages and continue
their ministries within the ordinary church structure. Awareness of
these secret marriages is surprisingly easy to come by. They have
increased appreciably over the period of our study—especially
among chaplains in the military, where celibacy has little cultural
meaning, and where personal freedom and security are enhanced or
at least protected in their isolation from routine ecclesiastical
supervisors.
Frequent among our informants reporting legal marriage was their
desire to be “honest,” or to provide for the security of the women
they loved and the legitimacy of their children. They strove—
several successfully and for many years—to continue their assigned
ministries. Some hoped they could live their double-lives until their
retirement. In every instance, the priests were aware of the
ecclesiastical penalty for “a cleric who attempted marriage even if
PRIESTS AND WOMEN 95
only civilly” (Canon Law No. 194, 1:3). They knew they could be
removed from office—but, as one said, “only if I get caught.”
Marriage in spite of legal prohibition is not new. Among the many
historical accounts, one from around the year 1206 reads as follows:
One has to face the question, How much has changed over a
millennium?
HETEROSEXUAL BEHAVIORS
Not all heterosexual activity of priests takes place within the context
of a durable relationship. Some sexual activity forms behavior
patterns limited in their essence by the constraints of the priests’
emotional immaturity, compulsion, impulsivity, or
psychopathology. In each instance, the primary focus is on the act—
the relationship is in the service of sex rather than the other way
around.
Some priests say that they went through a sexual “practice phase”
prior to the formation of a continuing involvement with a woman.
Others used their practice to find meaning in celibacy. Other priests
continue sexual activity that is immature, transient, exploitative, or
narcissistic, and from which they learn little.
This story dates from around the year 300 and leads us to a
consideration of another type of sexual behavior.
A woman lost her father when she was 16 years old, after which
she became unruly and promiscuous for about 3 years. Upon
entering college, she determined to change her life, and became
devout, attending daily Mass and participating enthusiastically in
religious activities. She chose a young priest as her confessor, and
during her annual retreat, made a general confession to him of all
her past sins. Subsequently, the priest became more attentive to her
and by the end of the year had unburdened himself to her, confiding
to her his sexual inexperience. He asked her to teach him to French
kiss, since he had never done it.
Dependent personalities are prominent here. Priests in this
category need to be agreeable and approved of, and have great fear
of rejection. They don’t like to be alone and are more willing to take
advice from others than to make decisions for themselves. They can
conform well to the clerical system during seminary training.
Their need for approval and fear of criticism make them conformists
and good organization men. They do not want any relationship that
disrupts the system, but their sexual curiosity can be piqued beyond
endurance once they become exposed to the lives and problems of
people they serve in a parish or school. In addition, if they feel at all
disappointed in or disapproved of by the clerical system or by those
they count on within it, they look for other avenues for acceptance.
The loner is prone to sexual behavior that involves no relationship
but satisfies his curiosity or immaturity. Prostitutes are sometimes
employed to gratify this urge. Loners are men who find a refuge in
the clerical system rather than companionship or shared goals and
values. They can be considered a bit odd, and different from the
average priest. They do not have close friends and tend to be
suspicious— both factors that can be misread by others as signs of
spirituality. Because they generally conform to the system and do
their job, their discomfort with people and their eccentricities are
tolerated and in some cases even extolled as “holy” Their sexual life
will be episodic, secret, and completely devoid of personal feeling.
Pornography is a source of their education.
A priest displaying these characteristics went periodically to mas-
sage parlors where he was fellated at the culmination of each
encounter. The satisfaction of his sexual curiosity was limited to this
experience. Even when the women would offer him intercourse, he
100 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
sometimes talking about the same matters again and again. During
this frenetic time, he also became sexually involved with a woman.
Eventual treatment with lithium carbonate and psychotherapy
allowed him to reduce his activity and simplify his schedule to their
former levels. He continued his successful career.
Sometimes a change in a priest’s sexual activity can have a
hormonal root. One priest who became sexually active was
subsequently diagnosed with Graves's disease (hyperthyroidism).
Treatment with surgery and regulation with synthetic thyroid
enabled him to resume his ordinary functioning.
Both within and outside of the celibate discipline, the
relationship, balance, and interaction between mind and body are
delicate and quite mysterious. We have a great deal to learn about
how biochemistry and mood affect sexual functioning, and also how
they in turn are influenced by sexual deprivation.
PATTERNS OF ASSOCIATION
There are priests who have respectful, healthy, and satisfying
friendships with women, all within the structures of celibate
dedication. The history of religion records major examples. The New
Testament places Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene in close
association with Christ. St. Paul refers with affection and regard to
Phoebe (Romans 16), whom he calls his sister. Virgins and widows
were important elements in the early Christian communities from the
middle of the 2nd century. By the 3rd century, celibate priests and
Christian virgins lived under the same roof and in mixed
communities. Remarkable spiritual friendships between celibate men
and women are noted in the biographies of the founders of religious
orders—St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, or St. Francis de Sales
and St. Jane de Chantal, for example.
These relationships are so thoroughly directed to spiritual goals,
and the sublimation of sexual instinct clearly manifest in the
productivity and integrity of dedicated service, that they literally are
above question. I will deal with this phenomenon in the section on
the achievement of celibacy.
My concern here is with a type of association that is more
ambiguous. Some associations have elements of shared spiritual
strivings or elements of sexual sublimation, but the social and sexual
elements are still viable. They can overshadow the celibate
elements. These associations are clearly dating patterns or thinly
veiled excursions into social experimentation that skirt the edges of
sexual involvement.
To some extent, the patterns of association between priests and
women will be influenced by the fashion of the day—what is
PRIESTS AND WOMEN 107
I just thought it was the mature thing to do. I’m more conservative
now; it’s hard to keep all hugs and kisses nonsexual.”
Many men who left the priesthood credit their experience in the
third way as the catalyst for their departure. They entered into an
honest relationship, thinking it could be reconciled with their
celibate ideal. They welcomed the openness and the psychological
and social support given the practice by psychologists and moralists,
but then found themselves incapable of keeping a comfortable
balance.
Nuns enjoyed increasing freedom. They attended summer school
on university campuses far from the familiar schedule and ambience
of the convent. They discarded traditional religious habits. This
created an atmosphere and setting where like-minded, similarly
valued, and mutually concerned priests and nuns could meet and
associate. The zeitgeist was one that did away with the externals and
nonessentials of spiritual life and celibacy, in favor of greater
maturity and self-reliance.
However, some people discovered how intricately intertwined
their internal observance of celibacy was with the external structure
they had unconsciously come to depend on. When structure was
removed, inherent immaturity was revealed for re-evaluation and
redefinition—which did not always lead back to a more mature
celibate commitment. At times the restructuring became a
springboard into a more or less secret sexual relationship as
described previously. In other cases, it became a failed attempt at a
relationship that in turn initiated a pattern of sexual experimentation.
In significant numbers, the formation of a real relationship led
observant priests to choose marriage over the priesthood. Many of
these priests entered the third way in good—if naive—conscience,
but they were men who could not easily tolerate a secret or dual
existence. They had been happy and effective in the priesthood and
refused to compromise either themselves or, more significantly, the
women they genuinely loved. Of course, some priests also chose
marriage or a relationship as a way out of an unhappy existence and
a misguided vocation.
Regardless of unconscious factors that motivate two people who
share a conscious ideal of celibacy to initiate a close “meaningful”
relationship that has neither sex nor marriage as its goal, inevitable
110 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Merton described in detail the process of his love affair with M and
his internal struggle to understand it in relationship to his ongoing
vocation as a priest (Merton vol. 6, 1997, pp. 303–48). In the midst
of it he recorded, “I stood there among all the others, soberly aware
of myself as a priest who has a woman” (p. 79).
Currently the patterns of dating association are less blatant, more
subdued, and yet not quite secret. Many nuns report the frank
invitations by priests to enter into a “buddy” relationship. In a
sexually conscious and explicit age, these relationships, plus the
group dating patterns described earlier, persist as a protection
against sexual naiveté and the homosocial structure.
The use of the woman for one’s growth, experience, or recreation
is not acceptable to many young priests.
Likewise, the third-way theme is still humming along. A 60-year-
old pastor approached a young nun who worked on his parish staff
and carefully explained to her that he would like to have a nonsexual
friendship with her—that he wanted a companion for dinner, for
visiting museums, and for attending athletic events. Although the
nun had no doubt as to the sincerity of the pastor’s conscious
intentions, she was too attuned to the unconscious human agendas to
be comfortable with the invitation. Therein lies the crux of the
heterosexual patterns of association between priests and women. It is
not in the conscious intent to embrace both the celibate ideal and a
mature friendship with a woman, but in the unconscious sexual
112 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
BIRTHS
An archbishop who was being deposed—in a case of one of his
priests who abused minors—admitted that he had had sex with
several young women. He quickly added that he always used
“protection.” In some cases, however, sexual intercourse with a
priest leads to conception and birth, even in spite of caution,
contraception, and the conscious intent not to have a baby. Priests
and bishops do impregnate women. This is not merely a recent
phenomenon, nor is it as uncommon as church officials would have
the public think. The church and its social services have at times
vigorously opposed open adoption records in part to protect the
identity of priest parenthood.
The first report I reviewed was in 1966. A staff member of a large
archdiocesan foundling home—a nun—said that six of the residents
were nuns, all waiting to deliver their babies. The father in each case
was a priest. Since that time I have had the opportunity to review
scores of cases where priests became fathers.
One priest, at age 32, was the epitome of naiveté in sexual matters.
He reported that at the time of his ordination at age 26, he believed
that every act of intercourse created a pregnancy. He comforted
himself that since he would not have wanted more than five or six
114 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
ABORTION
Official Vatican teaching on abortion is clear and unequivocal.
Abortion is forbidden. The only exception is when the life of the
mother is clearly endangered.
This was in 177. But the circumstance was not simply that of
doctrinal exposition. The Christian minority was under severe
persecutory attack and one of the arguments against them was that
WHEN PRIESTS BECOME FATHERS 117
After the first trimester, the reasons for abortion must be grave,
since now the needs of the developing human life are outweighed by
the needs of already established human lives. A threat to the
physical survival of the mother seems a justifiable reason for late
abortion. The ethical principle that the end does not justify the
means has been used against such abortions. This principle is
indefensible here, since we are forced to choose between the lesser of
evils, and to do nothing is as much a human act as to intervene.
Moreover, the indifference to the meaning and value of the mother s
life in these circumstances reflects church sexism.
Catastrophic fetal disease also presents a much debated motive for
late abortion. “About 5 percent of all infants born live will have
some sort of serious birth defect or will develop mental retardation”
(Katchadourian & Lunde, 1980). It is fortunate that chronic
villus biopsy, which permits diagnosis of many fetal diseases early
in pregnancy, is now quite safe and accurate.
A catastrophic fetal disease is a permanent condition that will take
the child’s life before adulthood or destroy its capacity for self-care.
An example is Tay-Sachs disease, a degenerative disease of the
nervous system. “By about eight months [after birth], symptoms of
severe listlessness set in. Blindness usually occurs within the first
year. Afflicted children rarely survive past their fifth year” (Curtis,
1979). Such a birth is a tragedy. The emotional and financial cost to
the family is staggering.
Many unjustifiable abortions doubtless take place. We need good
demographic research on this issue. Good sex and prenatal education
is associated with a lower abortion rate. Does abortion cause
emotional scars or suicidal tendencies in women? Are abortion and
emotional problems the result of deeper, underlying causes? Women,
having a medically unnecessary abortion, should be impartially
counseled when contemplating abortion.
A practical reason for a permissive abortion law is that, legal or
not, women will have abortions. Before the 1973 Supreme Court
Roe v. Wade decision, “Kinsey found that about 23 percent of the
white women he sampled had an illegal abortion by the time they
finished their reproductive years” (Katchadourian & Lunde, 1980).
Illegal abortions endanger the lives of women while profiting
organized crime.
WHEN PRIESTS BECOME FATHERS 121
decision, but in the end chose abortion. She was not eager to cut
short her career at that particular point in her life, while he was very
conscious of the negative effects a pregnancy and his departure from
the priesthood would have on his ailing mother, who was financially
and emotionally dependent on him. These rationalizations did not
relieve any of the genuine pain of their decision, nor account for the
unconscious striving of both of them to be free to marry.
One woman was irate and regretful after the abortion she chose.
She was involved in a long-term sexual relationship with a priest
who was being promoted consistently up the ecclesiastical ladder.
She was both secure and proud of his professional accomplishments
and supported his work with sacrifice and enthusiasm. She was
shocked and disappointed when she found out she was pregnant. He
was furious. She quickly sought an abortion out of fear, rather than
thinking it through clearly or discussing her decision with him. Her
later anger resulted from his failure to support her when she needed
it most, as well as at all the unresolved unconscious factors
surrounding the relationship and pregnancy in the first place. She
continued the relationship with the priest, feeling that the abortion
was her punishment for it. One woman wanted to tell her story in
her own words.
choices: (1) I could have the baby and raise it with my other
two children; (2) I could have the baby and give it up for
adoption; (3) We could marry and raise the child together; (4)
I could have an abortion. Without batting an eye, he told me to
have the abortion. He couldn’t marry me, couldn’t help raise
the baby, couldn’t face what people would think of him if they
knew.
I was so sad and mixed up, I did have the abortion. Mark
wouldn’t come with me to the hospital. One of my girlfriends
did. That night he came by my apartment—he wanted ME to
comfort HIM. I couldn’t believe it. He dissolved into a pool of
tears about how could this have happened to HIM when he had
tried to be so good his whole damn life. I remember that I
needed some milk for the kids—they stayed with their dad for a
few days during all this—and I asked Mark to drive me to the
nearby market to get some. I wasn’t supposed to drive for a few
days. Do you know he refused? He was afraid of what people
would think if they saw me in his car! Here I had just aborted
his baby about twelve hours before that and he’s worried about
my face in his car window.
As a footnote, I should mention that Jim knew about the
abortion and was a lot more understanding and probing about
it than Mark. Jim has never thrown it in my face, never told the
kids; he talked to me for hours about whether or not I really
wanted to go through with it. And I had divorced him. Still a
good decision, but he was there for me in this instance when
his replacement was acting like a bowl of mush. Old mush.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over having chosen to destroy that
baby. I read about how other women have this experience too—
this regret and guilt. I look at my existing children, and
wonder how this one would have turned out. I hope I don’t
spend eternity in Hell because I killed somebody. I worry
about that a lot. I’ve talked to my priest who is now a bishop,
and he’s said there are no sins that are unforgivable. He even
told me to stay away from Mass for a couple of weeks because
right after my abortion the Church was having its big “right to
life” campaign and he thought that would be pretty tough for
me to take.
126 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
After several years, I interviewed this woman again. She says that
she deeply regrets the abortion and that, if she had to do it over, she
would choose to raise the child herself.
The priest is now the pastor of a large parish and was made a
Monsignor. He is still sexually active.
Dedicated religious women are increasingly vocal about their right
to be heard—certainly when issues touch them directly and
essentially. There is a theme of disregard of women—from gentle
neglect to flagrant abuse—that runs through many accounts of the
practice of priestly celibacy-sexuality. The words of Sister Margaret
Ellen Traxler (1979) have to taken seriously:
Homosexual Orientation
Generally speaking, the only distinction made about “homosexuality”
is between orientation and behavior. Both are often labeled “bad” or
“defective.” Some moralists tolerate orientation more readily than
behavior. There is little understanding of the place of the
homosexualities in the developmental process, in spite of Freud’s
pioneering explorations in his Three Essays on Sexuality (1905). He
distinguished three types of homosexuality. “Contrary sexual
feelings”: “absolute” (obligatory), “amphigenic” (bisexual), and
“contingent” (situational) homosexuality. He also dealt with the
questions of innate predisposition versus acquired character of the
sexual instinct, and degeneracy.
Three shifts in awareness are needed to understand reality facets of
the homosexual.
130 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
told: “Everybody in the gay community knows that you can pick up
a trick there [the seminary] any time of day or night.”
The shift in the social atmosphere of this seminary can be
recorded as the history of the Coke machine that evolved into an
inhouse cocktail lounge. Both lay and clerical observers reported the
open flaunting of behavior reminiscent of a gay bar. It was common
for the students to call each other by girls’ names. Some faculty and
students frequented gay bars as part of their personal recreational
program.
The question is: Has homosexual behavior among the faculty and
students increased, or has it just become apparent? Both are true.
There is no doubt that the reporting of homosexual behavior has
doubled. However, it must be remembered that the clergy population
itself did not remain stable in those years. More significantly, the
homosocial organization of the seminary that was designed to keep
women at bay and thereby secure celibacy revealed part of its
essence as homosexual. It became apparent as pressure dissolved its
protective facade.
Priests are set aside and given prestige. They are special—their
very existence blesses families. They have a spiritual perspective, yet
are assured honors and financial security. They supply ceremonial
rites, moral instructions, and visionary leadership similar to
berdaches, those sexually ambiguous figures revered to the Native
American. Williams’s s The Spirit and the Flesh (1986) clarifies the
role of the berdache in that culture:
would gather the men in their recreation room. There they were
instructed to form an “elephant line”—each man facing the back of
the man in front of him holding onto the penis of the person behind
him. This had been explained carefully to the group as an exercise to
“desensitize” them and prepare them for their future ministry.
What struck the psychiatrist when the man was referred for
treatment was not the psychotic process of the priest himself, who
had finally succumbed under prolonged, severe personal pressure,
but the fact that the situation had existed for several sessions before
any of the candidates reported the behavior to his superiors. Because
the priest was a genuinely good and conscientious man with a
reputation for liveliness and wisdom within the community, even
such a frankly bizarre psychotic episode could be for a time
absorbed into the system of secrecy.
nurturance and vestment makes sense for one who is endowed with
both a homosexual and heterosexual psychic disposition. Freud
assumed that the human animal is endowed with a bisexual
constitution. Although prenatal and biochemical studies are in their
infancy, we cannot minimize their import for sexual programming
and disposition.
This is an age when girls and boys are vulnerable to grooming and
sexual advances of an adult, such as a priest, who is trusted by the
family.
Both the negative oedipal and this stage of puberty can broadly be
called “homosexual” in that they constitute a turning toward the
object of the same sex and away from the opposite sex through
devaluation or denigration. It is necessary to pass through these
stages on the way to adult heterosexual adjustment. This is why I
call it the “necessary homosexual phase of development.”
This latter phase is particularly important for understanding
celibate practice and development in the church organization and
structure. Much of the homosocial organization of clerical culture is
fixed at this stage. It is the culture’s natural protection. The power
structure of the Roman Catholic hierarchy can be seen psychically
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 145
Pseudohomosexuality
An interesting subgroup emerged among the informants. They were
marked by the fear that they might be homosexual. They were
conscientious and would identify themselves as “gay” if that would
resolve their internal conflict. But they could not. They might have
had no adult homosexual experience and were relying on their
memories of childhood or adolescent sexual play with friends or
family. Some had experimented briefly in adult life with both sexes.
They were not caught in preadolescent development. They were
more like the college student who fearfully asks, “Am I normal?”
They wished to be priests, still held celibacy as an ideal, but wanted
to be “like everybody else.”
A 36-year-old priest who was an informant for 11 years of the
study demonstrates the point. He joined the seminary at 13 and
found the atmosphere supportive and warm, in contrast with his home
where his mother had died 2 years earlier and his father was
becoming more and more aggressively and frequently alcoholic. He
fit into the seminary program well. The athletic program met
his needs and he became first academically. He was sent to Rome
for his theological studies, and it was in his first year there that he
experienced his first real questioning of celibacy and his vocation.
After a brief depressive episode, he regained his enthusiasm for his
studies and life.
When he obtained his graduate degree, he was assigned to the
chancery office staff and over the next 8 years became increasingly
involved in the administrative decisions of the diocese.Then a policy
dispute over a financial crisis abruptly ended the personal and
political support necessary for him to keep his job. The bishop—a
man he admired as a friend and father figure—suddenly dismissed
him.
