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Suffer me to begin with a suggestion: if you ever have the chance to hear the Rev. William Dailey of Notre Dame law school speak, jump on it. Dailey is a stunningly brilliant advocate, among the best I have ever encountered on any issue. Dailey appeared on today's Up With Chris Hayes on MSNBC, where he masterfully made the case against the Obama administration's order forcing Catholic institutions to provide services that violate their moral principles. Predictably, the panel resorted to an ad hominem argument against him. Panelist Michaela Angela David implicitly, and Hayes himself explicitly, argued that celibate Catholic...

Once again, the sex lives of Catholic clergy are seeing a flurry of media attention. During the first week of 2012, Los Angeles Bishop Gabino Zavala announced his resignation after acknowledging that he had fathered two children with the same woman. Zavala’s announcement trailed just a few days behind the appointment, on January 1, of Jeffrey Steenson as the chief pastor of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Steenson is a married Catholic priest. His new position as head of the Ordinariate confers upon him all of the duties of a Catholic bishop, with the exception of the...

I always used to pause at that oft-used description of the saints. The martyr part made sense. But why virgin? To make it a point to highlight that aspect of a person’s life seemed a little…personal. To use internet parlance, it struck me as TMI. I knew that the problem must be with me, and not with a tradition of the 2,000-year-old Church, but I never could figure out why that designation was so important. Then I began to notice something: Our society has lost the concept that it is possible to live a fulfilling life without having sex. And...

Publicly, he is a religious brother with a Roman Catholic order. Privately, although he took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, he said, at 23 he was a sex addict, anonymously cruising bars, parks and Cook County Forest Preserves for quick hookups. Six years ago, his superiors found out and encouraged him to seek help. He agreed readily and spent the next six months in intense therapy at a residential treatment clinic north of Toronto for male and female church ministers with psychological and addiction problems. Brother Patrick has been chaste ever since (his real name is being withheld because...

Historian Henry Charles Lea, after documenting the clerical excesses of the fifteenth century passes on to the Reformation in Germany. Luther was only one of many reformers and the sale of indulgences to wayward priests proved to be fuel for the fires of the Reformation. There is a section devoted to Calvinism, to the Council of Trent in it's deliberations and efforts at reform, to the clerical abuse in the New World. In the concluding chapter, The Church Today, (of pre WWI) Lea's comments would fit seamlessly into today's headlines as he says speaking of the Catholic church's struggles with...

In the four hundred plus years that passed since Peter Damian delivered his treatise on clerical homosexuality to Pope Leo Councils had been called to deal with the vices enumerated by Damian and others calling for reform. The Council of Constance that ended in the spring of 1418 was called to address these vices including simony, concubinage and, as Lea points out, the sleeves of priestly garb. Writes Lea in chapter 24, "As regards heresy, it did the best it could according to the lights of its age, by burning John Huss and Jerome of Prague." and "The council closed...

Henry Charles Lea was a remarkable historian. Largely self taught and meticulous in his work, he produced a detailed and lavishly footnoted history of the medieval period. Anyone who speaks to the subject of priestly celibacy today should first become familiar with this two volume work, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, published in 1907, third ed., revised, and reprinted by BiblioLife. To that end I'll post, in several parts, some excerpts from this work beginning with Vol.2 and unless otherwise noted all quotes are from this volume that begins with chapter 24, The Fifteenth Century. Lea begins...

Facing a growing shortage of priests, the Roman Catholic Church is turning to former priests who left their callings to get married.While the “dispensed� priests won’t be allowed to take confessions or celebrate mass — they will be asked to serve as teachers and lay workers in such roles as helping serve communion to the congregation, roles already filled by lay members of local congregations.“The Vatican has appealed to diocesan bishops to encourage priests who have left ministry in order to get married to play a more active role in parish life,� reports Catholic Herald magazine, which reports that Cardinal...

Belfast, Northern Ireland (CNN) – A respected former Catholic bishop in Ireland is calling for an end to clerical celibacy in the wake of the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church worldwide, and says he finds it "heartbreaking" that some prospective priests turn away from the calling because of the celibacy rule. In his recently published book, "A Troubled See, Memoirs of a Derry Bishop," Dr. Edward Daly said that allowing clergymen to marry would ease many of the church's problems. There needs to be a place in the modern Catholic church for a married priesthood, said Daly,...

Fr. Mychal Judge, the fallen chaplain of the Fire Department of New York City, will be honored with a statue in front of his former parish, according to a story from Religion News Services (via The Huffington Post):When All Saints Church sought to signal its hospitality to gays and lesbians, the Catholic parish in Syracuse, N.Y., turned to a well-known image from the 9/11 attacks: five firefighters carrying a body from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.The body belonged to the Rev. Mychal Judge, a Franciscan fire chaplain who rushed to the burning buildings and was killed by falling...

