Celibacy and Chastity
“Blessed are the pure
in heart for they shall see God” (Mat. 5:8)
One of the aims of Christian spirituality is to “know yourself”. The anonymous author of
The
Cloud of Unknowing says: “Do
not shrink from the sweat and toil involved in gaining real self-knowledge, for
I am sure when you have acquired it you will very soon come to an experiential
knowledge of God’s goodness and love”
For St Teresa of Avila knowledge of God requires
knowledge of self and she writes: “For
never, however exalted the soul may be, is anything else more fitting than self
knowledge... without it everything goes wrong... Knowing ourselves is something
so important that I wouldn’t want any
relaxation ever in this regard, however high you may have climbed into the
heavens... Let’s strive to make more progress in self-knowledge, for in my
opinion we shall never completely know
ourselves if we don’t strive to know God”. (Interior Castle 1. Ch 2,
No 8/9). One’s dreams can be a valuable source of self-knowledge. (See
Appendix)
RENUNCIATION:
Fr Tom Speier OFM writes that one expert has
discovered five stages someone faced with the loss of life undergoes in dying: 1. Denial;
2. Anger; 3. Depression; 4. Resignation or Bargaining (rather than
embracing or accepting); 5. Acceptance.
There is something of each of these in every serious
crisis not just loss of life. These
stages can go back and forth - they do not move sequentially. A speaker said at
the National Assembly of Religious Brothers (USA) June 1977 that Religious
ought to look at two areas of sexuality they deliberately renounce (hence ‘lose’):
1. Genitality (Procreation and Recreation) and 2. Espousal.
Some religious get fixated at one of the above stages
because that stage is never worked through in their loss of genital sex and
espousal.
PURITY:
As religious we take a vow of chastity to be pure in
heart, single minded, intellectually honest with ourselves before God and to
love Him above all else with all our mind, heart and soul – in fact to be
infatuated with God as a young man would be infatuated with a girl he loves
enough to want to marry for life. It takes a passion to cure a passion –
a passion for God to cure a passion for women! Gordon Wise says that: “From purity flows passion that good shall
triumph over evil. A passionate pursuit of evil can only be met by a passionate
pursuit of good. It takes a passion to cure a passion”.
If we love Jesus as Jacob passionately loved Rachel,
it will make it easier to keep His rules and commandments and live up to the
demands and sacrifices He makes on us. Someone has said that “Rules without relationship bring
rebellion”. For example, if a father has a close relationship with his
child and takes pains to explain why there are rules in the home, the child will
take this more readily than if it is ordered to keep the rules.
But if we really love someone we are prepared to keep
the rules out of love for them. Jacob worked seven years so that he could have
Rachel, and the time seemed like only a few days to him, because he loved her.
(Genesis 29:20). St Augustine said “to
fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek Him, the
greatest adventure; to find Him the greatest achievement”.
APATHY and PASSION:
Of course being infatuated with God should not lead to
being remote from people, or seeing people as a hindrance to us loving God! In
his Confessions (4:10) St Augustine describes the desolation in which
the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him. ‘This is what comes’, he says ‘of
giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let
your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing,
not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away’. St
Augustine wrote. C.S. Lewis says of this passage it is excellent sense but
thinks the passage is less a part of St Augustine’s Christianity than a
hangover from high-minded pagan philosophies in which he grew up. It is closer
to Stoic ‘apathy’ or ‘apatheia’ or neo-Platonic mysticism than to charity. (1)
We follow Christ the passionate man who wept over
Jerusalem as He yearned to protect them as a hen gathers it’s young under its
wing. He wept for the death of His friend Lazarus and He loved and was loved by
both men and woman who adored Him. Let it not be said of us as Voltaire said of
Christians: “Christians are people who
enter religion without knowing one another, without loving each other and dying
without regretting each other”! Rather let it be said of us as the Roman
pagans said of the early Christians “How
these Christians love one another”!
THE FOUR LOVES:
Commentating on the words of Jesus – “A new commandment I give to you, that you
love one another”, St Augustine said... “Not
as people love (EROS) to spoil one another, nor as human beings
love one another (STORGE)
simply because they are human, but as people love one another (AGAPE) because they are all
gods and sons of the Most High, and so brothers of His only Son. They love one
another with the love with which He loved them so much that He will lead them
to the end which will bring them fulfilment and true satisfaction of their desires.