For the first time since he had taken his vow of celibacy 12 years
earlier, he began to masturbate. His new assignment in a parish
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 147
Defensive Homosexuality
Many men fear the idea that they may be homosexual. Others are so
homophobic that they cannot tolerate the idea of being close to or
friendly with a homosexual person. But there are also a few men
who can more easily accept the idea of being homosexual than the
idea of being heterosexual; they find the latter threatening and
fearsome. There are “reactive forms of homosexuality also, namely,
identification with the other sex, for the purpose of denying fear of
the other sex” (Fenichel, 1953, p. 310).
A 30-year-old priest was productive in his parish and as a part-time
high school teacher. He had had a few homosexual encounters, but
no pattern of sexual activity, and did not feel compelled to act out
his sexual impulses. He was well regulated in his lifestyle and talked
about his desire to be celibate. He could not see himself being
anything but a priest. He was comfortable about identifying himself
as a homosexual, in private, but did not openly claim “being gay”—
a stance that would have been uncommon and incongruous at that
time.
His trouble began when one of the women teachers at the school
took a particular liking to him. When she declared her feelings and
made a move to hug and kiss him—a response he had no
awareness of inviting or provoking—he went into a panic state. The
acuteness and vehemence of his physiological responses frightened
him. He had a genuine heterosexual panic. His response is hard to
explain, but was observed and recorded in 1927.
Regressive Homosexuality
There are kinds of regressions that serve growth, development, and
social stability. Play remains one of these situations throughout life.
Men hunt and fish together, have their beer and bowling nights
to refresh themselves, and return invigorated to their families and
work. This homosocial regression is accepted in society. The men
don’t do anything overtly homosexual, but their orientation for this
brief period is “men only.” Only men count, understand each other,
and bond together, and they exclude women. Behavior and humor
here are very much like the adolescent boys’ clubs.
Freud had a close friend to whom he confided: “The company of
the friend, which a special—perhaps feminine—side demands, …no
one can replace for me.…” And “I do not share your contempt for
friendship between men, probably because I am to a high degree
150 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
party to it. In my life, as you well know, woman has never replaced
the comrade, the friend.” Freud wrote this self-appraisal when his
intimacy with Fliess had declined and he could afford to be clear-
sighted. In 1910, looking back on the whole fateful attachment,
Freud bluntly told several of his closest disciples that his attachment
to Fliess had contained a homosexual element. (Gay, 1988, p. 86.)
What happens when men live in a homosocial existence? How do
they regress? After the male bonding and the intense feelings of
friendship, they have no wife and family to ease the sexual tension
increased by male competition and exchange. Under tension and
pressure, or perhaps under the weight of depressive feelings, some
priests regress to a homosexual stage of development—to the
prepubertal sexual as well as social exchange. This kind of situation
can lead outside the clerical circle into the anonymous and tenuous
world of furtive sexual encounters in bars, restrooms, baths, or
massage parlors. Many priests make a complete psychic split
between their sexual behavior and their professional clerical life;
this is also true of those who involve themselves in heterosexual
behavior. The maturity, judgment, and values lived and expressed in
their professional life are entirely abandoned in their “play” world,
where they operate almost wholly apart from those values.
A responsible priest, aged 42, reported that over the previous 7
years he had periodically searched for homosexual partners in a
series of bars and peep shows, usually after spending time with his
good priest friends. Another priest went twice a month to a hotel for
a massage. Although the masseur never touched the priest’s genitals,
the priest always ejaculated during the massage; it was important to
him to have the touch of a male and to avoid the idea of a masseuse.
Although it is most common for the regressive behavior to be
split from the clerical life, some priests reported being approached
by other priests for sexual contact within the clerical setting—while
visiting their parish house, helping with some special function, or on
vacation.
Alcohol can be a factor in this regression. Two priest informants
took an annual vacation together at a posh beach resort some
distance from their homes. Long-time friends, they enjoyed many
common interests. At least one night of each vacation, they would
drink to the point of drunkenness, come back to their hotel, and
masturbate each other—something they did not do at any other time
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 151
Situational Homosexuality
Doctor Lewis Hill, former medical director of Sheppard and Enoch
Pratt Hospital in Maryland, used to tell his resident psychiatrists,
“Man is a loving animal, and he is going to love whatever he is
near.” The sexual histories of farm boys frequently recorded passing
involvements with animals. Sucking calves respond equally to their
mother’s teat, a finger, or a little boy’s penis. This is usually a
situational phenomenon dependent on sexual development, social
isolation, loneliness, and positive loving feelings for a friend.
What happens to the average man when he is isolated for long
periods of time, with restricted affective (social) outlets and limited
positive sexual development? One of the early psychological studies
NASA commissioned was to project the effect of prolonged periods
in space on astronauts. Dependent on one another, one set of factors
to be taken into account would be the positive effect that would or
could mutually develop when no other loving objects were near. The
logical question then became whether homosexual feelings would be
aroused eventually after a long time in sexual isolation. Kinsey and
colleagues noted the frequency of homosexual contact “among
ranchers, cattlemen, prospectors, lumbermen and farming groups in
general” (1948, p. 457). All of these virile and active groups tend to
152 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
face the perils of nature in a practical way and approach sex the
same way.
Navy men at sea are assured, “If you’re under way it’s not gay,”
to allay the fears about feelings between them that might be aroused
during long periods of isolation. “What happens aboard, stays
aboard,” is an assurance that missteps are situational.
However, priests faced with homosocial isolation for long periods
of their life are not allowed to accept sex in the way the groups
above do. One expects and finds more restraint of sexual activity
among clergy when compared to other groups of men. But the
homosocial situation does stimulate feelings. Although only 20
percent of clergy report homosexual behavior or identity, 40 percent
report having homosexual ideation at some point during their
training or later.
At times the situation rather than the core sexual orientation of the
priest dictates his sexual choice. Many reports in this category are
similar. A long-time friendship and isolation in a learning or living
circumstance lead to a sexual exchange between friends. Subsequent
history and development can reveal an essentially heterosexual
orientation and choice.
Obligatory Homosexuality
This homosexuality is a state and not necessarily a behavior. It is
determined either by genetic endowment or by environmental
factors so compelling that the affective orientation toward one’s own
sex as the primary relational object is irreversible by any known
psychological or physical means. In this sense it is determined by
nature. More and more biochemical research is examining the
influence of hormones on prenatal development.
In its essence, obligatory homosexuality has nothing to do with
behavior or sin. There is nothing immoral about it as a state—a
declaration that can be equally valid for heterosexuality. Of course,
it is not the norm in any culture, but is a variation of nature and
development.
As Nash and Hayes (1965) say: “Awareness of a homosexual
orientation does not imply identity; identity does not imply
acceptance; acceptance does not imply commitment” (p. 35). A
person who aspires to celibacy will sooner or later have to come to
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 153
grips with the question of his sexual identity, even in spite of limited
or no sexual experience. In fact, sexual activity can be indulged in
with less thought than sexual restraint. The latter forces one to rely
on inner resources having moorings in one’s past and lying deep in
one’s unconscious, as well as on conscious relatedness to
transcendent love objects that can encompass a world.
Since sexual activity of any stripe is forbidden to the celibate, the
protected and homosocial environment of the priesthood—where
male association dominates, but sexual activity is taboo—can be a
haven of peace as well as an arena for productive and loving service.
Some who have professed celibacy and practiced it for prolonged
periods of time have difficulty identifying themselves as obligatory
homosexuals in spite of tremendous inner honesty and self-
awareness. Those who do not act out may not be sure of their sexual
identity, but use their sexual ambiguity to advantage in the
understanding of and ministry to a wide range of persons, both male
and female.
Sexual Addiction
There are, of course, those who are aware of their obligatory
orientation and have acted on their sexual attractions, before or after
taking a vow. Of special concern here is addictive sexual behavior.
Addiction is troublesome whether the sexual object is male or
female, adult or child. In one who professes celibacy, it violates a
trust of office. The priest has entrée to and the confidence of another
person precisely because he is a priest and presumed celibate. This is
the case in in stances of sex with minors. However, even in the cases
of anonymous sex, addiction violates self-trust at the deepest level
of one’s ego. One literally cannot trust himself.
Sexual addiction among the clergy is described by both the
tortured addict and by his victims. The system of secrecy
surrounding the sexual behavior only compounds the problem and
interferes with breaking the cycle of addiction. The behavior is not
dealt with in the confessional. At times, confession becomes part of
a cycle of denial. It facilitates the split of sex from the rest of one’s
conscious functioning. In confession, sex is treated as an “act,” and
not acknowledged as a pattern of addiction. The “sin” is forgiven,
but the state remains.
154 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Committed Homosexuality
There is a group among priests who can be called “committed
homosexuals.” Their sexual attraction, fantasy, emotional and social
preference, and their self-identification or awareness are all
congruent. They may or may not practice celibacy, but if they do
choose sexual activity, it is invariably homosexual. This can change
over time, since all of these factors are interactive and open to
development and alteration (cf. Klein, Sepekoff, & Wolf, 1985).
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 155
well and have many friends in common, but they are not sexual with
each other.
Most often, some distance is preferable for both priests to
maintain a guilt free ministry and relationship. Sexual activity
between these men is ego-syntonic; they experience no guilt. They
do not confess, or do so only in the very beginning of their
relationship. Their partners tend to be appropriate in terms of age,
mutual consent, and circumstance. They do not come to the attention
of civil authorities. Because the activity is not disruptive to their
work or to the group immediately around them, these men do not
command attention.
The sexual activity is integrated with their lives and religious
goals and ideals; or it is rationalized as natural and even necessary
for them to carry on their service to the church. They frame their
homosexual activity in much the same mold that they do
masturbation—as necessary and inconsequential. They do not
experience it as a threat to their vocation.
One priest in the study did not intend to take the vow of celibacy.
He consciously and audibly said “no” when he went through the
ceremony preceding his ordination to the subdiaconate. He also
wrote clearly in the necessary documents that he did “not” promise
celibacy. He has lived a productive ministry over a period of 35
years. He says, “I wanted to be a priest; I never wanted to marry, but
I had no inclination to be celibate either. I decided to live my life as
a responsible Christian gentleman. And I have.” He has had several
sexual friendships over the years, but has never been promiscuous or
compulsive in his behavior.
Public exposure is uncommon in this group, but when it happens,
it has particular force. An American archbishop was confronted in
the press with a letter he had written to a close male friend years
earlier. It was a “love letter” explaining the rupture in the
relationship and specifying his intention of returning to a celibate
way of life. The incident was compounded when it was revealed that
money was paid to the recipient. It appeared to be a cover-up.
The important issue is not any particular churchman’s sexual
practice, but the fact that sexual activity that is proscribed by church
teaching, and disavowed by men who profess celibacy, can take
place at the highest levels of power. There is nothing I could or
would say that would detract from the good Archbishop Weakland did
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 157
in office. There is also nothing I could omit that will alter the truth
about sexual practice among the hierarchy. Cardinal O’Connor said:
“The Holy Father demands that the Truth, whole and unvarnished,
be made available to everyone.” (Time, October 13,1986.) This, of
course, runs counter to the operation of the secret system.
The sexual practice of clergy is part of the important teaching
truth of the Catholic Church. Example is as much as, or even more
than, the word, a powerful and effective means of teaching. Celibacy
in religious tradition is meant, among other goals, to be a lived
example of how to regulate the sexual drive in accord with Christian
principles. In the estimation of the general public, celibacy is not
merely a legal state of nonmarriage, but a way of life sexually in
conformity with church teaching. It is legitimate to ask not only what
is the church’s teaching on sexuality but how it is lived by church
teachers and leaders.
Especially in the area of the homosexualities, the time has passed
when simple denunciation and condemnation can be satisfactory. To
label homosexuality a “sin” or “essentially disordered” does not aid
understanding, responsible sexual practice, or abstinence.
In my study, I have made no distinction between priests with or
without hierarchical power. But one cannot assume that station and
power are guaranties of sexual orthodoxy in practice or proof of
consistency between word and behavior. In fact, there is ample
evidence that clergymen can publicly and vehemently denounce sin
in others while quietly and repeatedly indulging in it themselves.
Some people assume that guilt is an adequate controller or
regulator of behavior. It is not. The ego with the sum total of its
integrative capacities and object relatedness is the agency that
determines behavior (cf. Hartmann, 1958). Too little attention is paid
to this reality in the education and formation of men who would be
celibate.
There is another subgroup among the committed homosexual
population of priests. They are the growing and articulate group who
are generally allied with gay rights and who talk freely about their
sympathies. They find support more outside the clergy population
than within it. But they also are vocal and often seek out clergy for
understanding and support. This group does not split their behavior
and their celibate ideal. They frankly disregard celibacy as not
possible or desirable. The dichotomy in their lives is more between
158 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
who knows and who does not know their orientation or sexual
preference. One wag among this group said that “the unmentionable
vice, now mentioned, can’t keep its mouth shut.”
There are priests championing the cause of justice for
homosexuals who believe in celibacy where appropriate. Pioneers
like John J. McNeill and Father Robert Nugent faced squarely the
theological questions posed by the reality of the homosexualities and
church teaching and were silenced. Some priests have declared their
own obligatory homosexual orientation; other supporters are
heterosexual. There is a movement of gay priests who band together
to support each other in their celibate strivings. The membership is
guarded; they operate according to the principles of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Latent Homosexuality
A simple definition of latent homosexuality describes it as a true
homosexual impulse that can be conscious but is mostly
unconscious, and is not overtly acted out. It is beyond the scope or
intent of this study to speculate on the number of priests who do not
admit a homosexual orientation or who genuinely may not be aware
that unresolved homosexual tendencies may indeed motivate their
lives and behaviors.
In 1910, Freud made some creative observations about Leonardo
da Vinci and his psychic structure, especially the preservation of
his relationship with, and fidelity to, his mother (1953a, p. 78). In
1928, he observed of Dostoevsky that “a strong innate bisexual
disposition becomes one of the preconditions or reinforcements of
neurosis…and it shows itself in a viable form (as latent
homosexuality) in the important part played by male friendships in his
life, in his strangely tender attitude toward rivals in love and in his
remarkable understanding of situations which are explicable only by
repressed homosexuality” (1961b,p.l84).
Those observations about Dostoevsky’s s novels could be applied
to the lives of a number of priests, just as Leonardo’s homosexual
attachment to his mother has echoes in the lives of many priests. In
his Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud does not equivocate. He says:
“The unconscious mental life of all neurotics (without exception)
shows inverted impulses, fixation of their libido upon persons of
THE HOMOSEXUALITIES 159
ALCOHOLISM
There was a time when psychological theory branded severe
alcoholism as having an underlying latent homosexual personality
structure. That is an oversimplification. Invariably, however, alcohol
addiction interferes with sexual function. Many priests report that
they come to grips with their sexual behavior and identity once they
ve dealt with their alcohol addiction. Over 50 percent of clergy who
are treated for severe alcohol problems have some homosexual
concerns. This is an important minority to consider when one
approaches the sexual practices of clergy.
There is an Irish bias that was reported several times: “If Father is
an alcoholic, he must be celibate.” A drinking problem is seen as a
proof of fidelity to the celibate vow and lack of sexual involvement.
Studies correlating alcohol use and sexual practice among the clergy
are yet to be done.
help they don’t come to clinics. I’ve met with priests in some
of the strangest places.” (Leishman, 1987, p. 48)
Priests are part of that segment of the male population who “cannot
marry.” The church presumes that this is a self-limitation. The
vocation is a call to sacrifice everything to follow Christ. That
everything includes heart, mind, and will. Marriage and any directly
sought sexual pleasure are forbidden. Everything includes a rejection
of over-dependence on material things (some form of religious
poverty). A weltanschauung of obedience presumes the will of God
is the supreme law and it is expressed through legitimate authority.
For some priests these ideals are formalized in vows. However,
with or without vows, the histories of all clerics—saints and sinners
alike—are ultimately measured against these gospel ideals. It can be
most accurately stated that the approach to the ideal is a history of
the compromises made in reaching them. Acknowledging honest
failures proves success.
Sublimation of the sexual instinct makes celibacy possible. I have
observed areas of failure in achieving that sublimation—areas that
are essentially victimless. The most common modes of sexual
expres-sion involve pornography, transvestism, exhibitionism, and
bestiality.
SEXUAL COMPROMISES 167
WHAT IS NORMAL?
Celibacy, because it depends on a “grace,” is a supernatural vocation.
Certainly it is not natural for the average man to remain celibate.
Celibacy is not the norm for society; in that sense it is not normal.
Priests have a difficult time getting an education in sexuality. This
can lead some to explore various avenues to satisfy their normal
curiosity. Is it normal for the priest to view pornography? The
Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography stated:
is striving for sexual maturity without the benefit of the mating and
marital experiences. The observer needs tolerance and empathy with
the educational and growth struggles of that minority whose
“handicap” is a supremely high spiritual ideal. A priest attempting
celibacy does not develop psychosexually in the same way or at the
same rate as the average man. Can priests be considered the normal
pervert? Such is
FEAR OF WOMEN
If the use of pornography is coupled with the fear of women the
probability of fixation at immature levels of psychosexual
development becomes more likely. Devotion to the idealized
Blessed Virgin enhances early concepts of other less idealized
women as dangerous and inaccessible. Fear inhibits development.
The fear of women is generalized; they become “the most dangerous
enemy.”
The sexual flame of curiosity is actually fanned by some priests’
fear. Their attempt to overcome it and their sexual inexperience
leads them to pornography. Like other patrons of adult bookstores
and movie houses priests have had less sexually related experiences
in adolescence than the average male. Their pastoral work confronts
them with the sexual concerns of others; this in turn challenges them,
leading to a high degree of sexual orientation in adulthood.
Many people would question the value of pornography as an
educational element in any man’s life, let alone that of a dedicated
celibate. Pornography, however, is a fact, an ancient fact and in
some cultures, but not in Christian tradition, is considered an art
form. “An erotic art,” Foucault said (in The History of Sexuality,
1978, p. 67), “is the usual way for a civilization to make sense of its
knowledge about sex.” He pointed to the existence of such artistic
expression in Etruscan, Roman, Arabic, Persian, Indian, Chinese,
Japanese, and many other civilizations but not, alas, in the Christian.
SEXUAL COMPROMISES 171
The feminist arguments hold some special significance for the priest
whose sexual experience and education are limited, and who is,
therefore, unduly influenced by what he does see and hear. A
priest’s unresolved fear of women often manifests itself in a harsh
and denigrating attitude toward them that has multiple pastoral and
even theological ramifications.
WHAT IS PORNOGRAPHY?
Sexually explicit writings, drawings, paintings, sculpture, ceramics;
private performances, recorded or spoken recitations, plays, dance,
and religious rites, can all be pornographic and have existed in every
culture. They stimulate fantasy. Oftentimes these materials are
banned or circulated “underground.”
view and the lighting favored the priest’s observation and he stood
in the dark of his room transfixed by the thrashings and passion of
the young couple. He found himself more sexually stimulated than
he had ever been in his life and he masturbated. After this
experience, he went through a phase of visiting pornographic
bookshops and peep shows. He was fascinated with the female body
and became aware of how much he wanted to make love with a
woman. Although this period lasted several years and was
distressing and confusing to the priest, it finally was incorporated
into his sexual maturation.
The use of pornography is often accompanied or followed by
masturbation. Sometimes it is a prelude to or reinforcement of other
sexual activities, including homosexuality and pedophilia.
In The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis, Otto Fenichel (1945)
said the following:
I first began to “act out” sexually about 20 years ago. That was
in the late 1960s when the so-called sexual revolution was just
getting under way and when pornography became widely and
174 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
complete record of all the foreign ships that docked at a seaport near
his home. Certain foreign seamen frequented the pornographic
theater that he visited; his visit always coincided with the shore
leave of a foreign ship. All of his sexual activity had involved
pornographic films in conjunction with homosexual contact with
sailors in the theater. This methodical priest kept a meticulous
accounting of his adventures. The rest of his life was productive and
well regulated.
Although pornography can lead a priest to sexual contact with
others, it may also follow or substitute for contact. A priest who had
had a prolonged sexual affair with a woman when he was in his 30s
renewed his vow of celibacy when she died; he subsequently
refrained from sexual activity. But he began to collect pornographic
literature after her death. Since he was a teacher and scholar, he
incorporated his hobby into his intellectual interests—he became an
authority on Henry Miller.
There are a number of priests who practice celibacy and even
eventually achieve the state who use modern cinema and literature
very well. Literally, they learn to mature from it. They are rarely
interested in pornography because of its paucity of person and event.