“Celibacy has existed in one form or another throughout history and in virtually all the major religions of the world,” informs Encyclopedia Britannica. Whether it is for spiritual or health reasons – perhaps both – some creative types have embraced celibacy for years: Teen idols Nick, Joe, and Kevin Jonas Pop singer/songwriter Prince Rock star Lenny Kravitz (above) Actor Terrance Howard Writer Eve Tushnet For some artists, celibacy is seasonal. For others, a long-term commitment. Nevertheless, supporters say abstaining is often beneficial. With the support and guidance of a faith, it can also guard against diseases. Artists stand out probably...

Steve Gershom (a pseudonym) is a gay Catholic man in his late twenties. His blog, stevegershom.com, has been around for some months, but he has just decided to make it public. It's original, funny, poignant -- and culturally important. You can also find him on Twitter as stevegershom. I am profoundly grateful to Steve for agreeing to write this post for the Bubble. +++++++ When Leila asked me to write about gay marriage, the first thing I found out was how little I know about it. If I wanted to say anything coherent, I'd have to have definite beliefs about some deeper,...

Their description of the perpetrators of abuse might strike some as hairsplitting. “Less than 5 percent of the priests with allegations of abuse exhibited behavior consistent with a diagnosis of pedophilia (a psychiatric disorder that is characterized by recurrent fantasies, urges, and behaviors about prepubescent children),” they note. “Thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.’” But their explanation is not very comforting. “Most sexual abuse victims of priests (51 percent) were between the ages of eleven and fourteen

A rather unexpected voice just joined the chorus of the liberal media outcry over sex scandals among some Catholic clergymen: none other than Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist and neopagan president. A Neopagan Socialist... Indeed, Mr. Morales, leader of the Movement to Socialism, figured he should teach the Pope how things in the Church ought to be run. For those who may not know, he was inaugurated President of Bolivia in 2006 using indigenous pagan rituals.1 The Bolivian newspaper Los Tiempos, of Cochabamba (6/20/2006), described the ceremony: “Evo Morales assumed political power with a spectacular display of religious rituals alluding to...

Editor: We got earlier statements from the good Cardinal at Enlace Catolico. Here he is again, this time for Vatican Radio and kath.net, saying his piece against these theologians. It's certainly one of the most striking statements from a Curial official so far, and one of the most surprising. Here are some excerpts from his interview as translated at kath.net. "Churches, which have opted for woman's ordination and the recognition of same-sex partnerships, have put themselves for that reason in a very deep crisis"

Cardinal Lehmann attacked Cardinal Brandmüller in the his own paper "Glaube und Leben" and shamed himself with an open letter to the Cardinal -- no critical word for the CDU-Politicians -- see the Survey on Lehman -- speak out! Mainz (kath.net) Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the former President of the German Bishops Conference had sharply attacked the Roman Curial Cardinal Brandmüller, because he had criticized a provocative assertion about celibacy by some CDU-Zdk politicians. The politicians had made an appeal to the German Bishops advocating for a change in the practice of celibacy. In this, they posed the question, "how can...

The London Catholic Herald blogger Anna Arco blogs the news that Pope Benedict XVI “called for the Church to investigate priestly celibacy�, in 1970 when he was a young priest. She notes a German newspaper report that he signed a petition that suggested the Church re-examine the obligation of priestly celibacy.The memorandum was drawn up in the face of a shortage of priests and other signatories included Karl Rahner and the future cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper.If there weren’t enough priests, the document said, then the “Church quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications�.The blog points...

There's a commotion in the Archdiocese of Vienna around Toni Faber: "We are really are closely bound to Rome, but we must go our independent way. Some representatives of the Vatican live in a kind of denial of reality" an "Celibacy may soon be an obsolete model" Vienna [kath.net] A Commotion around the Vienna Cathedral Rector Toni Faber. In a recent interview with the "Courier" he answered questions put to him about reform in the Church: "We are really closely bound to Rome, but we must go our independent way. Some respresentatives of the Vatican live in a certain denial...

"As women, we have the right to make decisions regarding our bodies. These include decisions regarding the ability to control if and when we have children, regardless of whether we want several children or no children at all. Birth control is fundamental to our ability to have autonomy in our lives, and it helps us to understand our bodies and to enjoy our sexuality safely with men.” – Our Bodies, Ourselves 2005 The above quote captures the sentiment of many pro-contraceptive women, as well as men, non-Christian and Christian. The quote seems to make a good point. We do have...