For when God is all in all, no desire will be left unfulfilled”. (Hom.
65:1-3)
There are four words in Greek for LOVE: Eros or
erotic love which is a genital response. Philia or friendship and Storge
(affection especially of parents to offspring). In translating the New
Testament, the writers rejected Eros and Philia and Storge in favour of AGAPE and this Christian love is
the attitude of a goodwill that cannot be altered, a desire for man’s good –
even enemies. This love towards our enemies is not something of the heart so
much but is something of the will. It is something which by the grace of
Christ we will ourselves to do, and by God’s grace can become warm and
tender.
There is a lot of confusion about these four words for
love even – among Christians. The Bible in the beautiful Song of Songs
expresses the love relationship between God and Israel (or the Church) in terms
of the great desire or love between a lover and his beloved. This view was
traditional in Judaism and in the Fathers of the Church. Unfortunately in our
erotic society many people mistake the word ‘desire’ or ‘love’ for God with
erotic or genital love. Agape not Eros is the word for loving as God loves.
NUPTIAL IMAGERY:
Some may find the nuptial terminology of the Song of
Songs and the mystics distasteful and ‘struggle’ with this ‘spousal analogy’
that compares the love of man and a woman with the love of God for us. Some may
argue that such bold and even erotic language goes too far. The opposite, in
fact, is true. Although all human analogies to describe the love between God
and man are inadequate, Pope John Paul II contended that the spousal analogy is
the least inadequate. In other words, it is the best analogy we humans have to
describe the bliss of eternal union with God.
In the sixteenth century the great Doctor of the
Church, St Teresa of Avila, helped reform the Church during a time of great
confusion and corruption. Known especially for her mystical prayer life, she is
the subject of perhaps of one of the most beautiful sculptures ever crafted:
Bernini’s “The Ecstasy of St Teresa”. In
it, the artist depicts Teresa experiencing the deepest form of mystical prayer.
She does not appear sombre and contemplative. Quite the opposite. Christopher West explains:
Memorialized in stone, we see the angel of love poised
to thrust his wounding arrow into Teresa’s readied heart. Her face – masterfully sculptured by Bernini
– tells the story of a mystic who is tasting, as John Paul describes it, “the paradoxical blending of bliss and pain”
as “something akin to Jesus’ experience
on the Cross” (NMI27). And one would have to be either blind or ignorant
not to notice that she looks like a bride in the climax of her nuptial union.
Such a description of a nun lost in prayer might seem scandalous.
But we must remember that the Bible describes the one-flesh union of a husband
and wife to be a great mystery as it relates to Christ and His Church. (Ephesians 5:31-32.) In teaching us
this, St Paul is not implying that God’s love for us is sexual, but rather that
God’s love for us is so intimate and fulfilling that, again, of all human
experiences, the marital embrace best reflects this reality. Through this
intimate union, as through the beautiful spirituality of St Teresa, God’s love
for His Church becomes visible. (2)
In some circles there is confusion about the role of Agape
and Eros in prayer. Annabel Miller writes in one of her articles that “devotion to, and excitement in God can
become confused with human sexual love.” The feminist writer, Monica
Furlong, is one who admits to having felt a ‘sexual passion” for God. (3)
But perhaps the confusion can arise when prominent
secular humanists like Rollo May in Love
and Will are taken seriously. He states that “in St Augustine eros was seen
as the power which drives men towards God. Eros is the yearning for mystic
union which comes out in the religious experience of union with God”. (4)
Of course he would say that as a secular Humanist
Association founder (along with Eric Fromm), opposed to traditional
Christianity and a member of the infamous Planned Parenthood Siecus Circle
(i.e. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States). (5)
Thomas Dubay sheds some light on these matters in his
book Fire Within:
One of the more surprising and disturbing phenomena
that may occur during communion with the Lord is sexual disturbance or arousal.