In pornography, the only object is a penis or a vagina; the only event
is the orgasm. Persons of spiritual and intellectual depth and
maturity are fascinated by life and are usually bored quickly by
pornography.
For some priests, pornography is an occasional or passing interest
as a victimless outlet for their sexual tension. Some do become
addicted. There are a few who relish their role as censors and
crusaders against pornography. A layman reported his aversion to
the enthusiastic cleric who was trying to elicit his help on a church
committee to stamp out pornography for the protection of the youth
of the area. With a wild gleam in his eye, the priest had said to the
layman, “You should see what they show!” The layman noted also
that many of the committee members spent a disproportionate
amount of time reviewing and riling against the material to be
stamped out.
For the average priest or the average religious layperson,
pornography is not the object of prolonged or undue interest. The
most apt similarity to the interested priest is the adolescent—curious
and afraid of sex, relatively inexperienced, yet eager to learn about it
178 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
and not quite certain of an avenue that is both safe and acceptable to
his conscience.
Because so many priests have been exposed to some pornography
and yet it so rarely persists in isolation without masturbation, or even
homosexual or pedophilic activity, we make no estimate of
pornography as an isolated sexual outlet. Suffice it to say that many
have been exposed, but only a few become addicted. Certainly
pornography is not a preferred method of teaching priests about
human sexuality. Some priests use it along with alcohol in the
seduction and abuse of minors.
EXHIBITIONISTIC BEHAVIOR
In contrast to voyeurism, where sexual pleasure is achieved by
seeing, exhibitionism is a mode of deriving sexual pleasure from
being seen. Technically, it is the exposure of the sexual organs in
situations in which exposure is socially defined as inappropriate, and
is carried out, at least in part, for the purpose of sexual arousal and
gratification.
It is safe to say that as an unvarnished disorder it is rare among
priests vowed to celibacy. Other researchers have pointed out that in
the population generally, exhibitionism is age related; “the peak of
exhibitionism is in the 20s, and it decreases rapidly in the 30s; over
the age of 40 the symptom occurs only in rare instances. Although
the peak of the exhibitionist’s behavior is around age 25, the onset
of symptoms has two major periods, one in midpuberty, and the
other in the early 20s. Exhibitionists as a group are young; offenses
occur ring at an older age frequently indicate other factors, such as
alcoholism, organic deterioration, or another sexual deviation,
especially pedophilia” (Mohr, Turner, & Jerry, 1964, p. 127).
There was one priest who took great delight in walking nude from
the bathroom to the bedroom in his parish house when he felt the
housekeeper, whom he disliked, had invaded his upstairs domain.
Although it was mean-spirited, the housekeeper was intrigued as
well as frightened, but it lacked real sexual excitement on his part. He
had other problems.
Several reports of incidents where priests who were drunk
exposed themselves inappropriately were reported; control of the
alcoholism seemed to eliminate these incidents. Exhibitionism that
SEXUAL COMPROMISES 179
TRANSVESTISM
Clothing does have meaning. Clergy do wear fancy clothes. The
higher the ecclesiastical rank the more colorful and elaborate. The
silks, satins, brocades, laces, and ermines required for some
ceremonies are no more than a uniform to the vast majority of clergy.
The clothing—from the cassock to the cope—is of another time. It is
vestry that is sexually ambiguous in present day culture. And it can
be a symbol of the lack of sexual differentiation so common in the
priesthood.
A sufficient number of priests report behavior strictly defined as
transvestism to conclude that 1 percent of Catholic clergy make this
sexual compromise. An understanding of the clerical transvestite—
as in understanding other manifestations of sexual compromise—
requires an examination of transvestism in its strictest clinical sense
and a look at the psychosexual developmental dynamics underlying
it. One strict definition follows:
St. Jerome, who died in 420, was one of the most colorful Fathers
of the Church. He was a staunch and implacable proponent of
clerical celibacy. His stature is established as a scholar who spent a
half-century translating the Scriptures. His sexual life found no
autobiographical witness like his contemporary, St. Augustine, but
there are provocative intimations that are worthy of a psychohistory.
A thousand years after his death, part of Jerome’s life was
immortalized in the incomparably beautiful illustrations in The Belles
Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. Jerome was a learned man versed in
the pagan philosophies. The story goes that he had a dream in which
he promised to give up his secular studies. In that dream two whip-
wielding angels scourged him in the sight of God on His throne. The
manuscript reads:
that sound scholarship can verify from Jerome’s own writings a far
clearer picture of his sexuality and celibacy than has been painted
thus far.
Homosexuality can also play a part in cross-dressing: The
homosexual man replaces his love for his mother by an identification
with her…not by imitating her object choice but by imitating her
“being a woman” (Fenichel, 1945, p. 344). The essence of
transvestism is “identification with the woman, as a substitute for, or
side by side with, love for her” (Fenichel 1953, p. 169).
The challenge to establish one’s masculinity and the struggle then
to remain celibate is not a simple matter. Freud believed in the
inherent bisexuality of humans, but he did not espouse gender
equality. He, with most thinkers of his time, held the male gender to
be the superior biological and psychological sex. The persistence of
this stance is indispensable, for understanding the celibate structure
of the church.
The idea of male superiority is necessary to keep the male matrix
in place—-to preserve male exclusivity, hierarchical structure, and
the homosocial organization of the clergy.
Celibacy grapples with the demands of consolidating masculinity
while foregoing sexual activity. The history of celibacy
demonstrates some failure in achieving gender and sexual identities.
Transvestism is a compromise that helps explain some priests’
dilemmas and their unconscious attempts to be men but not too
sexual. He can “get inside the skin” of a woman (her clothes) and
yet experience himself as a man (his erection).
Celibacy holds some priests safely in a stage of development
where it is not necessary for them to define their sexuality. They can
be close to a woman (inside her skin) without running the risks of
rejection; they can maintain a sense of masculinity without indulging
in the external aggression needed for sexual activity with another
person. For these men, things, not persons, reassure them that they
are all right and give them gratification. Their sense that they are not
involved sexually with anyone else saves the appearance of celibacy
or maintains abstinence for relatively long periods of time, even if this
security comes from the“cloth.”
The questions about transvestism are more important than the
answer. How is transvestism related to celibacy? How do celibates
consolidate their sense of masculinity? What meanings do the robes
186 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
ont les Peaux Rouges ont cela” (“Only Red Skins have this”).
My brother didn’t deny it. We were different from anyone
else.
Murder
Priests at times put themselves in harm’s way in search of sex.
Several priests, in recounting their histories remarked, “I’m lucky I
didn’t get myself killed.” Two priests did not live to be able to say
that. Both murders were reported to the press simply as random
robberies; both victims, however, were well known to informants—
one a psychiatrist and the other a parish pastor.
The first victim was a priest in his mid-30s who, for a period of 5
years, periodically sought out casual sex, usually in public
restrooms. He would suffer a paroxysm of severe guilt after each
encounter and would vow never to seek another. His resolve would
last for several weeks or months. He described to a friend, how his
tension and a growing preoccupation built to a breaking point. He
imagined the meeting place, white-tiled walls and floor, the memory
of the mixed smells of disinfectant and human bodies, and the thrill
of the danger.
Upon reflection, he could see that the desire was several days in
the building, but the final thrust to action always took him by
surprise. He would “find” himself in the area rather than “plan” to be
there. His heart would pound; he would salivate; the place itself took
on great significance—something akin to Hemingway’s Nick
Adams in his search for clean, well-lighted places. Ironically the
priest s search led to his senseless murder.
In other regards, this man’s life as a priest was unremarkable. He
was responsible enough and sociable enough, and in no obvious way
did his proclivity interfere with his work. He was perceived as the
kind and conscientious priest he was.
The other priest who was murdered was noticeably successful in
his ministry, if judged by the prestige and regard he enjoyed. He had
entered therapy a few months prior to his death, consumed with a
feeling of loneliness that no association or friendship within his
priesthood could assuage. In fact, the more success he achieved and
the more generally popular he became among his peers, the more his
feelings of loneliness and desperation grew. At times in the depths
of his despair he would cruise the streets for a companion, and
would occasionally invite a stranger into his living quarters. These
exploits were sexually motivated. When he was found murdered in his
office, the crime was attributed to robbery, as the priest was fully
SEXUAL COMPROMISES 189
clothed and some cash was missing. However, the priest’s pattern
had been known by his psychiatrist and suspected by a few of his
priest friends.
Suicide
Generally, the idea of suicide is not associated with priests and no
data exists on their rate of suicide compared with that of dentists and
psychiatrists. In the 1950s Dr. Francis Braceland, an eminent
Catholic psychiatrist, said that early in his life he had mistakenly
believed that nuns and priests were immune from the act of
selfdestruction. Bitter experience had taught him otherwise.
The refinement of understanding between religion and psychiatry
over the past decades has made representatives of both professions
more realistic about the mental health of religious people
(McAllister, 1986). Depression, for instance, knows no religious
boundaries. In fact, there seems to be a strong depressive component
to the psyches of seriously religious people. Certainly, a depressive-
like encounter is necessary to the pursuit of celibacy.
Over two dozen reports of clergy suicide have been reported in
the past decade related to the sexual abuse of minors. Other reports
of suicide we reviewed were intrinsically bound up with the sexual
conflicts in pursuing the celibate ideal. Suicide is always a tragedy,
and no less so among the clergy; however, among them it probably
also has some special symbolic power, contradicting the message of
hope inherently implied by ministry.
A priest in his mid-30s sought the help of a Catholic psychiatrist
specifically because of his doubts about celibacy. He was successful
in his priesthood and was considered an “exciting intellectual” by
those who knew him. He had entered the seminary in college after
some brief periods of dating. He was genuinely popular wherever he
studied or served. After a decade in the priesthood, he still found
himself questioning his sexual identity and had a tremendous desire
to experience dating again.
His choice of a psychiatrist was truly unfortunate. This
psychiatrist was not only unaware of the depth and complexity of the
priest s celibate struggle, but also had the monumentally poor
judgment to encourage the priest simply to date. He arranged a
meeting with a woman. She would supposedly help the priest sort
190 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
things out. Occasionally the psychiatrist and his wife would even
accompany the priest on his outings. Rather than helping, the
escapades only led to a deeper feeling of desperation and confusion
on the priest’s part.
When the priest consulted a second psychiatrist, he was even
more convinced that there was no way out of his dilemma and was
terrified that he was “going crazy.” The second psychiatrist was able
to see beyond the smiling and even jaunty manner, in which the
priest presented himself, to the tortured soul within. However, the
priest’s manner did fool most of his friends and some other
professionals into thinking that his confusion was temporary,
superficial, or merely intellectual. Most missed the agony, which, in
this case, certainly did not look like ordinary depression. One priest
friend who talked with him the week before he died reported that he
had been greeted by the laughing remark, “You re only welcome today
if you have brought a gun.”
The day before the priest died, another priest friend encouraged
him to “forget the guilt and just get involved with a woman; that’s
what I do.” He could not have known that it was exactly the wrong
kind of support for his friend, who by this time had become so
entangled in his despair that he feared the prospect of hospitalization.
Terrified of the possibility of ending up as a chronic mental patient,
he killed himself. One who knew this man’s struggle intimately
found him a heroic religious figure, “who struggled manfully and
fought the good fight. He served and saved many others, but could
not save himself.”
Another priest was hospitalized for severe depression, torn
between his love affair with a young woman and his religious
family who were counting on his continuing priesthood. During his
hospitalization, the woman sent him passionate letters declaring her
love for him and encouraging him to leave the ministry, a move he
knew he could not make. His best priest friend advised him to
incorporate the relationship into his priest life, as he himself was
doing with another woman. After his release from the hospital, the
priest tried to do just that, struggling with the relationship while
hopelessly trying to maintain celibacy. When he began to experience
another severe depressive episode, he swallowed an overdose of
medication and died.
SEXUAL COMPROMISES 191
national attention and focused the local stories into a national and
international context.
A series of reports on abuse by the Searchlight Team of The
Boston Globe began publication on January 6,2002. The name of the
offending priest—John Geoghen—is almost incidental, as were the
number of his victims—over 150. The effects of the reports were
cataclysmic. Like the Boston Tea Party of 1773 that roused a nation
by galvanizing a series of local discontents but led to a fundamental
confrontation with authority, so the Globe’s exposure of abuse took
a quantum leap in the controversy about sex abuse by priests (The
Investigative Staff of The Boston Globe, 2002).
By exposing the dynamic that supported, and conspired to keep
secret the individual priest abusers they tapped into the lifeblood of
Boston Catholic power—the pope’s representative—Cardinal Law.
They unfolded the pattern—almost a template—that was being used
generally in American dioceses to hide abusing priests, and silence
victims.
The repercussions of the series can hardly be overestimated.
Within 10 months the highest levels of power in the American
church and Rome were mobilized. Meetings in Rome, Dallas, and
Washington, DC exposed the depth of the power conflict. They also
focused the hostility of the victims/survivors, and symbolized the
worldwide dimensions of the problem. Four hundred and twenty-
five American priests were removed from active duty because of
allegations. Several bishops were forced to resign from their posts
because of allegations of their own sexual activity. And this is only
the beginning.
Sexual abuse of minors is the most threatening crisis to the
American Catholic church s stability in its history. No one has yet
measured the eventual reverberations. But a poll from September
2002 claimed that 80 percent of Americans favor criminal charges
for offending priests and for bishops who cover up clergy crimes.
The present conditions are very similar to periods that led to
major church reformations. I predict that this intrusion into the
secret world will culminate in reformation.
The sexual abuse of minors by clergy and the involvement of the
American hierarchy in its protection, cover-up, intimidation of
victims and decades of organized resistance to real reform has been
an abomination. Forced to the wall by incontrovertible evidence of
196 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
WHAT IS PEDOPHILIA?
The media has caused a lot of confusion by labeling all sexual
activity of an adult with a minor pedophilia. It is not so. Sexual activity
of an adult with any minor (a person under 18 years of age) is illegal.
Pedophilia is a medical term.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th
ed.) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) says that “pedophilia
involves recurrent, intense, sexual urges and sexually arousing
fantasies, of at least 6 months’ duration, involving sexual activity
with a prepubescent child. The person has either acted on these
urges, or is markedly distressed by them. The age of the child is
generally 13 or younger. The pedophile is 16 years or older and at
least 5 years older than the child” (p. 527–8). Pedophilia can be
either homosexual or heterosexual, but attraction to girls, among
offenders in the general population, is more common than attraction
to boys. Both young boys and girls sexually arouse many pedophiles.
Fred S.Berlin, M.D. (1985), of Johns Hopkins University, claims
that pedophilia occurs almost exclusively in men. He also notes that
because people do not decide voluntarily what will arouse them
sexually, there are great differences among pedophiles as to which
part ners and behaviors will appeal to them. Pedophiles experience
198 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE
The abuse of minors is a highly underreported crime. The majority of
victims never reveal what has happened to them. “Careful studies
have indicated…that child molesters commit an average of 60
offenses for every incident that comes to public attention. These
must not be thought of as situational or hidden in some other
disorder…if they are to be understood completely and treated
successfully.” (Reid, 1988.)
According to one study “24% of a population of 4,441 women had
experienced sexual abuse during childhood” (Schetkey & Green
1988, p. 30). Early studies of female college students reported a 19
percent incidence of abuse during childhood and adolescence, and 9
percent among male students. Other more recent studies put the
percentages at 50 percent for women and 20 percent for men.
The percentage of offenders in the general population is unknown
and will probably remain so. “Older persons are the teachers of
younger people in all matters, including the sexual. The record [of 2,
749 cases of preadolescent sex play] includes some cases of
preadolescent boys involved in sexual contacts with adult females,
and still more cases of preadolescent boys involved with adult males.
Data on this point were not systematically gathered from all
histories, and consequently the frequency of contacts with adults
cannot be calculated with precision.” (Kinsey, et al., 1948, p. 167.)
In 1974 the first state laws were passed requiring professionals to
report child abuse. This law and a nationwide program encouraging
children to speak up when they are sexually touched or assaulted
have produced results.
The laws requiring reporting had a dramatic effect. In 1976 there
were 6,000 cases of child abuse confirmed in the United States. In
1985, there were 113,000. At the dawn of the new millennium 300,
000 incidents are reported annually. Experts estimate that 8 percent
of reported cases are false accusations; about 22 percent cannot be
corroborated.
Since the early 1980s public awareness of priests’ sexual
involvement with minors has changed dramatically. During a 7-year
period extending into the 90s, one psychiatric facility alone treated
300 priests for “serious sexual behavior problems.”
200 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Legal
Sexual abuse of a minor is a crime. Who is to be held accountable
when a priest commits abuse—the crime? Thousands of civil cases
have been filed against priests, bishops, dioceses, and religious
superiors in the last decades of the century. They are increasing in
the 1st decade of the 21st century. Bishops are no longer immune
from examination or prosecution.
This question relates to clergy malpractice.
Moral
The Catholic Church considers any sex outside marriage to be
gravely sinful. Because priests are, by definition anyway, celibate,
the church is reluctant to make official statements about priests’
sexual activity. Papal statements on Catholic sexuality are intended
to govern the laymen, not the clergy. Thus far, the church has chosen
not to address directly the underlying human sexuality issues of its
called servants, and until it does, their moral development will
remain undefined and unsupported.
Eugene Kennedy said “[United States bishops] have chosen to
take the advice of lawyers on issues that cannot be resolved merely
PRIESTS AND MINORS 203
Psychological/Pastoral
The Doyle-Mouton-Peterson Report, presented to every American
bishop in 1985 warned:
Bishops did not take the problem seriously from the point of view of
the harm done to victims. Because some bishops and numerous
priests were involved in this behavior the issue was considered one
that they “could handle” without outside interference. The
motivation was clearly to avoid scandal. The scandal is that they
covered up the problem.
The church has often misused psychiatry by referring offending
priests for treatment without supplying all of the information about
the priest’s past. Psychiatry has also failed the system by giving
priests a wide birth, covering their aberrant behavior with
diagnosis of a “drinking problem.” The logic being, if father doesn’t
drink he will not behave in this way. Both missed for a long time the
addictive component in much sexual abuse.
204 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
CAUSES
“It appears that some men become vulnerable to the development of
this type of sexual orientation [toward minors] by virtue of having
been sexually active with an adult when they were children, or by
virtue of manifesting certain biological abnormalities” (Berlin,
1986).
Many experts feel strongly that biology is a cause of sexual
attraction to minors. “It is highly likely that in utero a type of
programming of the brains of all persons takes place that contributes
to the later expression of sexual behaviors in humans. This includes
sexual orientation (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual), sexual
energy level (libido), and perhaps even erotic age preference
(pedophilia versus preference for age-appropriate partners).”
Premature childhood experiences and other environmental factors
can enhance biological endowment. But there is no question that
biological factors are significant and determinant in the development
and functioning of human sexuality generally
phallus. He did not act out his fantasies, but was tormented by his
feelings of sexual inadequacy.
A third priest, when he was a 15-year-old seminarian, experienced
anal intercourse with a priest. He, along with others, was on a
summer pilgrimage to a religious shrine. The sleeping arrangements
were haphazard and he was assigned to a bed with the older man.
Years later he recalled with both excitement and regret his one and
only sexual contact with another person. With no other sexual
experience with which to compare the contact, it remained a vibrant
and troublesome thorn in his flesh. For a brief time in his adult life
he became phobic that he would repeat the behavior with some other
adolescent.
The adolescent sexual experiences of priests, or the memory of an
intense sexual episode takes on a particular significance. Latter
celibate deprivation enhances the memory or firmly fixates the
priest’s psychosexual development at a preadolescent or adolescent
level. Some priests mature slowly and finally resolve their
identification at age-appropriate levels. Others are impelled to act out
with individuals who are essentially on their same level of
immaturity. The immaturity of some priests accounts for the fact
that not every homosexual contact between a priest and an
adolescent proves the priest’s orientation. Some behavior is
experimental in the adolescent sense, not compulsive or exclusive.
However, it is always problematic, certainly for the adolescent who
is the victim of a generational transgression and a serious betrayal of
trust.
Social isolation and physical deprivation can contribute to sexual
excitation. These factors come together in the following example.