In today’s Gospel  reading for Mass the Lord says the following: Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. In speaking this way the Lord was leading up to say that there is a noble place for celibacy, freely chosen in the Church, in the Kingdom of God. These are those who have freely renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom.Looking at the Translation: However, the Lord also speaks of those incapable of marriage either by...

Bishop John Jukes of Southwark was one of the leading lights – and best brains – of the Catholic Church when I was still at school. Today, much to my surprise, an email from this remarkable Franciscan appeared in my inbox, asking politely if I’d be interested in his thoughts on 87 years of celibacy. Having reported so negatively on the antics of various Catholic bureaucrats, I’m delighted to reproduce his article, whose defence of this ancient spiritual tradition is in such contrast to the sneers and incomprehension of the Church’s critics. I have always enjoyed the company of women....

From NY Post To The Priesthood Writers for the NY Post are, shall we say, a special breed. When one is used to seeing the NY Post it takes more than a ribald headline or a lewd lede to jolt. But perhaps this will do it... FROM THE POST TO PRIEST "John Wilson, a columnist and editorial writer for the New York Post, is hanging up his pen and pad for some priestly vestments."You read that right. An editorial writer for the funnest newspaper in town is heading up the Hudson to Dunwoodie (St. Joseph's Seminary) in Yonkers to study...

Friday August 6, 2010 Prominent Lutheran Pastor: Yes, I Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction By Peter J. SmithMINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, August 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rev. Tom Brock is a senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis who recently became the center of a controversy after his personal struggles with same-sex attraction were made public. Earlier in June, an undercover journalist with the Minnesota-based homosexual publication “Lavender” infiltrated and exposed Brock's attendance at a local chapter of Courage, a Catholic-run, prayer-based support group for men struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.  Brock, 57 years old and a virgin by his...

MINNEAPOLIS — A Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis who opposes homosexuals being allowed to lead congregations said Monday he is attracted to men, but that he's not a hypocrite because he never acted on his urges. The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn't consider himself gay because he never acted on it. In June, the Minnesota gay magazine Lavender reported that Brock was a member of a support group for Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. Brock's church, the Hope Lutheran Church, placed him on leave while...

For the second time in less than a year, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), an official agency of the denomination, has published an article arguing that sexual relationships outside the covenant of marriage are not necessarily improper. “An Ordained Single Woman and the Discipline,” published June 7 as part of the “Sex and the Church” series in GBCS’ weekly Faith in Action online newsletter, contends that sexual relationships should not be off-limits for unmarried UM clergy. Last August, the controversial series featured an article by Unitarian “sexologist” Debra Haffner who wrote that one can have...

Pope Benedict XVI Vatican City, Jun 17, 2010 / 08:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Vatican analyst Sandro Magister published an article in which he detailed Pope Benedict’s teaching on priestly celibacy, a concept with which many have expressed discontent in face of the clerical sexual abuse scandals. However, the Pope’s June 10 explanation, which presents celibacy in a new light, was both hinted at and foreshadowed by two prior talks, Magister claims. During a prayer vigil with 15,000 priests from around the world, Pope Benedict answered the questions of five priests from five different continents. His response to one priest...

From a Los Angeles Times piece, "Pope Benedict rejects call to end celibacy rule" (June 11, 2010), about Pope Benedict XVI's comments earlier today in Rome to priests gathered to mark the culmination of the Year of the Priest: At an outdoor vigil in St. Peter's Square that veered between moments of deep reverence and outbursts of enthusiasm more characteristic of a soccer game, the pope told the gathering of priests, believed to be the largest in history, that celibacy "is made possible by the grace of God … who asks us to transcend ourselves." Celibacy would be a "scandal,"...

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 9, 2010 (Zenit.org).- There is a beautiful aspect of celibacy that underlines a priest's dedication to serve each and every person as a brother or sister in Christ, says Benedict XVI's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The cardinal spoke about the priesthood and celibacy this afternoon at the "Priests Today" conference, held at Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. The Congregation for Clergy sponsored the three-hour event, in cooperation with the Focolare Movement, the Schoenstatt Movement and the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Priests "are essentially brothers among brothers, in whom they recognize the face of Christ....

Because of the priestly abuse scandals we so often hear that the problem is priestly celibacy. That not having sex causes you to abuse children and teens. That it is unhealthy and unnatural for us not to have sex.Well if they truly believed this then we need a whole new set of laws.For example what about socially awkward and extremely shy men? Obviously their unwanted state of celibacy will cause them to abuse children. How about marriages that have grown to be sexless because of one spouse being tired of sex? They too will look for children to abuse...