It is “surprising and disturbing” not because the phenomenon is in itself a
cause for concern but because most people would never expect that in so holy an
occupation there could be sexual repercussions. While they seem not to be
common, they do occur. Lorenzo, St Teresa’s married brother, who had chosen his
sister as spiritual director, had experienced these disturbances, and he asked
for her guidance. Her response was typical in its accuracy and decisiveness:
Pay no attention to those evil feelings which come to
you afterwards (after his deep prayer). I have never suffered from them myself,
since God, of His goodness, has always delivered me from such passions, but I
think the explanation of them must be that the soul’s joy is so keen that it
makes itself felt in the body. With God’s help it will calm down if you take no
notice of it. Several people have discussed this with me.
Even though St Teresa never had the advantage of
studying the philosophy of human nature, her analysis of the phenomenon and her
recommended reaction to it are entirely correct. Since the human person is not
a Cartesian soul dwelling within a body but a single body-soul composite, it is
entirely normal that an intense spiritual experience may have bodily
repercussions. Blushing from embarrassment and tears of joy or sorrow are other
examples of this same basic reality, the profound oneness of the human person.
Consequently, to experience sexual stirrings within a completely pure delight
in God should be neither a surprise nor a source of worry. (6). There may also
be a demonic component as with Rollo May mentioned above.
“While other cultures were writing homoerotic poetry,
the Jews wrote the Song of Songs, one
of the most beautiful poems depicting male-female sensual love ever written”.
(7)
A Christian married man loves his wife with eros
or storge and his God with agape love. But for a celibate our
love must always be chaste agape love or philia never erotic or
genital love. This is what purity of heart or single-mindedness means – never
the divided heart or the incontinent heart. For the celibate religious there is
a renunciation at profession of erotic or genital love – the passionate love of
man for a woman which leads eventually to sexual arousal and intercourse, with
its procreational and recreational aspects. “It is not everyone who can accept
this but only those to whom it has been granted... There are eunuchs who have
made them-selves that way for the sake of the Kingdom of God” Jesus said in
Matthew 19vv11/12. Jesus also told us disciples to count the cost before
following Him to see if we have the resources and the stamina! to follow Him to
the end. (cf Luke 14:28) For the celibate for the Kingdom deliberate sexual
arousal is a block to the work of the Holy Spirit.
CELIBACY:
I would like to refer here to the Protestant
evangelical theologian C. Peter Wagner’s book: Your Spiritual gifts, Regal Books, CA, 1979;
The gift of CELIBACY is the special ability that God
gives to certain members of the body of Christ to remain single and enjoy it;
to be unmarried and not suffer undue sexual temptations.
*
* * *
* * *
1. In 1 Corinthians 7:7-8, St Paul refers to his state
of celibacy. What term does he use to describe it? gift – “each has his own gift.”
2. For whom is it better not to marry? (Matt.
19:10-12) “Those to whom it has been
given” – those who, for the sake of undistracted devotion to the work of the
Kingdom, can view remaining single as a gift from God.
3. Should celibacy be required? (1 Tim. 4:1-5) No. St Paul indicates that to forbid God’s
people to marry is to be deceived by a false spirit.
4. How is the Church edified by those who exercise the
gift of celibacy? (1 Cor. 7:32-35) Those with the gift are able to give more
time and attention to the work of the Lord than those with families to provide
for: if the additional time and energy is well invested, the Church should see
additional effectiveness.
5. In 1 Corinthians 7:9 “burn” implies to “be aflame with passion.” What attitude evidences
the gift of celibacy? the ability to be
single without finding sexual arousal to be a great temptation.
6. Describe the role corresponding to the gift
of celibacy, as it affects:
(a) the unmarried (1 Cor. 6:13-20) abstinence from sexual intimacy until one is
married.
(b) the married (1 Cor. 7:5) short periods of mutually agreed abstinence for the
purpose of special devotion to prayer.
CONTINENCE and MARRIAGE:
In his weekly general audience on April 7, 1982 Pope
John Paul talked of celibacy and marriage and paraphrased St Paul’s assertion
in 1 Corinthians 7:38 that those who do not marry “will do better” and said that this opinion was held by “all
tradition, both doctrinal and pastoral”. He said “that superiority of
continence over marriage never means, in the authentic tradition of the
Church, a devaluation of matrimony or a minimization of its essential value”.
The Pope went on to say that “the evangelical and authentically Christian superiority of
virginity, of continence, is consequently dictated by the motive of the
Kingdom of Heaven. In the words of Christ reported by St Matthew (19:11-12) we
find a solid basis for acknowledging only that superiority; on the other hand
we do not find any basis for any depreciation of matrimony”, he said.