A 30-year-old priest completing his doctoral studies was on
vacation with his married sister and her family. His two nephews, 4
and 6 years old, were typically energetic youngsters and enthusiastic
about the visit of their very important uncle. They demanded his
time and attention, which he willingly accorded them. He genuinely
liked them, but became increasingly aware of his own sexual
excitement as they hung on him and showered him with their
affection. Because he had been so immersed in his studies and
socially deprived for the preceding 3 years, he attributed his reaction
to his recent sense of isolation. He did not act on his impulse to play
PRIESTS AND MINORS 207
with his nephews sexually, but grew more and more concerned when
his masturbatory fantasies began to include images of children.
His concern drew him to a psychiatrist, and during his treatment he
recalled some memories of having been sexually molested when he
was 8 years old by a neighbor boy, 6 years his senior. In therapy he
worked through other sexual issues. He never acted out any of his
fantasies. On follow-up 10 years after the disturbing vacation, he
was active in his ministry and content with his celibate life, feeling
very fortunate to have sought treatment before establishing a pattern
of sexual activity. This man’s superior intellect and well-disciplined
lifestyle were important supportive factors as he grappled with his
sexual identity and conscious attraction for children.
AVENUES OF ACCESS
Priests have natural access to children. They are teachers, pastors,
confessors, coaches, and the traditionally honored and trusted
members of the family and community. The school, rectory, or
church can be settings for abuse. These settings form a privileged
environment for the priest, where he has control. The priest abuser
cultivates the family; he becomes a friend and sometimes forges an
alliance with a child’s mother. When he is trusted he can take
youngsters on trips or have other extended associations with
parental consent.
His place of honor and trust becomes the cover and the occasion
for the sexual abuse. One woman reported that as a young teenager
she would be sent by her widowed mother to ask their parish priest
to come to her mother’s bedside. Before accompanying the girl
home, the priest would fondle her. When they arrived at her house,
the girl would always be given some other errand to run while the
priest visited with her mother. Although she was very uncomfortable
with the priest’s advances, the girl could not easily talk to her
mother about them, since she became aware that her mother’s
indisposition was a cover for her own sexual liaison with the priest.
Another priest used his prowess in sports to attract young boys to
himself. In the process of “horsing around”—usually after a ball
game or while skinny-dipping with the boys—the priest would
engage in touches that became progressively more sexually explicit.
Several times in his career he had misinterpreted the admiration he
208 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
BEHAVIORS
Records exist of priests involved in every known type of sexual
abuse from fondling to rape. A few priests have been the prime
suspects in unsolved murders. Priests have fewer total victims (an
average of 2 to 50) than abusers in the general population (average
over 200). Priests tend to cultivate or groom their victims, playing
on the trust and admiration of their office. Direct physical force is
rarely used, but the full psychic duress of religion is common both in
initiating the act and in demanding its secrecy.
The range of abuse, were it not well documented, seems
unbelievable. More than one priest “anointed” his victim with semen,
telling the victim the act had been sacred. Frequently the priest
assures his victim that the behavior is holy and a special God-given
gift. A frequently asked question is—how can a priest behave this
way and still carry on as a minister? Rationalization, denial,
depersonalization, regression, and splitting are common.
Rationalization
Some rationalize: the activity is educational or helpful to the child.
A 60-year-old priest was arrested for child molestation based on
incriminating evidence found in his home. No prior complaints were
lodged against him; his detection had been accidental. The police
had been searching for another suspect and were mistakenly given
the priest’s address by a young boy who was their informant.
The priest had had sexual liaisons with young boys all of the years
of his priesthood. Consistently selecting children who were
physically or emotionally deprived, he felt that by his friendship and
association with them he was offering them genuine love,
protection, and guidance along the lines of the Greek ideal, and a
chance for a better life adjustment. He did not feel any guilt. Some
of the boys would engage in the sexual activity very willingly,
sometimes even initiating it. The priest would never hold onto the
boys once they reached adolescence, instead encouraging them to
participate in school and social activities, and trying to direct them to
a level of sexual and emotional maturity that he himself could not
attain.
210 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Denial
Some priests are generous and caring to their victims and attend to
their needs in many ways to gain the child’s affection, interest,
loyalty, and to keep the child from reporting the sexual activity. The
priest acts as if it never happened.
Each year a pastor who was in his 60s selected three 8th-grade
girls from his school to help around the parish house, performing
such duties as stuffing envelopes, running errands, and doing light
cleaning tasks. For these services, the girls would receive tuition
reduction and a small salary; it was also well known that there were
extra treats to be had, such as candy, ice cream, and occasional trips,
all of which made the parish house duty a coveted assignment. From
some parents’ perspectives, the generous tuition reduction plus the
honor of being so closely associated with the pastor made them
eager to have their daughters chosen.
In the beginning, the girls would do their work in groups of two
or three, but as time went on, a pattern of singularity developed—
one of the girls would emerge each year as the most sensitive (or
loving, needy, or vulnerable, as the case might be). She would
become Father s special companion and would be able to lie on the
couch with him as he took his afternoon nap, exchange kisses and
hugs with him, and comfort him with back rubs when his arthritis
acted up. The pattern was honed to perfection.
Little by little, the genuine affection between the priest was
focused on the most suitable candidate, and the subsequent sexual
dimension of the relationship receded into a secret area shared only
by that girl and the priest. Because the priest did not expose his
genitals and did not “deliberately” touch the girl’s (although there
was playful wresting during which some contact was made), the
PRIESTS AND MINORS 211
victim was left with the conviction that any inappropriate thoughts
or feelings were her fault, not his. When the priest would ejaculate
spontaneously while having the girls body close to his, he would
feign sleep, and if the girl was aware of what had happened, she
would believe that “Father hadn’t done anything.” The priest
experienced no guilt about his behavior. He genuinely liked the
children, and in his mind, “What happened, happened.”
Depersonalization
A 40-year-old priest who had a long history of sexual activity with
preadolescent and teenaged boys described in detail his method of
seduction, and how he learned it. As a 12-year-old orphaned boy
living with relatives, his parish priest befriended him. The priest
included him in outings with groups of other youngsters his age. On
occasion, the priest would take one or another of the boys to a movie
by himself. During the movie, the priest would hold his leg close to
the boy’s, testing the youngster’s comfort with “accidental physical
closeness.” If the boy responded positively to the gesture, the priest
would place his hand on the child’s knee, being very careful not to
advance too quickly. The process was one of conditioning the
physical familiarity. If the priest sensed that the boy was
comfortable, on the next outing he might “accidentally” brush his
hand against the boy’s genitals while passing him a box of popcorn.
Through testing the child’s sexual excitement, the priest would know
when to proceed to more direct and prolonged sexual fondling.
Under the cover of darkness in the theater where no words or looks
had to be exchanged, the sex could take place “as if it never
happened.” It was the pattern used on the priest when he was a child
and one that he perpetuated as an adult.
These are examples of the denied and depersonalized way the
abuse is carried out—what happened, happened as if it never
happened.
The priest doesn’t experience guilt. The child carries the burden
of the silent sin and the task of incorporating it into reality.
212 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Regression
Many priests employ a technique of initiation into a secret boys club
—they become one of the boys. When the friendship is ripe the
priest supplies the minor with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana,
pornographic magazines, or movies. This is part of the seduction.
All manner of sexual activity follows. The youngster is chained to
secrecy because he has indulged in a whole series of “forbidden”
things, not just sex.
Some victims do experience abuse that can only be labeled
sadistic. Some severe physical punishment—usually “paddling”—
masked the priest’s sexual excitement. Some priests report
masturbating after completing the punishment, while others
experience an ejaculation during it. Some priests, appealing to the
martyrs as examples, single out a young protégé and under the guise
of ascetic or athletic challenge direct him through a series of
intricate maneuvers to train him in discipline and manliness. Within
the context of these activities, the priest gets sexual satisfaction. The
sexual activity is posed as a final “initiation.” One priest reported
that he masturbated while his protégé endured boot-camp-like paces
wearing an athletic supporter.
There tends to be a strong sexual exhibitionistic component in
some priests—the more immature the stronger that component
seems to be. However, exhibitionism is not necessarily a precursor
to pedophilia.
Splitting
It is well known that highly placed churchmen—cardinals,
archbishops, bishops, and priests—have been sexual abusers. They
demonstrate a mechanism that many abusing priests use to maintain
their equilibrium. They are often rigidly conscientious. They live the
rules and excel in the organization. This is their social conformity
that assures their status, employment, and economic security, and
identity as an honored man of the cloth. They keep this life
consciously separated from their inner sexual needs. Sometimes they
assume posed identity—a businessman or salesman—to seek sex. At
other times they simply use the ploy within clerical circles.
PRIESTS AND MINORS 213
VICTIMS—THE AFTERMATH
A minor victim of abuse can sustain physical harm especially in a
sexual encounter that involves vaginal or anal penetration. Victims
in addition, however, consistently suffer serious and long-term
emotional damage from the sexual betrayal of a priest. Adults who
report having been touched, fondled, or otherwise sexually violated
by a priest when they were children recall the overwhelming guilt
they experienced about any sexual feelings. They blame themselves.
Imagine the violated preadolescent struggling with his sexual
development, sitting at mass on Sunday with the symbol of the
community’s moral authority before him. Like other children at age
11, 12, or 13, this child is unable to absorb completely his or her
changing body image, sexual feelings, or relationships. The young
person is deprived. The adult world that should foster growth,
support, protection, moral guidance, and example instead
complicated and impeded his or her development.
Younger children are more trusting, less suspicious, and less
sexually experienced than their adolescent brothers and sisters, all of
which make them more vulnerable to a priest’s sexual play.
TREATMENT
Victims do not object to perpetrators receiving treatment for their
sexual problems, but they do resent the attention, time, and
money spent on priests versus the neglect of victims. And priest
perpetrators do receive the best psychiatric treatment available. St.
216 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
that those actions that aided, comforted, or enabled the sex offender
to continue his secret life were irresponsible and injurious to the sex
offender and to past and future victims. Though psychological study
is still in its infancy, the long- and short-term traumatic injury
inflicted on the victim are known to be serious.
But one thing everybody has known is that it is criminal, and the
church has gone to great lengths to keep knowledge of abusing
priests from the police. Bishops have always known that the behavior
was noncelibate. The church’s tendency to stick its head in the sand
on matters sexual when it concerns clergy is in stark contrast to its
outspoken and harsh judgment on lay sexual mores—contraception,
abortion, masturbation, sex before marriage, and so on.
The system of secrecy runs deep throughout the Catholic Church
when it is faced with the choices of recognizing and confronting the
sexuality of clergy or covering it, ignoring it, and hoping it will go
away. Again, there are several reasons for the existence of the secret
system.
The saga of sexual abuse of minors is a partly told tale. It has
developed and will continue to be told in headlines around the world.
The church authority has gone to great lengths to avoid “scandal.”
They seriously miscalculated the tolerance of lay Catholics for
dissimulation. Lay people are responding to the financial out-lay
without accountability by reducing donations. Bishops have lost
their moral credibility particularly in—but not limited to—sexual
matters.
THE FUTURE
There are some basic tasks that loom large on the horizon of the
celibate church. We already know open disclosure and discussion of
problems is preferable to secrecy. Immediate help should be offered
to any damaged individual perpetrator or victim. Preventive
measures have to be instituted on all levels of the clergy. No cleric,
whatever his power position, is exempt.
Certain facts that the crisis of sexual abuse reveal must be faced:
The church of the future must examine carefully its current positions
in moral theology and reassess its basic statements, many of which
have been codified and accepted without question for years—or
perhaps centuries. To survive, it must engage in such a
reassessment.
10
WHO ABUSES?
In dioceses that have divulged what they say are complete lists
of abusive priests—under court orders or voluntarily—the
percentages are Baltimore—6.2%; Manchester, N.H.—7.7%;
Boston—5.3%. The NYT survey was based on the analysis of
data on 1,205 priests accused of abuse.
At that time a validated list of over 2,100 abuser priests was in the
process of compilation and categorization by Dallas lawyer Sylvia
Demerest. Even this most authoritative directory will not record the
full extent of abuse by priests.
Arguments exist about the number of priest abusers compared with
Protestant ministers, and compared with the incidence of abuses in
the general male population. So far comparative studies are not
available. But protests that priests are “no worse” than other groups
or than men in general is a dire indictment of the profession. It is
surprising that this attitude is championed by church authorities.
222 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
A preliminary psychological profile of priest sexual abusers is
slowly emerging from therapists and from centers that specialize in
treating abusive priests. A tentative and overgeneralized picture
would be of a man who is self-centered, in need of reassurance or
adulation, insecure about his sexual identity, somewhat isolated in
adult relationships, poor at controlling impulses, dependent, and
inept at handling his anger.
The portrait of the priest abuser is not a “paint by numbers”
project. It would be foolhardy and irresponsible to give this profile
more weight than it deserves. It is a preliminary sketch of what in
truth is a vast panorama of personality typographies, complex
developmental and situational vistas, and moral colorations. Our
challenge, however, to paint a portrait of the priest sexual abuser,
does have some perimeters and preliminary guidelines.
Four broad categories of priests who strongly tend to cross the
appropriate psychic and physical boundaries between a religious
minister and a minor are emerging. Some are priests who are
genetically predisposed to a sexual attraction to minors. Others are
dominated psychodynamically; their psychosexual immaturity or
mal-development makes them vulnerable. Still other priests abuse in
response to their clerical cultural and social situation. And finally the
behavior of some priests is principally morally determined.
The church seldom talks about the last two categories of causation,
those that specifically involve the church’s celibate/sexual system
and evil.
Not every priest who matches the psychological profile or is
predisposed to a category of vulnerability crosses appropriate
boundaries. I have treated a number of priests in long-term
WHO ABUSES? 223
CATEGORIES OF VULNERABILITY
Genetic Predisposition
In 1960 I believed, along with many of my contemporaries, that
psychosexual maturity was an approachable norm that would
inevitably follow birth and growth unless some factors of nurture or
environment derailed, delayed, or “perverted” that process.
Experience has convinced me that some of the priests I have
observed fit a category of offenders observed and recorded in the
general population among pedophiles. The object of these priests’
sexual attraction is genetically determined, much as their gender
sexual orientation and level or sexual drive is.
Ongoing genetic, endocrine, and biochemical research will greatly
refine our understanding of these men and their development and
behavior. An understanding of sexual behavior will always have to
consider biogenetic factors. A simple way to grasp the reality that
certain people are genetically predisposed or preordained to sexual
attraction to a certain age group is by way of analogy. We know
almost from the time of some children’s birth that they will never
function at “normal” adult intellectual levels. In the most fortuitous
of circumstances, the greatest care and attention can only assist them
to function at their optimal intellectual capacity, which may be that
of a 6- or 9-year-old. Unfortunately, in a less than ideal environment
or worse, negative physical or psychological factors usually
exacerbate the genetic limitation.
At first it may be hard to believe that certain persons are
genetically determined and confined to a level of sexual development
less than that usually attained by a child or an adolescent. We would
like to think that everyone has the capacity for a satisfying adult-to-
adult sexual relationship—physically, psychically, spiritually, and
224 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Psychodynamic Considerations
There is another group of priests who seem to have been treated
more evenhandedly by nature. Their genetic endowment does not
WHO ABUSES? 225
Psychiatric Observations
Church superiors have turned increasingly to psychiatry over the past
50 years to help them treat scandal-prone clerics. Some have
earnestly tried to learn more about the psychological dimensions of
life and even of spirituality. However, psychiatry can be misused or
overused, and I have seen both happen in my career of studying the
interface between religion and psychiatry.
All dioceses in the United States now have written policies to
address complaints of sexual abuse by clergy. The implied rational
goes like this: “A small fraction of priests (no larger than any other
segment of the population) sexually abuses children because they are
psychiatrically ill, either because of genetic (biological) or
psychogenetic (psychological) forces. Such behavior is illegal and
harmful to minors. Offenders will be treated psychiatrically. Bishops
pledge full cooperation with civil authorities investigating abuse.
Victims of abuse will be given comfort and offered counseling.”
Of course these policies and understandings are a leap forward
from the way priest abusers and especially victims were treated until
recently. I wish to detract nothing away from this progress or the
credit due to churchmen and women who are assuming some
leadership in these advances. But I would be remiss if I did not point
out that we know a great deal more about sexual abuse by Catholic
priests than any policy implies. No policy has provided a satisfactory
understanding of why some priests abuse children. And written
policies are frequently not implemented.
Psychiatry has made great progress in the past 50 years in
understanding the dynamics and treatment of the paraphilias. We
used to call them perversions. Much of psychiatric (bio-
psychosocial) theory is useful and applicable to clergy offenders.
Understanding the addictive nature of sexual abuse is a big step
forward in diagnosis and treatment. The church is wise to draw from
psychiatric knowledge and research to understand and treat priest
offenders. That knowledge can aid in preventing and combating this
serious problem.
Psychiatry is particularly clear about the dire and long-lasting
consequences of the sexual abuse of a minor. The trauma is
compounded by the fact that the abuser is a trusted and revered
person. However, psychiatry does not cover the whole truth. If it
WHO ABUSES? 227
did, the task would be simple—identify the sick among us (or even
the potentially sick) and make them known so the public can be
protected. Therapy could be initiated to heal the offender and the
victim; prosecution and incar ceration could be effected where
indicated and the law demanded. If psychiatry were the whole truth
we could rid ourselves of this plague. In addition, we could guard
the entry gates to ministry with sophisticated psychological testing.
Unfortunately, the problem extends beyond the psychiatric
dilemma of sexual abuse by men who happen to be Catholic priests.
The realities of the social situation and moral climate of the Roman
Catholic priesthood are also significant factors in the perpetuation of
child sexual abuse as are the genetic and psychodynamic factors.
And many churchmen know exactly what I am talking about. The
“clerical cultural” aspects of abuse must be confronted with a vigor
equal to that of the psychiatric aspect. But there is a strong
institutional resistance to attacking the cultural forces in the church’s
control because the culture of abuse extends high up in the system
and takes many sexual forms.
Sexual abuse of minors opens up the whole system of Catholic
sexual teaching and practice for examination. All agree that sexual
activity between a priest and a minor is reprehensible and
intolerable. A majority of Catholics, however, disagree with formal
church teachings about sex. They do not believe the church’s
teaching on birth control. More than half believe that abortion is
admissible under some circumstances. Most believe that condoms
should be used to avoid contracting or transmitting HIV. Most do not
believe that non-marriage is necessary for the priesthood. Sex prior
to marriage and after divorce are considered morally permissible—
and certainly not worthy of excommunication. Masturbation is rarely
seen as sinful.
There are firm but fine lines between what is sexually abusive and
what represents dissent from church discipline on sex and celibacy
The amazing question is this: Why has the church been so
aggressive, sensitive, and proactive in response to dissent about
church teaching, yet so blind, defensive, and reactive when it comes
to questions of sexual abuse by their own? I will address this matter
in the next chapter.
Psychiatry must not pretend that it can answer that question! Priests
may be “ordinary men,” as stated in the 1972 Kennedy-Heckler
228 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Moral Corruption
I have observed another group of priests who sexually abuse minors.
They do not deserve the mitigating benefit of psychiatric diagnosis.
Nor do they merit understanding as simple products of social-
situational conditioning. They go beyond the limits of any
institutional inadequacy The category that defines them is clearly a
moral one. They coldly, calculatingly, and by design involve
themselves sexually with minors because they want to; they choose
it, rather than act compulsively, indiscriminately, or impulsively
They divorce what they teach, what they require of others, from what
they stand for in the eyes of others. In short, what they do is make a
moral choice—they commit sin.
230 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
Let me say it even more clearly: What we are talking about is the
category of evil, not illness. Psychiatric diagnosis does not make
sin obsolete. This group of priests is not the most likely to be found
in a psychiatric clinic for treatment. The priest in this category is not
likely to come to the attention of legal authorities. He is too
calculating; he picks his partners carefully, often from within the
celibate system or from those groups of youth least likely to
complain. These men are satisfied with this life and adjustment.
These priests can be found in the halls of power, in positions of
responsibility. They are not victims of the system; they sometimes
run the system. Examples from this group are available, though
rarely diverted or prosecuted.