A “Celibacy Problem”? Catholic-Bashing, NAMBLA and the Dalai Lama    Celibacy brings consolation, independence, more freedom. The Dalai Lama (Posted May 2, 2010 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) On April 4, 2010 the blog page of the London Review of Books posted an article titled “The Celibacy Problem,” concerning the current priest scandal in the Catholic Church. The author, R.W. Johnson, states: Nobody I knew at either my convent school or at the Christian Brothers was ever the victim of sexual abuse. But I could weep as I think back not just to the savage physical punishments common to both schools and the...

Friday, April 09, 2010 The Validity of Homosexual Vows of Chastity in Religious Life By Regis Scanlon We are all too painfully aware of the problems that homosexuality in the priesthood has caused the Catholic Church. When the John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted its research into clerical sex abuse for the U.S. bishops in 2004, it found not a pedophilia crisis but what Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described as a pattern of "homosexual predation on American Catholic youth." The first question that comes to mind is: Should the Church accept homosexuals into diocesan...

Don't blame celibacy. To fight the plague of sexual abuse, the church needs to become more Catholic, not less.Throughout what U.S. Catholics called the "Long Lent" of 2002, when every week seemed to bring revelations of clerical sexual abuse and its mishandling by the church's bishops, some observers suggested that this crisis was the byproduct of some distinctive features of Catholic life: a celibate priesthood, a church governed by male bishops, a demanding sexual ethic. "Modernize" the church by changing all that, they argued, and these horrible problems would abate, even disappear.Sexual abuse is indeed horrible, but there is no...

ABC News is just now discovering last week's confusion over Christoph Cardinal Schonborn's comments on priestly celibacy. If you missed it, the cardinal had written a column for his diocesan magazine addressing the past sex abuse scandal. In the article, Cardinal Schönborn called for an "unflinching examination" of possible reasons for pedophilia, and said that this includes the issues of training priests "as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution.�"It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of...

Rome is using this day of rest to stir a debate that never seems to rest: The Vatican on Sunday denied that its celibacy requirement for priests was the root cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the church in Europe and again defended the pope's handling of the crisis. Suggestions that the celibacy rule was in part responsible for the ''deviant behavior'' of sexually abusive priests have swirled in recent days, with opinion pieces in German newspapers blaming it for fueling abuse and even Italian commentators questioning the rule. Much of the furor was spurred by comments from...

A cardinal seen as a future candidate for the papacy has broken a Vatican taboo by raising the possibility that priestly celibacy is among the causes of the sex abuse scandal sweeping the Roman Catholic Church.

ROME, MARCH 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Priestly celibacy is not psychologically dangerous, and in fact, sexual behavior based on "anything goes" is what is truly destructive to the personality. This is the affirmation made by Dr. Aquilino Polaino Lorente, a physician and psychiatrist who teaches courses on psychopathology at the University of St. Paul in Madrid. The psychiatrist -- best known for his work in children's and family psychology -- was a speaker at the two-day conference held last week at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. The conference, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," was sponsored by the Congregation for...

ROME, MARCH 9, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Married priests are an exception and the Church is increasingly convinced that they must remain so, according to a spiritual theology professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. Father Laurent Touze explained the foundations of priestly celibacy when he spoke at a two-day conference held last week at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.  The conference, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," was sponsored by the Congregation for the Clergy as an event for the Year for Priests. ZENIT spoke with Father Touze about the exceptions to priestly celibacy and the future of...

Married or single priests from the early stages of Christianity practiced celibacy, according to a Vatican archaeologist. During the first four centuries, married priests would renounce having intimate relationships with their wives, but they needed their the approval of their spouse. Brief video: http://www.romereports.com/palio/modules.php?t=Married-priests-from-the-first-centuries-practiced-celibacy&name=News&file=article&newlang=english&sid=1740

.Deacon John Burns, a seminarian from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, center, attends a theological conference on priestly celibacy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome March 4. Burns and several other seminarians from the Pontifical North American College attended the two-day conference. (CNS photo/Paul Haring VATICAN CITY -- Exceptions to celibacy for priests in the Roman Catholic Church can be puzzling, including for young priests enthusiastic about their vocation.The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, run by Opus Dei in Rome, held a theological conference on priestly celibacy March 4-5 and while no one challenged mandatory...

1. Allowing priests to marry would end pedophilia. It is completely untrue that celibate priests are more likely to be pedophiles than any other group of men, married or not. Pedophilia affects only 0.3 percent of the population of Catholic clergy, and sexual abusers in general account for less than 2 percent of Catholic priests. These figures are comparable to rates among married men, as non-Catholic scholar Philip Jenkins points out in his book Pedophiles and Priests. Other Protestant denominations have admitted to having similar problems among their own married clergy, so clearly the problem is not with celibacy. 2....