Chastity, celibacy or self-giving to Christ the
Beloved has certain implications: it rules out genital sex with oneself
(masturbation) or with a woman (fornication) or a man (homosexuality) or with
children (pederasty or paedophilia). In fact we are not to allow sexual
thoughts to arise in our minds – conceived in our minds they give birth to
serious sin in the estimation of Jesus who said: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman (or at anybody) lustfully
has already committed adultery with her in his heart”. (Mat 5:27f) Lust or
impurity of mind was regarded by Jesus as a serious sin: adultery. Today this
is explained away and excused as “sexual fantasies”. Let’s call a spade a spade
and give things their proper name: dirty thoughts or dirty dancing or whatever!
MASTURBATION:
Self stimulation of the genitals to achieve sexual
pleasure (or “wanking” as it is contemptuously called) has always been regarded
as the lowest form of sexual activity – a selfish sin of self gratification.
The Catechism states: By masturbation is to
be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to
derive sexual pleasure. ‘Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a
constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt
and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely
disordered action.’137 ‘The deliberate use of the sexual faculty,
for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to
its purpose.’ For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of ‘the sexual
relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total
meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love
is achieved.’138
To form an equitable judgement about the
subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into
account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of
anxiety or other psychological or social
factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability. (8)
FORNICATION:
To
have sex with a woman outside the Sacrament of Marriage is forbidden in the Scriptures.
St Joseph was going to abandon Mary quietly because he thought she had had a
child outside of marriage which was forbidden.
St Francis of Assisi states: “Should anyone of the brothers at the
Devil’s impulse commit fornication, he shall have taken from him the habit of
the Order, which he has forfeited by his shameful depravity; he shall lay it
aside altogether and be expelled entirely from our Order. And thereafter let
him do penance for his sins”. (Rule 1221, no. 13)
HOMOSEXUAL ACTS
(SODOMY):
Is clearly and
unequivocally forbidden by the Bible. The judgement against the gay societies
of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) is a clear condemnation of homosexuality.
Other judgements against the abomination of a “man lying with a man as with a
woman” are abundantly clear in the Old Testament (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13;
Deuteronomy 23:17; Judges 19:22; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22: 46; 2 Kings 23:7)
and also in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:26-32)
Recent scientific research has shown that
homosexuality is not just another sexual option for humans, for the body was
not designed for anything but heterosexual intercourse.
SOME GAY PRACTICES:
Surveys indicate that about 90% of gays engage
in rectal intercourse. In a six month long daily sexual diary study, gays
average 110 sex partners and 68 rectal encounters a year. During rectal
intercourse the rectum becomes a mixing bowl for: (1) saliva and its
germs, (2) the recipients own
faeces, (3) whatever germs, infections
or substances the penis has on it, and
(4) the seminal fluid of the inserter. Since sperm readily penetrates
the rectal wall (which is only one cell thick) causing immunologic damage, tearing
or bruising the anal wall is very common during anal/penile sex. These
substances gain almost direct access to the blood stream. Unlike hetero-sexual intercourse
(in which sperm cannot penetrate the multi layered vagina and no faeces are
present), rectal intercourse is probably the most sexually efficient way to
spread hepatitis B & C, HIV, syphilis and a host of other blood-borne
diseases, tearing or ripping of the anal wall during anal/penile sex is
especially likely with ‘fisting’ where the hand and part of the arm is inserted
into the rectum. The risk of contamination and/or having to wear a colostomy
bag from such sport is, very real. By 1977 over one third of gays admitted to
engaging in the practice of “fisting”.
About 80% of gays admit to the practice of
rimming (oral sex with the rectum). This results in ingesting medically
significant amounts of faeces.
Those who eat or wallow in it are at even
greater risk. Some of the results; Gay Bowel Syndrome, typhoid fever, herpes,
and cancer. In one of the largest surveys of gays ever conducted, 23% admitted
to having engaged in ‘golden showers’ (drinking or being splashed with urine).
Of the 655 gays interviewed, only 24% claimed to have been monogamous in the
past year. Of these monogamous gays 5% drank urine, 7% practiced ‘fisting’, 33%
ingested faeces via oral/anal contact, 53% swallowed semen, and 59% received
semen in their rectum in the previous month. Other gay practice include:
Sadomasochism (torture for sexual fun), sex with minors (paedophilia), sex in
public toilets and sex in gay baths. Gay activity seems to be antinomianism
gone ballistic.