Because men who represent these last two categories may also
have character flaws and personality deficiencies, they should not be
subsumed within the psychiatric pale any more than men who have
genuine psychiatric illness be ignored medically merely because
their behavior also has significant moral implications. The core
cause of each group s “abusive” behavior must be kept in focus and
addressed appropriately.
Men from each category are liable for criminal and civil
litigation. The legal system has been persuasive in forcing some
response from church authority to the problem of sexual abuse by
priests. In fact, the law and the survivors movement have been the
only forces so far that have moved the church to any serious
consideration of reform. However, neither the law nor psychiatry
can reform the celibate/sexual system of the church or address
fundamentally the evil that exists within it and the corruption it
generates.
Child abuse by clergy is the tip of an iceberg. It does not stand on
its own. Removing it from view will not solve the crisis of celibacy.
Difficult as it is to accept, the hierarchical and power structures
beneath the surface are part of a secret world that supports abuse.
These hidden forces are far more dangerous to the sexual health and
welfare of religion than those that we can already see. This is the
face of a morally corrupt system.
Bishops have repeatedly said that sexual abuse within the clergy
is “no worse” than in the general population. What a sad admission
that priests have no better track record than the general population in
this matter. What a moral indictment! Clergy—selected, trained,
WHO ABUSES? 231
Genetic Predisposition
High profile priests who have histories of hundreds of victims are
well known. Often they have been treated in numerous psychiatric
facilities, given multiple pastoral assignments within their own
diocese or another, even in a foreign country They continue to re-
offend, some even after incarceration.
Fourteen of 325 American bishops have come under a cloud of
public sexual allegations only since 1990. Several have resigned
acknowledging transgressions against minors, or adult men or
women. None of these so far can be relegated to a category of
genetic compulsive behavior toward minors. However, Joseph
Green, now deceased, but former bishop of Reno, Nevada, seemed
to be plagued with this pattern of compulsivity. His earlier life and
history as auxiliary bishop of Lansing, Michigan, are still unclear,
however, but allegations of abuse and threats of arrest marked his
time in Nevada. One allegation still stood in another state at the time
of his death in 1982.
Certainly there are other bishops who are genetically determined
toward sexual attraction to minors. We can hope that the internal
controls of some and their discipline and spiritual life enable them to
maintain appropriate boundaries.
Psychodynamic Predisposition
It has been so well established that clerical culture is a climate of
psychosexual immaturity that I hesitate to raise the issue again. But
it is central to the crisis. The commission that the bishops
themselves set up to study the psychological dimensions of the
WHO ABUSES? 233
priesthood in the United States is classic and will stand until one can
supersede it.
Eugene Kennedy and Victor Heckler determined through a
random sample and a sophisticated psychological testing set, that 66
percent of priests were psychosexually underdeveloped. Another 13
percent were developing, while 8 percent were mal-developed. Only
8 percent were considered developed—that is, psychosexually stable
or mature.
This cultural of immaturity does not exclude bishops. Nor are
bishops exempt from personal histories that include having
experienced childhood sexual stimulation (sometimes by older
priests) and other experiences that form a psychic foundation for
sexual attraction to minors.
I have interviewed victims of Bishop Anthony O’Connell of Palm
Beach, Florida. He resigned (1998) after admitting that he had
abused a minor—a seminary student who came to him for
counseling. The counseling problem was that another priest had
already abused that student. Even in this tiny vignette an investigator
gets one clue as to how a network of abusing priests gets
established. Other students have come forward with allegations. Now
there are dozens of allegations awaiting evaluation. Although there
may be additional ways to understand the bishop’s behavior, in his
case what appears to be a strong impulse acted on with a number of
minors over a long time period led me to select this category for
understanding.
I have interviewed scores of priests who give this categorization
meaning. Most have been abused themselves. Frequently they have
had only a limited number of victims and these events occurred early
in their ministry. Some struggle for a more mature orientation; of
these priests, some do make it, others limp along for a lifetime,
bouncing around in different modes of experimentation. Some seek
comfort in alcohol along with their addicted brothers.
I had the opportunity to analyze four generations of abuse,
revolving around an auxiliary bishop of a large Eastern archdiocese.
A young man had approached therapy when the effects of abuse by
an uncle, who had also abused his older brother, became intolerable.
Each young man responded differently to abuse that was similar in
behavior and duration. The older brother dismissed the activity as so
much sexual play, but he supported his younger brother in
234 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
seeking relief and help. At the time of confrontation the uncle was
already under court-ordered probation for recently sexually abusing
his own son. He attended sessions with his nephews to plead his case
about his former behavior.
An orphan at the age of 4, he was sent to a Catholic institution.
The priest chaplain, who was later to become a bishop, took great
interest in him. Psychologically and informally he “adopted” the boy
and kept him under his tutelage until he reached adulthood. He had
sexual activity with him from the time he was 6 years old into his
adulthood.
In recounting his association with his abuser he said, “I thought that
it was all natural. The bishop told me that he had that kind of
friendship with a priest when he was growing up.”
Where will it stop? Only legal and psychiatric intervention, in this
instance, questioned a pattern of abuse that came from the center of
a system that tolerated and fostered it.
Dozens of similar—and more dramatic—cases reveal the
genealogy of abuse within the clerical culture. Men who are not
genetically determined to abuse minors are, often as children and
young adults, actively cultivated to a degree that stamps them
psychodynamically and determines their object of sexual attraction.
Situational Predisposition
Vatican spokesmen in 2002 suggested that homosexually oriented
men could not be admitted to seminary training for the priesthood.
That thinking is not new. Even in the early 1960s a dictum was put
in writing by the bishops that said that homosexually oriented men
were not acceptable candidates for ordination. The new dimension to
the prohibition was a claim that even the ordinations of gay-oriented
priests may be invalid. This is part of an erroneous-judgement grid
that misunderstands homosexuality and blames gays for sexual
misbehavior among priests, including abuse of minors.
All of this is proposed without any awareness of the power of
culture on behavior. The elimination of homosexually oriented men
in seminaries would not obviate sexual behavior of any stripe in the
seminary or priesthood, anymore, as I said earlier, than
heterosexualonly inmates in a prison would do away with
homosexual activity.
WHO ABUSES? 235
themselves in moral swamps and sewage, but the church itself uses
tactics to cover sin that further contaminates the system.
Into what category can one classify the attempt to hide documents
from legitimate civil authorities investigating crime? A New York
Times (March 6, 2003) editorial commented on the Los Angeles
cardinal Roger Mahony’s legal maneuvers to conceal documents
relating to clergy abuse, “Church leaders only compound their
malfeasance by bending constitutional freedoms to make a mockery
of the true obligation of church and state to protect children.” The
deceit is all the more appalling since the cardinal made a show of
pledging full cooperation with civil authority and transparency in
combating abuse. Everyone agrees that abuse is evil. What of
deception?
I have already recounted the story of the young priest who was
hospitalized with a severe depression. Mute for weeks, he finally
confided his unbearable secret. His bishop-mentor-friend used him
to procure young sexual companions from the streets. Evil, not
illness, morality, psychology or situation, dominates this behavior.
John Paul II has visited the United States on several occasions
during his reign as pope. The preparations for his visits take years of
preparation. Even the color and type of his vestments as well as each
detail of his schedule are orchestrated by a team of emissaries,
mostly priests from Rome. A diocesan team headed by the local
bishop or cardinal coordinates the myriad details. I have fielded
complaints from local workers that they had to respond to requests
for sexual companions—usually young boys—from priests based in
Rome. Can there be any other word than evil for this behavior and
the contamination of faith that it represents?
There is a myth that “liberalization” has caused the crisis of
celibacy and sexual abuse by clergy. My experience counters that
myth. Rigid and orthodox-minded priests and bishops are—and have
been—abusers. Abuse of minors did not begin recently; it is not
dependent on the effects of the sexual revolution or the positions
taken by the Vatican Council or by liberal theologians. I have
reviewed case records from throughout the 20th century. Current
events are evidence of how assiduously the church has tried to bury
the truth of abuse. The only difference today is that the cover-up
efforts are failing.
WHO ABUSES? 237
SCREENING
Screening of candidates for the priesthood and religious life has long
been an established method of testing a boy s/man’s aptness for
clerical life. A time of testing during and apprenticeship to a senior
clergy or in a novitiate is a centuries-old tradition. After the Council
of Trent (1545–63), seminaries were established to educate secular
priests. The seminary horarium copied a monastic structure of
designated times for communal prayers, meals, study, recreation,
silence, and sleep. Each seminarian was required to have spiritual
director—a senior priest designated to mentor the candidate in his
spiritual progress.
Each training system counted on itself to eliminate the inept and
to form the suitable into observant priests. In every case the novice
master and the senior community members or the seminary rector
and faculty—ultimately the ordaining bishop—had the responsibility
to attest to the candidate’s fitness for ordination and ministry. These
structures are still operative (Kauffman, 1988).
In the last half of the 20th century, psychological testing along
with in-depth personal interviews became popular adjuncts to the
traditional system in the attempt to screen out unsuitable candidates
even before they enter the seminary or religious life. Already in
1936 Thomas Verner Moore, a priest-psychiatrist, registered his
concern about insanity in priests and religious. He concluded: “pre-
psychotic personalities may be attracted to the (priesthood) and
religious life.” He found that alcoholism was diagnosed about three
times more frequently among priest-patients than in the general
population of men (1936a). Moore proposed a screening protocol to
detect psychologically questionable candidates who apply for
admission to the priesthood or religious life (1936b).
Father William Bier, S.J., championed the use of psychological
testing (especially the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
242 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
itself and face the sexual reality beneath each training program s
exter nal image. What are its spiritual treasures? What are its
weaknesses and secrets?
DENIAL
Denial is an unconscious mental mechanism that allows one to reject
facts that are experienced as overwhelming or a threat to one’s
integrity or homeostasis. By analogy, the concept can be applied to
an organization. It is understandable that the Catholic Church,
troubled by allegations of malfeasance, lawsuits, and a barrage of
media exposure of sexual abuse by clergy, would instinctively
protect itself. No problem, however, can be adequately dealt with,
let alone prevented, until one recognizes that it exists.
Nine levels of denial employed in response to the problem of
sexual abuse of minors by clergy are distinguishable from reports
recorded in courtrooms, the media, or psychiatric treatment settings.
notable public attack against the press in 1992 when he called down
the wrath of God on the Boston Globe for printing stories about Father
James Porter and his victims. But the Boston saga gives the lie to
this line of defense.
Reports in the media, understandably, have been a continuing
concern for bishops and the public relations office of the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This agency developed
national media policies to handle cases of abuse, namely: separate,
settle, and seal
The church’s first preference was to keep all cases secret—out of
the press, out of the courts. Rarely was this in the best interest of the
victims. But if publicity was inevitable, they tried to restrict
coverage to the local media. Reporters and news sources who gave
space to the problem were countered with charges of “church
bashing, priest bashing and Catholic bashing” (Jichat, 1996). This
line of defense made abuse a public relations challenge.
Separate referred to isolating cases in the legal forum: keep cases
separate so that the scope of the problem would appear to be limited.
This focused the responsibility away from the system and onto the
individuals involved. The institution did not want priest sexual abuse
labeled a church crisis.
If cases could not be settled out of court, lawyers were given the
charge to settle in the courtroom by any means necessary. Court
cases have been disastrous for the image of the church, which is
revealed as heartless and indifferent to victims of abuse. Victims
were ignored if possible. Statutes of limitations have saved hundreds
of priests from serving prison time. Legal settlements give the
appearance of highstakes poker games. Damage control and financial
advantage are prized above ecclesial integrity.
To seal meant that any financial settlements and in some cases all
documents related to the case were sealed by the court. In some
instances compensated victims were sworn to secrecy and the
financial settlement they received could be revoked if they revealed
its amount or circumstances. This policy relegated even proven
claims to a secret system inaccessible to analysis.
These maneuvers have been seriously disrupted.
American bishops welcomed a study by historian Philip Jenkins
(1996), a media expert. He wrote his book on priests and
pedophiles from the vantage of communication. Bishops used the
CAN CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BE PREVENTED? 247
ECCLESIOGENIC FACTORS
The idea of ecclesiogenic pathology was introduced in 1955. The
term ecclesiogenic neurosis is defined as: “the syndrome caused by
the widespread tabooizing education in which the sexual and erotic
areas of life are banned from open discussion and are considered to
be immoral, forbidden, or even threatened with punishment.” The
syndrome is not limited to Catholic clergy. But the largest
professional group suffering from ecclesiogenic neurosis are clergy
and other church employees. Sexual symptoms are a frequent
element in this syndrome.
Perversions and compulsions are the main symptoms that result
“whenever healthy sexuality is repressed and denied instead of being
recognized and practiced or joyfully and voluntarily renounced.”
Quite simply stated, ecclesiogenic pathologies are those mental and
emotional aberrations that are induced or fostered by church
teaching or practice (Thomas, 1965).
Dr. Gelolo McHugh of Duke claimed, “the most serious problem
of the clergymen or the church worker is in the sexual field.” In this
area the pastor’s knowledge is below the average and absolutely
inadequate for proper counseling of others and for himself (Thomas,
1965). These statements still apply to Catholic seminarians and
priests.
Bernard Haering reflected incisively on the reality of
ecclesiogenic pathology in his book on Priesthood Imperiled (1996).
The idea that church teaching or practice can make people ill has not
become popular. But the church is dysfunctional (Crosby, 1996).
The crimes and crisis of priest sexual abuse of children are complex,
distasteful, and difficult to unravel. The church focuses on an
individual priest as a sinner, a culprit, or a neurotic. It is daunting to
address a system as pathogenic or dysfunctional—the generator-
participant in abuse. Nonetheless, these terms do apply to the church.
CAN CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BE PREVENTED? 253
SYSTEMIC ELEMENTS
Two elements constitute the core of the systemic genesis of sexual
abuse among the clergy. The first is its moral teaching: every
sexual thought, word, desire, and action outside marriage is gravely
sinful. This seamless garment of sin applies to all sexual activity
outside marriage. Furthermore, each and every marital act must
remain ordered per se in the procreation of human life. All else is
mortally sinful.
The Vatican revised its stance on masturbation in 1997 to allow
for “factors that can lessen, if not reduce to a minimum, moral
culpability.” Despite this compassionate concession to reality the
underlying foundation of church reasoning about sexuality remains
unaltered. But that foundation rests on an inadequate and false
understanding of the nature of sexuality. Many clergy and laity
consider the church teaching on sex flawed. Sexual teachings simply
are not considered credible or reasonable by a large number of lay
people and many clergy. Many laws (e.g., contraception, premarital
sex) are not observed.
Sexual activity is clearly not so dire that any and every
transgression merits Hell or separation from God’s love. Sexuality is
not the focal point of Christ s teaching. Refusal to discuss reasonably
all the human and spiritual issues that surround the sexual agenda
facing the world today forms an impediment to the prevention of
abuse.
Widespread knowledge of sexual abuse by priests has magnified
the loss of credibility in bishops and priests as sources of moral
guidance. In addition, the crisis of sexual abuse by priests, like the
often repeated papal teaching on contraception, has weakened or
destroyed the faith and practice of countless thousands.
Sexual activity by priests has been known and recorded for
centuries. A French priest wrote “the transgressions (of priests) are
so numerous, so public and so spectacular that the world, even the
Christian world, no longer believes in the chastity of priests”
(Hermand, 1965, p. 17). The modern priest faces a visceral and
intellectual conundrum as he tries to exist and minister within the
confines of an unbelievable and unlivable teaching for the normal
Christian. One of the basic problems underlying sexual abuse by
priests is this fact: The church lacks a credible theology of sexuality.
254 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
The minister is left foundering to make sense of his life and his
ministry.
The confessional exposes a priest to the rich inner landscape of
people’s sexual life. That topography is traced by rugged and often
untamed terrain of thoughts, desires, behaviors, and endless
unnecessary worries. After a time in the ministry the average priest
hearing con fessions becomes privy to a wide variety of sexual
practices and concerns of the laity and other priests. A priest can
cease to be surprised at the frequency of masturbation,
homosexuality, infidelity, and incest. He becomes familiar with
varieties of sexual practice he did not previously even read about or
imagine, such as necrophilia or zoophilia.
The priest learns compassion as he listens to the complexity of
people’s lives and the tension between their religious ideals,
education, and practical realities of daily existence. He empathizes
with their loneliness. If the priest is attentive to the spirit of grace, he
even learns wisdom and ways to help people suffer less, be more
autonomous, just, accountable, and loving.
But the priest is also burdened with his new knowledge. Sex
becomes pedestrian. It is pervasive. How does he refine his celibate
dedication at the same time he develops ministerial wisdom and
integrity in helping his people to develop loving relationships and
full sexual maturity?
It is because church teaching is not convincing or real that no
seminary yet effectively succeeded in teaching celibacy or sexuality.
The structure of the seminary institution is meant to be the
seminarian’s instruction in celibacy (Kauffman, 1988). This
traditional method can and frequently does fail to sustain a priest in
his celibate striving in his ministry The priest is, in a very real sense,
abusive if he responds to his own celibate/sexual development and
the demands of ministry by simply discarding the church’s teaching
on sex as impossible. Or worse, he is abusive if he holds others to a
standard he does not live. He is abusive if he enters the network of
sexually active priests under the guise of comradeship. Finally, he is
monumentally abusive if he imposes his own sexual needs on the
suffering or vulnerable whom he is supposed to serve. Duplicity
translates into a pathology. Sex becomes the ecclesial means of
splitting—betraying integrity. In the words of Father Hermand, “Let
us be frank and lucid and realistic. Strict selection will not ensure the
CAN CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BE PREVENTED? 255
MANDATORY CELIBACY
Church authorities are adamant that (the rule of mandatory) celibacy
has nothing to do with sexual abuse of children. Of course it does.
Sexual abuse is always noncelibate activity. Noncelibate behavior by
those who profess celibacy is the main ingredient of the stew in
which the Catholic clergy find themselves today. The “Winter”
report recommended “that the archbishop [St. John’s
Newfoundland] join with other bishops across Canada to address
fully, directly, honestly and without reservation questions relating to
the problematic link between celibacy and the ministerial
priesthood” (vol. 3, p. 35–54).
There is a strong clerical and lay movement abroad to end
mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests and to legitimize optional
celibacy for the clergy and ordain women to the deaconate and
priesthood. These proposals are worthy of close examination,
prayerful rational study, and discussion. But it would be foolhardy to
expect that any mere legal adjustment would in itself bring sexual
responsibility and integrity to the ministry. The great Protestant
CAN CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BE PREVENTED? 257
What will it take for the American church to engage seriously in the
discussion of sexual abuse by clergy? Father Stephen Rosetti told a
group of Father James Porter’s victims in a Massachusetts TV studio
in 1992, “the Church will not change until it is threatened with
bankruptcy.” He may be correct.
ETHICALCODE
A priest’s roles are multiple and daunting, involving both public and
private interactions with an identical population; for instance, saying
258 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
with it. Their suggested remedies have so far been defensive and
favor getting rid of offenders. Any religion that depends only on
external controls for its ministers rather than internalized integrity is
certainly in grave crisis. Such a church has failed in its fundamental
mission of selecting, educating, commissioning, and monitoring
trustworthy ministers.
Physicians and other professions do have sexual codes of ethics
and definitions of the appropriate boundaries between doctor and
patient. The American Medical Association (1997) makes explicit
what is already stated in the Hippocratic oath: “sexual activity with a
patient is unethical.” In April 1994 the American Psychiatric
Association further clarified the duty of a psychiatrist by stating that
“sexual activity with a current or former patient is unethical.” The
therapeutic bond is sacred and eternal. What are the ethics of the
pastoral bond?
the real issues that involve celibacy and sexuality. The achievement
of celibacy demands truth and involves the process of internalization.
Prohibitions against discussing priestly sexuality, including
masturbation, affairs, homosexuality (also contraception, abortion,
sex prior to marriage or after divorce) in any perspective other than
the current teachings of the Catholic catechism leave the priest
without enlightenment for his pastoral duties or his own growth and
guidance. Consequently, he can have compassion for the sinner but
the situation actually invites him to sin sexually because of
ignorance and isolation.
The delineation of an ethical code must surmount these
impediments if the church expects professional status. It must
develop a code of ethics no less precise, credible, and demanding
than that of other professions.