1. Celibacy reaffirms marriage. In a society that is completely saturated with sex, celibate priests are living proof that sexual urges can be controlled and channeled in a positive way. Far from denigrating the sexual act, celibacy acknowledges the goodness of sex within marriage by offering it up as a sacrifice to God. The sanctity of marriage is dishonored if it is treated merely as an outlet for sexual impulses. Rather, we as Christians are called to understand marriage as the inviolable commitment of a husband and wife to love and honor one another. A priest offers up a similar...

The current battles over clerical celibacy are nothing new. When mandatory celibacy was first universally imposed on the clergy a millennium ago, clergy and laity alike broke into riotous rebellion for more than two generations, and a good number of bishops and priests flouted these laws for several generations more. When the Protestant Reformation broke out half a millennium ago, clerical celibacy and marriage were among the most bitter grievances over which the Western Church ultimately splintered. Today, the exposures of child abuse by some enterprising Catholic priests has rejoined these ancient battles within Catholicism and between Catholics and Protestants...

“…a thorn in the flesh was given to me…” (2 Corinthians 12: 7). No one really knows what caused St. Paul to struggle, but there was something that really bothered him. He pleaded with the Lord that his difficulties be taken away, but Paul received an answer he was not looking for: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12: 9). True, Baptism washes away original sin, but we are left with the effects of original sin. We do not have complete control over ourselves. The spiritual life is a continual battle....

The temptation to have sex before marriage is as old as marriage itself. More than 1,600 years ago, St. Augustine, grappling with his desires, cried out to God, "Give me chastity . . . but not yet!"What is chastity? The word is often used to mean simply abstaining from sex, as if it were equivalent to celibacy. So it may be strange to learn that, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life." If that meant total abstinence, how would there be any new Catholics? (After all, cloning is...

Celibacy 1193. Who made the law of celibacy? The Catholic Church, with God's approval and authority, following the example of Christ and the Apostles. 1194. Did not Pope Gregory VII originate it in the 11th century? No. He merely enforced the already existing law more rigidly in his efforts to correct abuses. Over 300 years before Gregory VII was Pope, the Greeks met the Latin Bishops at the Council of Trullo, and admitted, "We know that the law of the Roman Church is to demand that married men, from the moment of their ordination, must separate from their wives forever."...

Seminarians cheer as Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a youth rally at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., last year. Vatican officials often have upheld celibacy as "a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity." (CNS/Nancy Wiechec) By John ThavisCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The question of priestly celibacy is one that keeps bubbling to the surface at the Vatican, most often in the theoretical discussions of synods of bishops but more concretely in a new papal document on Anglicans coming into the Catholic Church. The fact that married former Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic...

Vatican City, Oct 31, 2009 / 12:13 pm (CNA).- In an extensive clarification released on Saturday by the Vatican press office, Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. made clear, on behalf of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Levada, that there is no “celibacy issue” delaying the publication of the Constitution that will establish the context in which Anglicans can be received into the Catholic Church.In a statement released in English –breaking the common use of Italian- Fr. Lombardi explained that “there has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian...

One of the hardest things Ed Donaghy has ever done was leave his ministry as a Catholic priest. For months, he agonized over his conflicting desires to have a family and serve as a priest in the Sacramento Diocese. In the end, Donaghy felt he had no choice. The priest, who served in Woodland, told his bishop he had to leave. That was four decades ago. "It would have been wonderful to be married and be a priest," said Donaghy, 73, now retired as an insurance agent. "I loved the work and would have continued." Donaghy is one of more...

The delay in publishing the apostolic constitution, which will allow large numbers of Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church, is due not so much to translation problems as the more weighty issue of priestly celibacy.According to two reliably informed Italian newspapers, Il Giornale and Il Foglio, canon lawyers are continuing to define what has been a particularly unclear aspect of the new provision: whether married Anglicans could train as seminarians.Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale reports that over the last few days, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts has been working to clarify this point. He writes that “everything...

Each month, when I face an auditorium full of engaged couples preparing for a Catholic marriage, there is a Q-and-A session. It is the interesting, unrehearsed part of the evening. The couples write their queries on a piece of paper, and the anonymity guarantees at least a few hardball questions about the Church and its practices. "What about Galileo?" is among my favorites, along with inquisitive notes about Torquemada. But the majority of these "zingers" turn out to be protests about the Church's rule of clerical celibacy. "You've told us how wonderful marriage is, that it's a great good...