BODY: TEMPLE of the HOLY SPIRIT:
The
gay culture is a dead end culture which ridicules the awesome God given genital/reproductive
system. Bible Consideration: In the
Bible (Genesis 24:2 and 47:29) the genitals are regarded with great respect and
reverence as they are the source of new life – life that is destined to live
eternally with God.
The expression ‘put your hand under my
thigh’ in Genesis 24:2 and 47:29 is a euphemistic expression which refers to an
old Hebrew custom of touching the genitals and calling upon God, the author of
life, to witness an oath being sworn.
In Christianity, the body is so highly
regarded that it is called the temple of the “Holy Spirit” (1 Cor.6:19) and
anyone who destroys God’s temple “God will destroy him” (1 Cor.3:17) receiving
“an appropriate reward for their perversion” (Rom.1:27) The Fathers of the
Church regarded Satan as the ape of God, imitating God’s works e.g. the Black
Mass is a travesty of the Catholic Mass.
So in sexuality, homosexual behaviour is a
travesty of the life giving, face to face embrace of heterosexual marriage that
conceives life. In homosexuality they turn their backs on one another, often in
dark rooms, in an embrace that brings disease and death. No wonder the
Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church calls sodomy “a sin that cries out to heaven” (No.1867) and “acts of grave depravity”2357
DEMONIC ELEMENT:
Indulgence in homosexual relationships of
any type provides such clear grounds for the demonic that it is rare to find
someone who has been the victim of homosexual abuse or someone who has
willingly, even in ignorance, had contact with such people who is not
demonized and in need of deliverance.
For example, there are many men who as young boys were wrongfully touched by
older men in homosexual abuse. This victimization, as well as intentional
homosexual involvement, can sometimes lead to demonically induced impotence
inside an otherwise godly marriage. (9)
According to Martin Amis: “Homosexuality isn’t a version of
heterosexuality. It is something else again. The consoling idea of the quietly monogamous
gay couple is an indolent and sentimental myth... Friendship, companionship,
fellowship – these are paramount but pairing – and bonding on the wedlock model
is our own dated fiction”.
“Gay lovers seldom maintain any sexual
interest in each other for more than a year or two. Gay men routinely achieve
feats of promiscuity that the most fanatical womaniser could only marvel at”
(10)
PEDERASTY:
Homosexuality is known in most societies and
even the ancient Greeks – including some of the great philosophers, were not
adverse to this perversion in a form known as pederasty or intercourse with boys. In one of his letters
to the Greeks St Paul says that the following people will never inherit the
Kingdom of God: people of immoral lives,
adulterers, catamites, sodomites etc. (1 Cor. 6:9) Catamites were boys kept for
unnatural sexual purposes. The word was a corruption of Ganymede – a beautiful
boy who carried the cup of Zeus.
For the last 2,600 years, the Muslims and their ancestral tribal
sects have practised pederasty. Early Islam took the pederast practices of the
region and mixed it with the Greek pederast views. Pederasty in Islam is
supported by the Koran and the Hadith. Pre-pubescent males (boys) are
categorized as females under Sharia Law.
In modern Afghanistan and Pakistan there is a popular form of entertainment
called “bacha bazi” (or boy play) when teen and pre-teen boys are dressed as
girls and forced to dance with men, and then passed around for sexual purposes,
including rape. (cf Google for more info.)
In Cordoba, Spain in the 10th Century, the Emir had a
harem of 6,000 women and 13,000 young boys. The Ugandan Muslim king also kept
boys for sodomy. The Ugandan martyrs, mostly young boys, refused and were
slaughtered in a demonic way.