Informed Consent
Priests must realize their responsibility when they become sexually
involved. Abel, Becker, and Cunningham-Rathner define the
problems of informed consent for a child (1984). Because of the
priest’s social standing and public claim of celibacy, these criteria
can be applied to a priest’s interaction with children and adults.
DEVELOPMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS
At the core of the celibate search and process is the achievement of a
relationship rather than the absence of one.The operative dynamic is
centrifugal. The true celibate is able to forge a real and durable
relationship with the transcendent. Having done so, he will develop
the capacity to realize expanding potential, which, when the
relationship is of sufficient satisfaction and meaning, will produce a
266 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
1.
The Primary Relationship
I can not overemphasize the importance of the first 3 years of life for
the development of personality and character in later life. The roots
of self-image are firmly established in the first 2 years of life. It is
then that the awareness of identity “is maintained by comparison and
contrast.” It is in this period of time that the predictability of the
rhythm of gratification/frustration associated with the loved and
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 267
This man goes on to report how his priesthood (his “crusade”) and
sense of well being and righteousness, which comes with serving a
cause, have sustained him. He is, as he says, “relaxed and happy” in
his ministry. Community and Mother Church have been nourishing
268 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
2.
Familial/Developmental
The family can provide the lifelong model for warm, close sharing
and for emotionally satisfying relationships that do not involve
sexual exchange. It is not accidental that “brother” and “sister,” as
well as “father” are appellations and paradigms of celibate
functioning.
During preadolescence, home and family form the base of a boy’s
“intellectual and affective life…. He uses his friends and
companions in the secret pursuit of knowledge about the body and
its sexual functions, as partners in sexual games, and in the
enactment of sexual fantasies” (Harley, 1975). The histories of many
celibates confirm how very significant this early period is in the
formation of their sexuality and impulse toward celibacy. Sexual
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 269
and discipline. For some few celibates, early sexual play is the
fountainhead of their process of sexual differentiation and identity
One priest who later became an American citizen entered training
for the priesthood in his home country at 5 years of age—a
custom with a centuries-old tradition and very common in his
homeland. It is clear from his account that the priests fulfilled
maternal and paternal roles. They performed all of the educational,
health care, and homemaking services for their charges. Even from
this skewed and unusual environment, firm sexual identity and
heterosexual orientation are clearly possible.
3.
Educational/Formative
Prior to 1975, many priests began their studies for the priesthood
during their high school years; others began seminary training in
college; and fewer still started after graduating from a college or
even after a period of time in the working world or after training in
another profession. The shift toward later rather than earlier entry
into seminary training is clearly progressive. Earlier entry into
studies took advantage of the natural idealism of adolescence about
which Anna Freud (1944) and others have spoken (Blos, 1962). The
reasons for the semi-seclusion and protective schedules behind the
seminary walls were the solidification of the clerical identity and the
“preservation of chastity.”
We found no celibate—except a few suspected of having
Kallmann’s syndrome—who denied ever having any sexual
experience, even if it was relegated to this early period of his life. In
fact, for some men early activity formed the prototype of their
understanding of others and remained for them the set of calipers
with which to measure their own subsequent feelings and reactions.
When I observed this, I was reminded of wise mystics who can find
the meaning of the universe in a blade of grass—a rare but beautiful
thing to encounter.
The formation of bonds of security and emotional and economic
sustenance also provided the basis of a brotherhood of lasting shared
values and ideals. After more than 50 years of celibate living, one
priest said, “I cannot imagine another profession that could supply
such love and support.”
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 271
4.
Ministerial/Service
If celibacy is to thrive, it must be able to withstand the rigorous
demands of unrequited loving service. Great satisfaction as well as
monumental frustration can accrue to the unselfish attention to the
community. The ability to foster and maintain ministerial and
service relationships that have enduring and comprehensive meaning
for the celibate test his view of Man and God to ultimate depths. What
eyes of faith it takes to see Christ in each human and to depend on
the transcendent for one’s vision and comfort in the face of daily
challenge! Spiritual literature abounds with encouragement and
warning for the celibate who has progressed to this level of
development in his quest.
It is during this long period that the celibate heroes are made and
the sexual compromises that threaten integrity are established.
Priests whose ministerial relationships are not infused by celibate
sublimation can provide humanitarian and institutional service. But
the quality of relationship bonds are formed and tested by the daily
demands that program, further, and refine pastoral interactions. The
challenge is to infuse celibacy in those relationships.
272 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
5.
Expanding Awareness of Universal
Interrelatedness
In our estimation, lived celibacy leads to greater similarity than
dissimilarity between celibates and noncelibates in this one regard:
Many men described the experience of a greater inner
interrelatedness with all human beings as their celibate identities
solidified. Several times this phenomenon took on the quality of a
“religious experience.” I first became aware of this interrelatedness
around a cluster of men who described near-death experiences and
how these had affected them. The keys to such an experience are its
subsequent impact on one’s life and its sustaining quality.
One man described a month-long “high” during which he had an
acute awareness of both the presence of God and his own oneness
with others. The time was vivid to his recall even after several years
had passed. His subsequent productivity and accomplishment were
visible, public, and remarkable.
Usually such an episode follows a period of turmoil or felt
disintegration. It comes suddenly, unexpectedly, and in such diverse
places as a busy street, at home in the middle of the night, on a
beach, or in an airplane. In an instant, the one having the experience
can see things in a unity that he had not previously known. Whether
coupled with an incident or not, many celibates reported a sense of
cognizance that could be labeled “universal interrelatedness.” They
were clearly able to transcend emotionally their institutional and
cultural barriers. The experience did not seem to be parochial or
provincial and had a quality of trans-institutionalism in spite of a
firm sense of clerical identity
This feeling of relatedness appears to be the natural outcome of
the process of celibacy and the refinement of one’s relationships. It
is the culmination of a progression whereby sincere, devoted, and
highly motivated men seek the highest spiritual ideal of love and
service to humankind. They arrive at this point by coming to terms
with the sexual dimensions of their lives rather than by avoiding
them. These men are self-aware and can recount subtle shades of
274 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
INTERNALIZATION
As priests describe their experience of celibacy/sexuality, one is
challenged to comprehend the second dynamic of the process: a
centripetal movement from intention or attraction to goal and.
integration. What motivates a man to sacrifice his sexuality?
Naturally, one may say, “the love of God”; but if this is the only
reason one can give in recounting the development of his celibacy, he
ironically is very suspect both in his self-critical capacity as well as
in his honesty. The determination to be celibate is usually adjunctive
to and derivative of some perceived good or advantage. A person or
the image of a persona whom one wants to imitate mediates the
intention. The advantages of education, prestige, or opportunity, if
not power, are commonly mentioned as early motivating factors.
The first step toward the internalization of celibate identity is very
significant since it prefigures all the stages to follow.
1.
Celibate Image and Intention
This first step involves the formation of an image and awareness of
an intention. It announces the direction of the process toward
achievement and includes the separate but interrelated tasks of
comprehension, conversion, self-control, and commitment.
The image of celibacy is usually formed through the family,
church, or school where the celibate model was extolled or revered.
Conversely, a negative image can inspire—creating opposition to
wealth, prestige, power or rejection of one’s own family’s values. In
any case, one comprehends the image in personal terms.
Comprehension is the cognizance of a meaning of life and of
one’s existence that is “one’s own.” That awareness may or may not
be validated by a wide segment of social groups. It is the sense of
vocation: One finds a place for oneself in the scheme of things. At
first, it may just be a vague awareness that one “should be” a
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 275
2.
Awareness of the Capacity to Be Celibate
How does a man know if he has a capacity for celibacy and does not
merely harbor an admiration for a personally unattainable ideal?
First, he must know himself and his ability to enter into and sustain
relationships. Second, he must have some knowledge of the process
that supports that ability.
Since the Council of Trent, the seminary-training period has been
meant to inculcate into the young aspirant a pattern of life, which
will develop the necessary internal discipline to sustain celibate
practice. Three other factors support motivation toward the
priesthood: economic dependency; the position of specialness in a
social setting; and a measure of power. In some way these factors do
achieve a certain realization, at least temporarily. Many men report
that regardless of subsequent sexual activity, the period of their
seminary training was relatively free of sexual experimentation.
In the assessment of their vocation, most men experienced the call
primarily to the priesthood and only secondarily to celibacy That
meant that a sense of inner change or the need for conversion was
vaguely present in their initial awareness of the vocation. Somehow
there was a need to be sexually restrained. With many, their capacity
for celibacy was first confronted by an experience of conversion.
Conversion or metanoia is an ancient concept that involves not
merely a comprehension or cognizance of life’s meaning but also a
change in heart or behavior that reflects that new awareness. It is,
therefore, a test of capacity. In the same way, the cognizance of a
transcendent reality and a “presence” that one can count on leads to
the next step—the translating of that reality into behavior that
reflects the relatedness. The re-evaluation of one’s past life produces
a sense of one’s imperfections or a consciousness of one’s sinfulness
and unworthiness. At the same time it yields gratitude for being part
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 277
3.
Knowledge of the Process (How to Be Celibate)
Control or the ability to influence one’s existence and environment,
is part of the task of and reward for the celibate quest. The image of
the athlete in training is borrowed from the Bible and St. Paul and
has inspired many celibates. There is a justifiable pride in
accomplishing a difficult feat—one that takes discipline, practice,
sacrifice, and a willingness to engage a powerful, unrelenting
opposing force. Regulating one’s sexual instinct surely involves all
of the above.
The question is how? Traditionally, the system has been depended
upon to instill the necessary self-control and skills to achieve
celibacy. Seminaries used to be finely tuned programs based on
monastic tradition that fostered a sense of self-denial, order,
community, and shared values. Ironically, the system has not proved
278 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
4.
Practice
The sustained intention to be celibate—even with a capacity for
sublimation and control and backed up by a solid knowledge of
sexuality and how it impinges on one’s being and behavior—needs
practice to achieve reality. If virtue were attained merely by not
perpetrating vice, prisons would be bastions of holiness. If celibacy
were merely the absence of sexual activity, some of the ranks of the
married would have to be reclassified as celibate. The path from
intention to integration is not traversed without risk. As part 2 of this
volume “Practice Versus the Profession,” illustrates, not all those
who profess celibacy officially practice it. The question here is what
constitutes an abandonment of the celibate goal and what constitutes
part of a learning process and a refinement of one’s ideals.
Many priests spoke forthrightly about their celibate/sexual
development and recounted failures or transgressions. Many of their
stories revealed heroic struggles, tender, and humane reminiscences
with loving gratitude for relationships or incidents that temporarily
broke their vow but led them back to the pursuit of celibacy—
chastened but wiser. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to codify
this paradox of spirit and struggle wherein “sin” may indeed serve
the ends of growth, maturity, and finally, virtue.
280 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
5.
Commitment
The initial stage of the celibate process is the determination that the
relationship—or the vocation—is worth the sacrifice. Men find
themselves invited to “come near” like the call to Moses from the
burning bush (Exodus 3) or of Jesus, “Come follow me and I will
make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). Commitment is the thrilling
alignment of one’s energies in the service of the cause. It unifies the
attention and energies of one’s existence with The One who
commands.
At base, it is the willingness to serve which validates the
commitment. Those who are primarily or largely self-serving will be
betrayed in the end by their sexual instincts. An excessive desire for
acclaim will leave celibate striving undefended in the face of
inevitable confrontation.
In his autobiography, Gandhi notes the relationship between the
practice and commitment phases of celibacy:
freedom and joy that came to me after taking the vow had
never been experienced before 1906. Before the vow I had
been open to being overcome by temptation at any moment.
Now the vow was a sure shield against temptation. The great
potentiality of brahmacharya daily became more and more
patent to me. (1957, p. 209)
6.
Achievement and Integration
The achievement of celibacy is not the accidental passage of sexual
feelings into the oblivion of physical senescence. One cannot be
celibate by accident. One has to achieve it, since celibacy involves
the integration of one’s identity without the ongoing support and
benefit of a sexual friendship. The person who has achieved celibacy
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 283
TEMPORAL STAGES
Although celibacy can become an integrated reality after a period of
time, there seems to be a series of stages through which the seeker
must pass. From the men we interviewed, we got a firm impression
that the stages cluster around certain time periods. Therefore, this
model is a linear one.
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 285
1.
Initial Awareness/Depression: Gain/Loss
Every man who wanted to be celibate described an initial awareness,
however vague, of a sense of loss. One mature priest who had
traversed most of the stages of celibacy said that there were
moments at each stage when he had experienced what he called “an
instant stab of genital grief.” I was tempted to characterize each
stage as a kind of depression, but in the end I decided that the term
carried too much of a one-dimensional mental health quality to it.
However, the first inner determination to be celibate always has this
depressive quality to it, no matter how positively a man perceived
the benefits of the priesthood. Interestingly, this experience does not
always precede one’s determination to be a priest or even coincide
with it. We interviewed some priests who had not experienced even
this first stage— but then they were not practicing celibacy either.
Not all men conceptualized the downside of this stage as having
to do with sex, but I am convinced that this sense of loss has much to
do with the men’s blurry anticipation of the future lack of a sexual
outlet and the sacrifice of a sexual relationship. In men of unusual
intuition, the perception seemed accurate regarding the direct sexual
component of this stage, that is, they were aware at the time of
forgoing a future sexual relationship, and their memory of this stage
was quite clear.
In others, there appeared to be a good deal of secondary revision,
that is, in light of subsequent experience and reflection, they realized
that the sacrifice of intimate sexual relationships was required. This
later awareness confirms the essential sexual component of the
original experience. One priest said, “I realized that I would have to
live my life like a man who was deprived of an arm or leg. I would
do the best I could, but nothing would give me the use of a limb I
didn’t have.” He and others expressed experience of the gospel
meaning of being a “eunuch for Christ.” With men like this, the
choice was conscious. Others had to use denial to blunt for a time
the awareness of what it was they were giving up.
The core depression is an inner battle—a sense that one must
follow a certain path that is abhorrent or at least disagreeable. The
must is not of the compulsive kind—as if one cannot help oneself or
is moved by external forces. Nor is it of the nature of the loss of
286 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
2.
Like Me/Not Like Me
Priests report a post-training phenomenon that commonly occurs
sometime between the 2nd and 5th years after ordination (i.e.,
postvow). For the priest, it constitutes an awareness of the degree
and the manner in which people outside the clerical environment are
“like me” or “not like me.” Some of these clergy were relatively
isolated from the secular world from 3 to 13 years prior to their
ordination. Often, the ordination itself marks a dramatic shift in
surroundings from the sequestered religious system to an open, semi-
religious, or even frankly secular environment. The young man who
was encapsulated and protected to some degree by a group of men
who shared his beliefs, education, and ideals and who behaviorally
marched more or less to the same officially regulated cadence now
finds himself among people of widely varying education and
religious practice. His chosen drumbeat is only one rhythm vying for
orchestration. He must now simultaneously fit in and hold his own.
Reflecting on this period of his life, one priest said, “I trained with
the angels and then had to fight on the devil’s own turf.”
Especially since 1960, there has been a conscious effort in the
church to bridge the gap between theoretical training and practical
application. An interesting paradox comes to mind. Is it that priests
are not prepared for the world, or is it that—closed to the mystery of
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 287
3.
In Control/Controlled By
Clerical celibacy exists in a framework of authority. The power
structure in turn supports a man living within it. Sooner or later the
ties with authority must be clarified, absorbed, and internalized. In
one sense the relationship with power must be desexualized. If we
take only one facet of the authority structure—the filial, where the
church and her superiors assume the parental roles of protector,
nurturer, and role model—we can see that sooner or later one must
leave that mode to become his own man. By so doing, his conviction,
values, goals, and behaviors fall under his control and there will be
progressively less dependence on and devotion to externals. This
movement is an internal one beyond authority; it is necessary for
mature celibate practice.
Celibates most commonly report this stage clustering in the 13th
to 16th years post-vow, although we have examples of it much
earlier and much later. There is always an adolescent-like quality to
this phase of celibate resolve. One realizes, as does an adolescent,
that he cannot hope for all that he had expected from his “parents.”
With the dissolution of the mental construct of external control, the
celibate is threatened with a new freedom. The extremes of response
are to reject internalization and become a toady—a stance that does
little to enhance celibacy and at times becomes a cover for a sexual
relationship or even deviant behavior—or to rebel mindlessly,
rejecting all authority and sexual restraint at the same time.
Unfortunately many church officials are picked from the group who
choose the former path.
Especially for men who have been truly celibate into their 30s,
this is a period of severe trial. They have genuinely cast their lot
with the celibate fraternity, sharing interests, fate, economy,
spirituality, and often aesthetics—just like a family. Now they find
themselves on their own in an emotional way they have never
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 289
4.
Alone/Lonely
“Lonely” is one of the most frequent replies when one asks a
celibate how he feels. Loneliness is a lifelong struggle for anyone
who is serious about maintaining a deep relationship. It makes one
aware of the untraversed and untraversable chasm that separates
people who love one another.
Loneliness is a deeply personal privation that takes on different
colorings at different times in life. Its roots are in the first
relationship with mother, who ideally was neither too close nor too
far from the child. A mother who can accept a child—being present
to him as a partner in fulfilling his own needs—and yet be centered
solidly in herself is an appropriate model of the human-transcendent
interaction. A priest who enjoyed training and is pursuing a
ministerial career that involves similar support from the church and
her authorities will be well prepared for this stage of the celibate
process.
To some degree, each of the previous stages deals with loneliness.
Each stage involves a separation. Each contains a risk because it
demands a shift in the way the celibate relates to himself, to other
people, and to the primary object of his affection—the transcendent.
Inevitably a time comes in each celibate’s search when he has to
rise above loneliness—to transform it to a state of aloneness.
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 291
This maturation is the final step in resolving the illusion that primal
merging is possible.
A great deal needs to be said about the distinction between
“lonely” and “alone.” It is so vital to the resolution of inner conflict
and the achievement of the goal. To be alone in the way that I intend
means that one is able to accept the reality of one’s self and destiny,
and this acceptance requires a sense of the reality of the
transcendent and of one’s dependence on and relationship with that
reality. Aloneness is not anti-community, anti-authority, or anti-
work. It is a stance beyond community. It exists beyond the
boundaries of external authority. It is the foundation and capstone of
productivity. At this stage of celibate living the single-mindedness
required “on account of the kingdom” is tested to its limit, and
receives its greatest reward.
This stage is best defined by celibates who have been ordained for
more than 2 decades (22 to 27 years) when they are confronted with
the question: “Is it worth it?” The core of the crisis is doubt. Have
the sacrifices made and the work done been of real value to anyone?
Is it worth going on aware that to enter more deeply into celibacy
obviates any possibility of a meaningful companionable relationship
in old age? Men in the throes of this crisis report discouragement at
seeing wizened old men grow cranky or dependent on alcohol as a
way of combating their bitter loneliness.
By this stage, most priests have developed healthy celibate
friendships and have been observant of their celibate discipline.
Whereas passion needed temperance at earlier stages of
development, at this stage it is the lack of companionship rather than
sexual discharge that threatens the celibate commitment. “The pearl
of great price” and the “heart’s being where one’s treasure is” are
analogical attempts to describe the unswerving dedication to the
service of others which is required to negotiate this stage of celibate
growth.
The person who cannot tolerate true aloneness cannot move to a
level of celibate integration. He therefore remains perpetually
vulnerable to sexual compromises even after years of discipline.
Celibate aloneness requires a level of sexual identity, resolve, and
dedication to purpose that remains constant in the absence of
external support. Many priests fail to make this final step. Or they
are saddled with the choices they made at earlier stages when
292 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
5.
Integration
Some special quality—call it mystic—surrounds men who have
integrated celibacy firmly and unequivocally into their being and
behavior. The awareness of the transcendent in themselves and
others, past and future, comes together in them and in their work. At
times, they do record moments that might be called ecstatic or might
be classed as spiritual peak experiences, but the real test of their
resolve is in their daily lives. They have a spiritual transparency—
they indeed are what they seem to be. They are not without the faults
or idiosyncrasies developed in pursuing a rarefied form of existence
and service. But they also typify what is written about in the
literature as a true eschatological witness. These men point to “life
beyond” and to values not yet achieved. They have triumphed as
much as humans can over a biological imperative. They exercise a
freedom of service to their fellow humans unbound by any
institutional restraints. They are what they set out to be: men of God.