In his book the Washing of the Spears, Donald R. Morris says
that a Zulu warrior who killed an opponent stood to develop a serious ailment,
culminating in madness unless he took immediate preventive action... he had to
have intercourse with a woman not of his own kraal; this transferred the disease
to her in latent form, and she in turn would pass it on to the next man to have
intercourse with her. If no woman was available, the warrior could resort to
sodomy with herd boys. (p. 36) A. T. Bryant in The Zulu People agrees
with this statement. (p. 508)
To show that sexual perversity was not limited at this time to one
racial group Morris mentions a Protestant Bishop of the Orange Free State who
was charged with pederasty and fled from the country in disguise. (p. 192)
It is important to note that the Bible only condemns homosexual acts
and not people who suffer that psychogenetic condition which we call
homosexual. It is also important to avoid reading disordered relationships in
friendships that were perfectly normal and healthy e.g. the relationship
between David and Jonathan. The latter was deeply attached to David and came to
love him as much as he loved himself. (1 Sam. 18:1). At Jonathan’s death, David grieved for him
and said “how dear you were to me! How
wonderful was your love for me, better even than the love of woman”.
As mentioned above, the Greek word for friendship was philia and C.
S. Lewis in his article on this said it is “necessary in our time to rebut the
theory that every form of serious friendship is really homosexual”. (11)
One writer maintains that “according to a child psychiatrist...
there are two main causes of homosexuality. Firstly there is the
neuro-endocrine factor where hormonal influences during pregnancy can cause sex
identification problems as the child grows older. Secondly, the environment in
which a child grows up can also determine the sex a child identifies with most
e.g. marital problems like a weak uninvolved father or an overprotective mother
can cause problems with sex role identification.” (12)
The late Vatican chief exorcist Fr. Gabrielle Amorth wrote in his
book An Exorcist Explains the Demonic
that Satanic influence can “lead to confusion about one’s gender... particularly
in the young”.
The Jesuit brothers Matthew and Denis Linn S. J. in their book Deliverance Prayer quote from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour of an
article: Gender Identity Change in
Transsexual: an Exorcism by Doctor D. H. Barlow. In a remarkably short time
this confused, suicidal transsexual with effeminate characteristics became
heterosexual and showed “consistently masculine motor behaviour” and “all of the
components of masculine motor behaviour were seemingly acquired in a
matter of hours.” Barlow concludes his article: “What cannot be denied however
is, that a patient who was very clearly a transsexual by most conservative
criteria... assumed a long lasting masculine gender identity in a remarkable
short period of time following an apparent exorcism. (13)
Homosexuality or pederasty can be a problem in an all male
establishments like a private school, a mining hostel, a prison, a police, or
army barracks, or seminary etc. Why is this? Perhaps a key to understanding
this sexual attraction males can have for other males or boys can be found in
the word “association”. The psychological theory of association “takes
association to be the fundamental principle of mental life in terms of which
even the higher thought processes are to be explained.” (14) Fr. Bernard Huss
cmm maintained that “association and habit are the two most powerful allies of
the Educator.” (15)
St AUGUSTINE of HIPPO:
Some psychological writers have seen sexual urges as being like an
energy that is constantly seeking release. So it is foolish to ignore these
urges or try to suppress them as we are sexual beings till we die. Hence the
importance of knowing ourselves, our urges and desires. St Augustine of Hippo
was annoyed by the obstreperous character of erections which appeared to be
beyond rhyme or reason. (16) It seems St Augustine was ignorant of certain natural
functions in the human body like morning erections which are probably caused by
a full bladder.
One old Franciscan friar said that sexual desire only dies in us
half an hour after we are buried in our graves! We need to face our sexual
urges to integrate them and learn to control them – they can be good servants
but tyrannical masters. Fr Alan Keenan ofm said that sex “is the biological echo
in us of God the Father’s desire to create.”
To return to association it is probably the key to understanding why
normal males, (who are sexual beings with normal sexual urges, which are
constantly seeking an outlet) who are for some reason confined to an all male
environment may see in some fellow males or boys, qualities which are normally
regarded as sexually attractive in females e.g. vulnerability, prettiness,
being cuddly, being petite or effeminate etc. This is specially the case if
tight clothes like crotch hugging jeans or short shorts are worn that emphasize
the erogenous zones of the body. The same is true of ripped or rip tease
clothing especially jeans. The poet Robert Herrick wrote that: “A sweet
disorder in the dress/ Kindles in clothes a wantonness”! This can be a turn on
for some wrestling with celibacy and trying their best to lead a chaste life.