It is easier to find men who will relate their celibate/sexual
struggles than it is to find men who can talk in the first person about
their achievements and integration. This in part is because
integration is accompanied by a deep sense of humility; and in part
it is because these men are a minority. The tendency to deal with
celibacy only in idealistic and legalistic terms rather than in terms of
process and personal history militates against a realistic literature
that genuinely supports celibacy. These men both validate the
process and approach the ideal.
LIVING WITH CELIBACY 293
If you had cut Andrew Pengilly to the core, you would have
found him white clear through. He was a type of
clergyman favored in pious fiction, yet he actually did
exist.
—Sinclair Lewis
The question remains. Who are the men who succeed in celibacy?
How do they approach the ideal of celibacy? What is involved in their
success? Over the years, I have found them to be almost universally
humble and very reticent about claiming “success” for themselves.
Contrary to what might be expected, I found in them that a sense of
humanness and flexibility of character were far more common than
rigidity. Also remarkable was their general sense of good humor
rather than the wizened anger and resentment some might expect
among sexually deprived persons.
A discipline and purposefulness were evident in their lives in
place of the harsh practices one imagines as ascetic. Judging from
the men with whom I have spoken, I have come to agree with the
Franciscan theologian, Fr. Martin Pable (1975), who recast celibate
asceticism into a positive statement about life that refuses to be
encapsulated by popular presuppositions. Humanness unbounded by
sexuality, love beyond loneliness, sexual identity grounded in real
generativity, and transcendent awareness and activity are all open to
the celibate and are the reward of his discipline (pp. 266–76).
Often, the men who are the best examples of celibate achievement
have the hardest time describing “how” they do it. They may
mention some practice of prayer, or even a hobby or interest that has
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 297
With the object of rooting out moral abuses in the Church and
freeing it from lay control, he first reinforced, at his Lenten
synods of 1074 and 1075, his predecessors’ decrees against
clerical marriage and simony. This provoked great resistance,
especially in France and Germany, but special legates armed
with overriding powers were able to overcome most of it.
(Kelly, 1986, p. 155)
His reform prepared the way for the declaration of universal celibacy
for priests in the Latin Rite at the Second Lateran Council in 1139.
After studying early monastic rules, I extrapolated six additional
essential interrelated elements that support celibacy as a way of life.
Later, I could identify them as addressing three main areas of human
need: the spiritual, the psychological, and the physical. I hold that
these elements are present in the lives and the codification of the
experience of every celibate rule maker.
The most significant religious codifier in the past 500 years has
been Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). His profound spiritual
experience is transmitted in his Spiritual Exercises (1978), which do
not necessarily demand a celibate response but rather form a solid
base for the transforming religious experience or orientation
indispensable to celibacy. Further, it is from this base that he
founded his society, the Jesuits—a way of life that contains all the
essential elements mentioned above.
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 299
1.
Work
“What are you going to do when you grow up?” “What are you
going to be?” are the kinds of questions that plague and inspire the
young. Everyone has to do something; everyone has to be someone.
Everyone has to work. A man’s celibacy is inextricably bound up
with work. Work is mastery—the productive use of one’s energies
and time—rather than any particular task.
The variety of work that can absorb the vitality of a celibate is
amazing. Many celibates, however, are not satisfied with the priestly
functions of sacramental minister, teacher, or plant administrator.
Their individual interests can range from the theoretical and
ecclesiastical areas of their primary training to photography, fly-
tying for fishing, or gardening. I include under this rubric of work
some activities that others might number as hobbies because I have
found that celibates seem to know the value of time and productivity
and find these activities related to their work/mastery energies.
2.
Prayer or Interiority
I have never interviewed a man who has attained celibacy without
finding in him a rich and active prayer life. This is so intimately
bound up with celibate practice and achievement that when making
a clinical assessment of a priest I always inquire first about his
prayer life. A celibate’s prayer life reveals the capacity, quality, and
nature of his relationships. He reveals his understanding of
300 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
3.
Community
The importance of interiority leads quite naturally to the third
element found among men who have achieved celibacy: a sense of
themselves as part of a community. They seemed to know the
answer to the gospel question: “Who is my mother and brothers and
sisters?” In some with a very highly developed religious personality,
we found an awareness of the family of humanity, and in others an
awareness of oneness with all creation.
Community consciousness in this group was not theoretical or
ephemeral. The men had a deep sense of persons—people to whom
they were committed and people on whom they could rely One man,
despite being incapacitated by physical injury and disgruntled and
gruff with those around him, clearly manifested the depth of his
allegiances. In short, strong object relationships with a wide variety
of persons seem to support celibate achievement.
4.
Service
All of these three elements—work, prayer, and community—are
united in the awareness of service as a meaningful existence. In
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 301
other words, all is “on account of the kingdom.” Whatever the work,
the prayer form, or the community for the particular celibate, the
effort is beyond the self.
Some mentioned that it was not always easy to be conscious of
this reality. They pointed out that at times they were tempted to be
“served,” to be the special one, receiving or directing the service of
others. They were also aware that such a shift—so acceptable
culturally—was a danger to the integrity that was essential to their
rightful calling.
5.
Physical Needs
Many adults think of sexual gratification as a primary physical need
along with those of home, food, and clothing. They accordingly
spend a good deal of their time and effort on taking care of these
necessities. Many celibates are forced to spend more time than they
would like on taking care of their physical needs even though they
admit that they are generally well cared for. Some priests felt their
living standard was reasonably commensurate with (or better than)
that of the people they served.
We found a wide variety of adjustments in this area, not so much
in the essentials as in the details left to taste and quality. Some
priests savored exquisite food, whereas others seemed quite
indifferent to its quality. Some also enjoyed an alcoholic drink,
whereas others were abstinent. A few said they had had a problem
with alcohol in the past, but no addictive alcoholic was represented
in the group of celibate achievers. I believe that active alcoholism is
incompatible with the achievement of celibacy.
Not all of the achievers were lean. Several portly gentlemen
confessed that they had struggled with a weight problem all of their
adult lives. Some said that food and drink remained the areas of their
greatest and most persistent combat. I was left with the impression
that this was a group of men who knew themselves, knew their
limits and needs, and fulfilled them appropriately and with
gentleness. One man stated it clearly, “If I don’t assure myself
enough legitimate pleasure, I’m liable to seek the illegitimate.”
Indeed, there were some men for whom the word “ascetic”
seemed the obvious description, but they lacked the rigidity of
302 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
6.
Balance
Another element I identified not only in the codes of the spiritual
writers but also in the lives of the celibate achievers was balance. It
is the psychological and spiritual quality that probably ensures the
flexibility necessary to juggle the inner and outer, daily and seasonal
demands. Not only does balance moderate the physical instincts and
their legitimate satisfaction, it also assures sufficient prayer and quiet
to restore the consciousness of one’s goals and values, and limits the
tendency to overwork.
I met a few of these men fortuitously as they were struggling with
a considerable amount of inner anguish. In some instances, a man
needed a neutral and supportive arena in which to sort out his inner
confusion. In every instance, I could describe the experience they
were undergoing as “a dark night of the soul.” The process outlined
by St. John of the Cross is an apt comparison.
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 303
This is closely aligned with the thinking of St. Augustine and other
spiritual writers. I have found that many celibates must expand the
bounds of traditional thinking in order to integrate their celibate
practice with the reality of their lives. Meister Eckhart (1981 ed.) is
a spiritual writer whose work helped me comprehend the progress
toward inner balance that informants described. An abstract
thinker, Eckhart was interested in the sources of universal being and
in the connection/relationship of an individual being in God and God
in being. A celibate’s sense of detachment and his understanding of
304 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
7.
Security
Security is a universal human requisite for growth and for the
development of adequate coping mechanisms. The sense of stability,
enduring circumstances, rootedness in interpersonal relationships,
with bonds to time, place, and practical realities, are fundamental to
personal growth and development.”
This is integral to the vow of celibacy. I have already quoted
Gandhi’s experience of celibacy before and after he took his vow.
The prayer, work, community alliance, and service so essential to
celibate practice are sealed by the internal commitment expressed in
a vow. Commitment establishes inner security and allegiance
manifest and concrete in relatedness.
Security is closely allied with the element of community
mentioned earlier, but it is also an expansion of it. The core
oommunity, like the nuclear family, is the base from which one can
reach out and to which one can retreat. Essential relationships
confirm one’s identity, but security allows one to refine and expand
that identity.
The base for security is laid down in early childhood in attachment
and separation—especially to and from the mother. The resolution
of the process is strong object constancy and the solidification of
basic identity and relationships. Early resolution then forms a model
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 305
which to hide a secret life. How can I maintain celibate security and
yet travel on an equal plane with those who are not celibate?
Many informants recounted how associations that began with the
promise of mutual respect for the other s commitment ended with
sexual compromise. Nonetheless, many of the achieved celibates had
forged alliances and friendships that did fulfill the promises.
A wise priest told me that even the right work assignment could
be most disruptive for the celibate with respect to establishing adult,
secure, human relationships. As an example, he described the
situations in which a young priest is assigned to a parish or to
pastoral work. He enthusiastically throws all his energies into the
task. Often when the young priest is transferred to a new situation,
the young man invests less of his energies into relationships,
anticipating a second additional set of painful separations. His inner
security was not sufficiently developed to sustain the loss.
The danger is that with each new task the priest may become
increasingly isolated in his official persona, and consequently,
progressively more vulnerable to a sexual liaison. Celibate achievers,
however, seemed to know what others did not—how to achieve
relationships of broad mutual satisfaction and respect that enhanced
their celibate identity without imposing on it clerical trappings.
I emphasize this element of security because it is the confirmation
of the integrity of priests’ celibate identity These men functioned as
celibates and felt they were consistently “themselves,” regardless of
circumstances or surroundings. They did not change into a different
kind of private persona distinct from their public image and they did
not split off their personal life from their stated values.
8.
Order
I never met a celibate achiever who lacked a sense of order in his
daily and seasonal life. I encountered a few whose system of order
was so idiosyncratic that at first it appeared to be disorganization—or,
in one case, chaos—but on further examination I discovered that
such was not the case.
While achieving balance involves a spiritual quality regulating the
inner competing needs, achieving order requires the regulation of
time and energy, whether in prayer, work, study, hobbies, or
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 307
9.
Learning
Not all men who achieved celibacy were scholars, but the
intellectually curious were over-represented in this group. I can say
that this is a group of men who are interesting because they
308 CELIBACY IN CRISIS
10.
Beauty
There is a need for legitimate pleasure that takes the form of beauty
in many celibates’ lives. This is absolutely clear when celibates band
together in stable communities. Even those confounded by the
practice of celibacy can admire its artistic productions. A love for
beauty seems to flow naturally from the conditions provided by
community living. The order and balance in day-to-day existence,
reverence for learning, and attention to simple human needs, form a
psychological synergism easily demonstrable in religious history.
Community gives rise to a number of expressions. For example,
liturgical prayer led to its natural enhancement through psalmody
and gesture. The practical necessity of providing permanent, stable
housing allowed for architectural achievements. The task of copying
manuscripts led to the art of embellishment and illumination. In
short, it seems that the religious spirit cannot be indulged without a
natural sublimation into beautiful as well as practical forms.
This is, of course, a derivative quality. However, learning and
beauty are cultural achievements that inspire people to think about
life and about values that are of immeasurable worth. Celibate
achievers tend to be rather more culturally literate than not. Some
had a deep love for music, others for art or drama. Some could
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CELIBACY 309
abuse and once for the church that tried so desperately to keep abuse
—and so much else—secret.
The Secret World is being exposed and explored. It will be a better
World.
EPILOGUE DlMENSIONS OF THE
CRISIS
The real epilogue to this book is now playing out in the public forum.
Grand juries are being empanelled to examine how bishops have
handled sexual abuse by their priests. Reports so far have been
devastating in their implications of complicity of bishops in the
problem and coverup of abuse. District attorneys throughout the
country are actively seeking indictments against priests who have
abused minors. Victims of abuse are lining up to tell their stories,
seek a hearing, and ask for redress from church officials.
Above all, people are clamoring for honesty—accountability, and
transparency—from their leaders.
The process of investigation of the secret world of sex and
celibacy within the church is at a beginning, not a conclusion. No one
knows how long a resolution of the crisis will take. But the thrust is
irrepressible. The forces for revelation and reform are inexorable. A
number of issues are bound to come up for consideration. There are
seven pillars of the crisis.
1. It has been irrefutably established that some priests and bishops
abuse minors. Over 400 American priests resigned or were forced
out of the priesthood in the year 2002 because of abusing minors.
Hundreds of victims have spoken publicly about their abuse at the
hands of priests. Some priests and former seminarians are revealing
abusers who are currently in positions of power. Unraveling the
DIMENSIONS OF THE CRISIS 315
Bell, A.P, Weinberg, Martin S., & Hammersmith, S.K. (1981). Sexual pref-
erence: Its development In men and women. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
Bell, R.M. (1985). Holy anorexia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Benedict, St. (1980). The rule of St Benedict. T.Fry (Ed.). Collegeville, MN:
The Liturgical Press.
Berlin, Fred S. (1986). Pedophilia: Diagnostic concepts, treatment, and ethical
considerations. American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 7(1):13–30.
Berlin, F.S., & Coyle, G.S. (1981). Sexual deviation syndromes. The Johns
Hopkins Medical Journal, 149:119–25.
Bernanos, G. (1962). Diary of a country priest. New York: Macmillan.
Berry, J. (1985, June 7). Pedophilia. National Catholic Reporter.
———. (1987, February 27; March 7). Homosexuality. National Catholic
Reporter.
———. (1989, September 16 and 17). Washington Post.
———. (1992). Lead Us Not Into Temptation. New York: Doubleday.
Bieber, I. (1962). Homosexuality: A psychoanalytic study. New York: Basic
Books.
Bier, W.C. (1954). Practical requirements of a program for the psychological
screening of candidates. Review for Religious. 13: 13–27.
———. (1960). Basic rationale of screening for religious vocations. Selected
papers from the American Catholic Psychological Association, Bier &
Schneider (Eds.). New York: Fordham University.
Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Formation. (1981). The program of priestly
formation. Washington, DC: National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, National Conference of
Catholic Bishops. (1985). The health of American Catholic priests: A
report and a study. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.
Black, M., & Rowley, H. (Eds.). (1975). Peake’s commentary on the Bible.
London: Thomas Nelson.
Blenkinsopp, J. (1968). Celibacy, ministry, church: Anenquiry into the
possibility of reform in the present self-understanding of the Roman
Catholic Church and its practice of ministry. New York: Herder and
Herder.
Blos, P. (1962). On Adolescence. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Bobrow, N.A., Money, J., & Lewis, V.G. (1971). Delayed puberty, eroticism,
and sense of smell: A psychological study of hypogonadotropism, osmatic
and anosmatic (Kallmann’s syndrome). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1:
329–44.
Boston Globe, The, The investigative staff of the. (2002). Betrayal: The crisis in
the Catholic Church. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
Boswell, J. (1980). Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality: Gay
people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the
fourteenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
REFERENCES 319
Boxer, S. (2000, July 22). Truth or lies? In sex survey, you never know. New
York Times.
Brown, G. (1981). The new celibacy. New York: Ballantine.
Brown, P. (1988). The body and society: Men, women and sexual renunciation
in early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown, R.F., Fitzmyer, J.A., &, Murphy, R.E. (1968). The Jerome biblical
commentary, Vol. 2: The New Testament and topical articles. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Burkett, E., & Bruni, F.A. (1993). Gospel of shame: Child sexual abuse and the
Catholic Church. New York: Viking.
Buss, David M. (1994). The Evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating.
NewYork, NY: Basic.
Bynum, C.W. (1982). Jesus as mother: Studies in the spirituality of the high
middle ages. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. (1992). From pain to hope. Report
of the Ad hoc committee on child sexual abuse. Ottawa: Author.
Carnes, P. (1983). Out of the shadows: Understanding sexual addiction.
Minneapolis, MN: CompCare.
Cass, V.C. (1985). Homosexual identity: A concept in need of definition. In
J.P.DeCecco & M.G.Shively (Eds.), Origins of sexuality and homosexu-
ality. New York: Harrington Park.
Chapman, J.D. (1984). Neuroendocrinologic developments in sexuality: Beta-
endorphins in sexual phase disorders. J. A. D. A., 84:368–71.
Chaucer, G. (1934). Canterbury tales. (J.U.Nicolson, Trans.). Garden City, NY:
Doubleday.
Cherfas, J., & Gribbin, J. (1984). The Redundant male: Is sex irrelevant in the
modern world? London: The Bodley Head.
Chesterton, G.K. (1981). The Penguin complete Father Brown. New York:
Penguin Books.
Child abuse. Pastoral and procedural guidelines. A report from the working
party of Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales on cases of
sexual abuse of children involving priests, religious, and other church
workers. (1994). London: Catholic Media Office.
Child sexual abuse: Framework for a Church response. Report of the Irish
Catholic bishops advisory committee on child sexual abuse by priests and
religious. (1996). Dublin: Veritas Publications.
Chittister, J.D., & Marty, M.E. (1983). Faith and ferment. Minneapolis:
Augsburg. p. 30.
Cholis, R, (1989). Clerical celebacy in the East and West. Herefordshire: .
Clark, K. (1982). An experience of celibacy: Creative reflection on intimacy,
loneliness, sexuality and commitment. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.
Clegg, P. (1996, May 14). Examining the roots of clergy abuse. Sacramento:
Sacramento Bee.
320 REFERENCES
Cochini, S.J., Christian. (1990). The apostolic origins of priestly celibacy. San
Francisco: Ignatius.
Code of Canon Law. (1984). Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America.
Coffin, E. (1977). A refutation of M.Joseph Hall. Ilkley, England: Scolar Press.
Colaianni, J.F. (Ed.). (1968). Married priests and married nuns. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Coldrey, B.M. (1997). Religious life without integrity. Unpublished manuscript.
Como, West Australia.
Coleman, E. (1987). Assessment of sexual orientation. Journal of
Homosexuality, 14:9–24.
Comfort, A. (1972). The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Love Making. New
York: Simon and Schuster.
Cooney, J. (1984). The American pope: The life and times of Francis Cardinal
Spellman. New York: Times Books.
CORPUS. (1988). First national conference on a married priesthood.
Washington, DC: American University.
Cozby, P.C. (1973). Self-disclosure: A literature review. Psychological
Bulletin, 79:73–91.
Cozzens, D. (1998). The Changing face of the Priesthood. Collegeville, MN:
The Liturgical Press.
Cozzens, D. (2002). Sacred Silence: Denial and the crisis in the Church.
Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.
Crosby, M. (1996). The dysfunctional church. South Bend, IN: The Ave Maria
Press.
Cullmann, O. (1962). Peter: Disciple, apostle, martyr: A historical and
theological study (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Westminster.
Curran, C.E. (1986). Faithful dissent. Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward.
Curtis, H. (1979). Biology (3rd. ed.). New York: Worth.
D’Antonio, W., Davidson, J.D., Hoge, D.R., & Meyer, K. (2001). American
Catholics: Gender, generation, and commitment. Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira Press, pp. 69–86.
Dabrowksi, K. (1964). Positive disintegration. Boston: Little, Brown.
Davis, H.J. (1938). Moral and pastoral theology, Vol 4. New York: Sheed and
Ward.
DeMause, L. (1974). The history of childhood. New York: Psychotherapy.
Duby, G. (1983). The knight, the lady, and the priest: The making of modern
marriage in medieval France. New York: Random House.
Easwaran, E. (1972). Gandhi, the man. Berkeley, CA: Blue Mountain Center of
Meditation.
Eckhart, M. (1981). Meister Eckhart: The essential sermons, treatises, and
defence. (Edmund Colledge & Bernard McGinn, Trans.). New York:
Paulist.
Homosexual love. (1983). [Editorial]. Commonweal, 110:484–5.
REFERENCES 321
Eisler, R. (1987). The chalice and the blade: Our history, our future. San
Francisco: Harper and Row.
Erikson, E. (1969). Gandhi’s truth. New York: Norton.
Fenichel, O. (1945). Psychoanalytic theory of neurosis. New York: Norton.
———. (1953). Collected papers, first series. New York: Norton.
———. (1954). Collected papers, second series. New York: Norton.
Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children, New York: Free Press.
Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G.T., Lewis, F.T., et al. (1990). Sexual abuse in a
national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics and
risk factors. Child Abuse and Neglect, 14,19–28.
Foresi, P.M. (1969). Celibacy put to the gospeltest. New York: New City.
Foriliti, J. (1984). Early adolescents and their parents: Growing together.
Washington, DC: National Catholic Education Conference.
Fortune, M.M. (1989). Is nothing sacred? When sex invades the pastoral
relationship. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Foster, L. (1981). Religion and sexuality: Three American communal
experiments of the nineteenth century. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on
language. New York: Harper and Row.
———. (1978). The history of sexuality. New York: Pantheon. 1:57.
Fox, R.L. (1987). Pagans and Christians. New York: Knopf.
Franklin, R. (1988, September 18). Accolades and ironies. Minneapolis Star
Tribune.
Freedman, A.M., Kaplan, H.L, & Sadock, B.J. (1975). Comprehensive textbook
of psychiatry (2nd ed.). Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
Freud, A. (1944). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. (Rev. ed.). New
York: Grune and Stratton.
Freud, S. (1953a). Complete psychological works, Vol 7 (1901–1905). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1953b). Complete psychological works, Vol 13 (1913–1914). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1957). Complete psychological works, Vol. 2 (1910). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1958). Complete psychological works, Vol 12 (1911–1913). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1961a). Complete psychological works, Vol. 17 (1917–1919). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1961b). Complete psychological works, Vol. 21 (1927–1931). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1963). Complete psychological works, Vol. 16 (1916–1917). London:
Hogarth.
———. (1966). Family romances. Standard Edition, Vol 9. London: Hogarth,
pp. 235–41. (Originally published 1909.)
322 REFERENCES
John, Saint, of the Cross. (1973). The collected works of St. John of the Cross
(Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, Trans.). Washington, DC:
Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Jordan, M. D. (2000). The silence of sodom: Homosexuality in modern
Catholicism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Jurgens, W.A. (1955). The Priesthood: A translation of the Peri Hierosynes of St.
John Chrysostom. New York: Macmillan.
Kallmann, F.J., Schoenfeld, W.A., & Barrera, S.E. (1944). The genetic aspects
of primary eunuchoidism. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 48:
203–36.
Karpman, B. (1954). The sexual offender and his offenses: Etiology, pathology,
psychodynamics and treatment. New York: Julian.
Katchadourian, H., M. D., & Lunde, D.T., M. D. (1980). Fundamentals of
human sexuality, (3rd. ed.) New York: Holt, Rinehart.
Kauffman, C.J. (1988). Tradition and transformation in Catholic culture, New
York: Macmillan.
Keane, P. (1975). Sexuality in the lives of celibates and virgins. Review for
Religious, 34:2.
Keller, E.F. (1985). Reflections on gender and science. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Kelly, J.N.D. (1986). The Oxford dictionary of popes. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kelly, T. (1988). An indian journal (Visit to the Dalai Lama 1986). The
Scriptorium, Vol. 26. Collegeville, MN: St. John’s Abbey.
Kennedy, E.C. (1981). Fathers Day. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
———. (1986, November 14). Asexuality. National Catholic Reporter.
———. (1988, April 23). The problem with no name. America, 158:423–5.
———. (2001). The unhealed wound: The Church and human sexuality. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.,
Kennedy, E.C., & Heckler, V.J. (1972). The Catholic priest in the United
States: Psychological investigations. Washington, DC: United States
Catholic Conference.
Keyser, L., & Keyser, B. (1984). Hollywood and the Catholic Church: The
image of Roman Catholicism in American movies. Chicago: Loyola
University Press.
Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W.B., & Martin, C.E. (1948). Sexual behavior in the
human male. Philadelphia: W.B.Saunders.
Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W.B., Martin, C.E., & Gebhard, R.H. (1953). Sexual
behavior in the human female. Philadelphia: W.B.Saunders.
Kleeman, J.A. A boy discovers his penis. (1965). The Psychoanalytic Study of
the Child, 20:239–66.
———. (1966). Genital discovery during a boy’s second year: A follow-up. The
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 21: 358–92.
326 REFERENCES
Klein, F., Sepekoff, B., & Wolf, T.J. (1985). Sexual orientation: A multi-
variable dynamic process. Journal of Homosexuality, 11: 35–49.
Knowles, D. (1970, July). Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle, 65.
Krafft-Ebing, R.V. Psychopathia sexualis. (1934). Brooklyn, NY: Physicians
and Surgeons Book.
Kraft, W.F. (1979). Sexual dimensions of the celibate life. Kansas City, KS:
Andrews and McMeel.
Kramer, H., St Sprenger, J. (1971). Malleus maleficarum. New York: Dover
Publications.
Kuhn, T.S. (1962). The Structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Laghi, P.C. (1998). Vocations to the priesthood. Vatican City.
Landis, J. Experiences of 500 children with adult sexual deviants. Psychiatric
Quarterly Supplement, 30: 91–109.
Langsley, D.G. (1980). Community psychiatry. In H.I.Kaplan, A.H.Freedman,
& B.J.Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (3rd ed.). Vol.
3. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, p. 2, 860.
Lavallée, F. (1964). Pourquoi le célibat du prêtre? Lyon: Chronique Sociale de
France.
Lea, H.C. (1884). An historical sketch of sacerdotal celibacy (2nd ed.). Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
Leishman, K. Heterosexuals and AIDS. (1987, February). The Atlantic Monthly
259:39–48.
Lerner, H.G. (1986). The dance of anger. New York: Harper and Row.
Lewes, K. (1988). The psychoanalytic theory of male homosexuality. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
Lewis, S. (1927). Elmer Gantry. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Loughery, J. (1998). The other side of silence: Men’s lives and gay identities: A
twentieth-century history. New York: Holt.
Luhmann, F.J. (2002). Call and response: Ordaining married men as Catholic
priests. Berryville, VA: Dialogue.
Luker, K. (1984). Abortion and the politics of motherhood. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Mahler, M.S. (1979). Separation-individuation. In Selected papers. New York:
Jason Aronson.
Mahler, M.S., Pine, F, &Bergman, A. (1975). The psychohgical birth of the
human infant: Symbiosis and individuation. New York: Basic.
Males, J.L.,Townsend, J.L., & Schneider, R.A. (1973). Hypogonadotropic
hypogonadism with anosmia—Kallmann’s syndrome: A disorder of
olfactory and hypothalamic function. Archives of Internal Medicine, 131:
501–7.
Marcus, I.M., & Francis, J.J. (1975). Masturbation from infancy to senescence.
New York: International Universities Press.
REFERENCES 327
Marcus, S. (1973). Father Coughlin: The tumultuous life of the priest of the
Little Flower. Boston: Little, Brown.
Marmor, J. (Ed.). (1965). Sexual inversion: The multiple roots of
homosexuality. New York: Basic.
Marshall, D.S., & Suggs, R.C. (Eds.). (1971). Human sexual behavior: Varia-
tions in the ethnographic spectrum. New York: Basic.
Masters, W.H., & Johnson, V.E. (1966). Human sexual response. Boston:
Little, Brown.
———. (1970). Human sexual inadequacy. Boston: Little, Brown.
———. (1979). Homosexuality in perspective. Boston: Little, Brown.
Masters, W.H., Johnson, V.E., & Kolodny, R.C. (1982). Masters and Johnson
on sex and human loving. Boston: Little, Brown.
Maugham, W.Somerset. (1933). “Rain” and other short stories. London:
Readers Library.
McAllister, R.J. (1986). Living the vows: The emotional conflicts of celibate
religious. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
McAllister, R., & VanderVeldt, A. (1962). Psychiatric illness in hospitalized
clergy: Alcoholism. Quarterly Journal for the Study of Alcoholism.
McAllister, R., & VanderVeldt, A. (1961). Factors in mental illness among
hospitalized clergy. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
McAllister, R., & VanderVeldt, A. (1965). Psychiatric illness in hospitalized
Catholic religious. American Journal of Psychiatry.
McBrien, R.P. (1980). Catholicism, Vol. 1. Minneapolis: Winston.
———. (1987, June). Homosexuality &, the priesthood: Questions we can’t
keep in the closet. Commonweal: 380–3.
———. (1994). Catholicism. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
McGovern, T. (1998). Priestly celibacy today. Chicago: Midwest Theological
Forum.
McHugh, G. (1965). Ecclesiogenic neurosis linked to erroneous religious
taboos. Frontiers of Clinical Psychiatry, Nutley, NJ: Roche Report.
McLaughlin, L. (1982). The pill, John Rock, and the church: The biography of a
revolution. Boston: Little, Brown.
McMenamin, R.W. (1985). Clergy malpractice. Case and comment. 90:3–6.
McNeill, J.J. (1976). The church and the homosexual. Kansas City, MO: Sheed,
Andrews and McMeel.
———. (1987). Homosexuality: Challenging the church to grow. The Christian
Century, March: 242–6.
Meiss, M., & Beatson, E.H. (1974). The Belles heures of Jean, Duke of Berry.
New York: George Braniller.
Meissner, W.W. (1978). The Paranoid Process. New York: Jason Aronson, pp.
653–4.
Merton, T. (1997). Learning to love: Exploring solitude and freedom. New
York: HarperCollins.
328 REFERENCES
Miles, M.R. (1996). Seeing and believing: Religion and values in the movies.
Boston, MA: Beacon.
Millenari, The. (2000). Shroud of secrecy: The story of corruption within the
Vatican. Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter.
Miller, J.A. A song for the female finch. (1980). Science News, 117: 58–9.
Miller, J.A., et al. (1984, February 18). How to identify a future priest. America.
Miller, J.B. Women and power. (1982). In Work in Progress. Wellesley, MA:
Stone Center for Developmental Services and Study, Wellesley College.
Modras, R. (1989). Father Coughlin and the Jews: A broadcast remembered.
America 160(9): 21; 9–222.
Mohr, J.W., Turner, R.E., & Jerry, M.B. (1964). Pedophilia and exhibitionism.
Toronto: The University of Toronto Press.
Money, J. (1971). Clinical aspects of prenatal steroidal action on sexually
dimorphic behavior. In C.H.Sawyer & R.A.Gorski (Eds.), Steroid hor-
mones and brain function. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
pp. 325–38.
———. (1984, February 24). Bisexuality and homosexuality. Sexual Medicine
Today.
———. (1986). Lovemaps: Clinical concepts of sexual/erotic health and
pathology, paraphilia, and gender transposition in childhood,
adolescence, and maturity. New York: Irvington Publishers.
———. (1988). Gay, straight, and in-between: The sexology of erotic
orientation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Money, J., & Ehrhardt, A.A. (1972). Man and woman, boy and girl: The
differentiation and dimorphism of gender identity from conception to
maturity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Montini, G.B. (Pope Paul VI). (1963). The priest. Dublin: Helicon.
Moore, P.J. (1976, June 7). Time.
Moore, T.V. (1924). Dynamic psychology: An introduction to modern
psychological theory and practice (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.
———. (1938). Consciousness and the Nervous System. Baltimore: Williams &
Wilkins.
———. (1939). Cognitive psychology. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
———. (1936a). Insanity in priests and religious: I. The rate of insanity in priests
and religious. American Ecclesiastical Review, 95, 485–98.
———. (1936b). Insanity in priests and religious: II. The detection of
prepsychotics who apply for admission to the priesthood or religious
communities. The American Ecclesiastical Review, 95, 601–13.
———. (1943). Prayer. Westminster, MD: Newman.
———. (1943a). The nature and treatment of mental disorders. New York:
Grune and Stratton.
———. (1944). Personal mental hygiene. New York: Grune and Stratton.
REFERENCES 329
———. (1948). The driving forces of human nature and their adjustment: An
introduction to the psychology and psychopathology of emotional behavior
and volitional control. New York: Grune and Stratton.
———. (1956). The life of man with God. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Mott, M. (1984). The seven mountains of Thomas Merton. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Murphy, P.L, &, Arlington, R.Rene. (1985). La popessa. New York: Warner
Books.
Myrick, F. (1974). Attitudinal differences between heterosexually and
homosexually oriented males and between covert and overt male
homosexuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 83:81–6.
Nash, J., & Hayes, F. (1965). The parental relationships of male homosexuals:
Some theoretical issues and a pilot study. Australian Journal of
Psychology, 17:35–43.
National Catholic Reporter, (1976, April).
National Catholic Reporter. (1997, Sept. 5). Code to prevent abuse. Kansas City.
National Center for Health Statistics. (1983). Healthy United States.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops. (1982). The Program of Priestly
Formation, (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.
———. (1983). A Reflection guide on human sexuality and the Ordained
Priesthood. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.
———. (1988, April 12). Partners in the mystery of redemption: A pastoral
response to women’s concerns for church and society, Washington, DC.
Origins, 17(45): 757–88.
———. (1995). Walk in the light, Report of the Ad hoc committee on child
sexual abuse. Washington, DC: National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Nickalls, J.L. (Ed.). (1985). The Journal of George Fox, (Rev. ed.).
Philadelphia: Religious Society of Friends.
Nicoli, A., Jr. (1988). The Harvard guide to psychiatry. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press. (Originally published 1978.)
Niebuhr, G. (1989, April 15). Broken vows: When priests take lovers. The At-
lanta Journal.
Nordeen, E.J., &Yahr, P. (1982). Hemispheric asymmetries in the behavioral
and hormonal effects of sexually differentiating mammalian brain.
Science, 218:391.
Nugent, R. (1983). A challenge to love: Gay and lesbian Catholics in the
church. New York: Crossroad.
O’Connor, E. (1961). The edge of sadness. Boston: Little, Brown.
Ostow, M. (Ed.). (1974). Sexual deviation: Psychoanalytic insights. New York:
Quadrangle/New York Times Book.
Otene, M. Celibacy in Africa. (1982). Review for Religious, 41(1): 14–21.
Ovesey, L. (1969). Homosexuality and pseudohomosexuality. New York:
Science House.
330 REFERENCES
Rodgers, J.E. (2001). Sex: A natural history. New York: Times Books.
Rosetti, S. (1995). The Mark of Cain. America.
———. (1997). Painful Grace. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.
Russell, D. (1983). Incidence and prevalence of intrafamilial and extrafamilial
sexual abuse of female children. Child Abuse and Neglect, 7: 133–46.
Russell, N. (1981). The lives of the desert fathers. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian.
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (S.C.D.F). (1976).
Declaration on certain questions concerning sexual ethics. Washington,
DC: U.S. Catholic Conference.
———. (1986). Letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the pastoral
care of homosexual persons. Washington, DC: U.S. Catholic Conference.
Sanderson, M.H.B. (1986). Cardinal of Scotland: David Beaton c. 1494–1546.
Edinburgh: John Donald.
Sarlin, C.N. Cultural and psychosexual development. (1975). In Irwin M.
Marcus & John J.Francis (Eds.). Masturbation from infancy to senescence.
New York: International Universities.
Schetky, D.H., & Green, A.H. (1988). Child sexual abuse: A handbook for
health care and legal professionals. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Schillebeeckx, E. (1968). Celibacy. New York: Sheed and Ward.
———. (1988). The church with a human face. New York: Crossroad.
Schnaper, N. (1970). The Talmud: Psychiatric relevancies in Hebrew tradition.
In A.W.Richard Sipe Hope: Psychiatry’s commitment. New York:
Brunner/Mazel (Taylor & Francis).
———. (1984). Care of the critically ill and the dying. In A.W.R. Sipe &
C.J.Rowe (Eds.). Psychiatry, ministry and pastoral counseling, (2nd ed.).
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
Schuth, K. (1999). Seminaries, theologates, and the future of church ministry:
An analysis of trends and transitions. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical
Press.
Seltzer, B., & Frazier, S.H. (1978). Organic mental disorders. In Armand M.
Nicholi, Jr. (Ed.), The Harvard guide to modern psychiatry. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, p. 308.
Sexton, S. (1997). Celibacy as a form of perversion (thesis): Sheffield, England:
The University of Sheffield.
Shannon, J.P. (1998). Reluctant dissenter: A Catholic bishop’s journey of faith.
New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.
Shea, W.M. (1986, November 7). The pope our brother. Commonweal: 586–90.
Silone, I. (1986). Bread and wine. New York: Signet.
Singer, I. (1984). The nature of love. Vol 1. Plato to Luther, (2nd ed.). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Sipe, A.W.R. (1973). The sexuality of the apostles: An eisegetical exploration.
Baltimore: Loyola College Lecture Series.
———. (1974). Memento mori: Memento vivere in the Rule of St. Benedict.
The American Benedictive Review, 15(1), 96–107.
332 REFERENCES
Williams, W.L. (1986). The spirit and the flesh: Sexual diversity in American
Indian culture. Boston: Beacon.
Wills, G. (2000). Papal sin: Structures of deceit. New York: Doubleday, 122–
149; 192–202.
Wilson, E.O. (1978). On human nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Winnicott, D.W. (1965). Family and individual development. London:
Tavistock.
———. (1971). Playing and reality. New York: Penguin.
Wittkower, E.D., &, Dubreuil, G. (1971). Reflections on the interface between
psychiatry and anthropology. In I.Galdston (Ed.), The interface between
psychiatry and anthropology. New York: Brunner/Mazel (Taylor &
Francis).
Wolter, D.L. (1992). Sex and celibacy: Establishing balance in mtimate
relation-ships through temporary sexual abstinence. Minneapolis, MN:
Deaconess.
World of the desert fathers: Stories and sayings from the anonymous series of
the Apophthegmata Patrum. (1986). Oxford: SLG.
Young-Bruehl, E. (1988). Anna Freud: A biography. New York: Summit.
Zilbergeld, B., & Ullman, J. (1978). Male sexuality: A guide to sexual fulfillment.
New York: Bantam.
INDEX
335
INDEX 336
Education in sexuality, for priests, 24– on masturbation, 53, 55, 58, 173
26, 165–167 on pornography, 172–173
pornography in, 177 on striving for power and prestige,
Ego adaptation, in celibate 93
achievement, 272 Fetus,
Eifert, Carl, 6 see also Abortion
Ejaculation beginning of life in, 116, 118–119
during confessions, 56 catastrophic disease in, 119–120
involuntary nocturnal sexual development of, 141–142
early church teachings on, 62–64 Financial compensation
fasting and, 65 to adult sexual partners of priests,
guilt from, 66 42
Kinsey belief on, 62 for child fathered by clergy, 42
moral questions on, 62–63 in clergy sexual abuse cases, with
spontaneous, 65–66, 210 minors, 20, 199–201, 218, 246,
Elmer Gantry (Lewis), 105 314
Emissions, see Ejaculation Fixed pedophilia, 197
Ephebophilia, 197 Flight from Women, The (Stern), 169
Equilibrium, in fulfilling celibacy Forgiveness, of child-abusing priest,
vow, 32 250–251
Erikson, Erik, 266 Foucault, Michel, 10–11, 13, 170
Ethical/sexual code for priests, 257– Fox, Tom, 194
259 Free choice, in celibacy, 29–30
elements of, 260–262 Freud, Sigmund, 39
impediments to, 259–260 on castration fright, 148
Ethnography, 16, 45 on gender inequality, 184
Eunuch for Christ, 275, 293 on homosexual types, 129
Exhibitionistic behavior, 177–179, on latent homosexuality, 157–159
211 on masturbation, 53–54
on necessary homosexual phase of
Familial model, 35 development, 143
Family oedipal theory of, negative, 142–
pedophilia transmitted in, 204 143
of priest, developmental
relationship with, 268–270 Galdston, Iago, 17
Family friend, priest as lover evolving Gallagher, Joseph, 127, 161
from, 84–87 Gandhi, 18
Fasting, 57 celibacy of, 28
sexual appetite link to, 64–65 discovery of vocation, 36–37
Father’s Day (Kennedy), 93 practice and commitment phases
Feminist movement, 21 in, 281
in increased awareness of spiritual motivation of, 38
monosexual church structure, 133 struggles in, 30
Fenichel, Otto before and after vow, 32, 303
341 INDEX