BOARDING SCHOOLS:
This seems to be borne out in the famous study of English boarding
schools by Dr Royston Lambert: The Hothouse Society (17)
Here are some samples of the writings of boys between 13 and 16
handed into the author anonymously. In their writings the following synonyms
are used by the boys themselves to describe handsome younger or “pretty” boys:
‘tart’, ‘sex bomb’, ‘lush’ or ‘lusher’, the ‘talent’
One schoolboy writes of his fellow schoolboys: “... will there be
any of the pretty boys outside; if I look at the pretty boys I always blush. Am
I a queer? (i.e. homosexual or gay) I ask myself this 1000 times; I don’t think
so; I mean the thought of actually buggering a little boy is repulsive to me but
they are just a substitute, something pretty to look at when there are no girls
around. I collect up my books and go outside - yes there’s Brightwell (a lush)
quick avert eyes; god! he’s so like a girl you’re going red. Here’s Derek,
good! Talk to him on every imaginable subject. Thank God here’s someone who can
understand my point of view. Mentally we are alike. It’s almost a love (but not
sexual, I reassure myself) between us.” (p.13)
In chapel boredom is relieved when the schoolboys “get to eye the
talent parade as it passes unqualified in virginal white.” (i.e. the choirboys)
Dr Lambert says the “single-sex school does not only according to
the boys affect their attitudes to the other sex, but also to their own. ‘One
begins to treat boys as girls’; ‘One is apt to turn and appreciate the beauty
in one’s own sex and as a result becomes sexually interested’ (in other boys).
‘We get too fond of each other. We start thinking only of boys’. ‘you find
yourself lusting after handsome small boys’. ‘the stunningly good lookers tend
to be liked by lots’. (p. 324)
Dr Lambert notes that often there is no sexual activity but just
sexual fantasies by the boys. (p. 332) But in the case of C. S. Lewis who
attended an English private school for boys there was sexual activity.
In his reminiscences of his school days in his autobiography “Surprised by Joy”
Lewis defines a ‘tart’ as pretty and effeminate looking small boy who acts as a
catamite to one or more of his seniors. (18) Lewis says he was saved from being
a tart as he was not handsome, big for his age and “a great lout of a boy”!
(19)
Lambert’s book was instrumental to some degree in encouraging single
sex private schools to admit girls and so discourage the kind of homosexual
fantasies exemplified above.
St FRANCIS of ASSISI:
So if all-male establishments are a danger should male religious or
seminary communities be abolished? Obviously not, as where there is life there
is always danger! If we get to know ourselves and our makeup and take the
normal precautions expected of Christians – prayer, self discipline, avoiding
‘occasions of sin’ (Ezek. 18:30), living a fully sacramental life with frequent
confession, we should have nothing to fear. In Celano’s First Life of St
Francis of Assisi there is a description of the chaste love and friendship
that existed between the early disciples of St Francis:
“How great was the love that flourished in the members of this pious
society! For whenever they came together anywhere, or met one another along the
way, as the custom is, there a shoot of spiritual love sprang up, sprinkling
over all love the seed of true affection. What more shall I say? Chaste
embraces, gentle feelings, a holy kiss, pleasing conversation, modest laughter,
joyous looks, a single eye, a submissive spirit, a peaceable tongue, a mild
answer, oneness of purpose, ready obedience, unwearied hand, all these were
found in them.” (no. 38)
As regards “holy kissing”, Italians and other Mediterranean peoples,
including Arabs are fond of kissing everyone but peoples of the northern
climates are more reticent!
Celano is describing chaste relationships but a problem can arise with
particular or exclusive relationships. No religious should ever be made to feel
an ‘outsider’ to any other and no two religious should ever have anything
between them that they would not happily share with a third party. The old
saying: “two is a company and three is a crowd” should definitely have no place
in religious life. See appendix – “Particular or Exclusive Friendships” from
the New Catholic Encyclopaedia. Infatuation by older men of younger men in all
male establishments can be a deadly fascination with unfortunate consequences.
For St Francis, chastity was a matter of not trifling with
occasions. Like Job who said “I made a
pact with my eyes, not to linger on any virgin” (31:1) St Francis would advise
his brothers: “why should not anybody
fear to gaze at a bride of Christ? Insofar as eyes and countenance can preach,
it is for her to look at me, not me at her.” (2C 114) Custody of the eyes!
St Francis warned about complacency as regards temptations for “over
great security leads to lessened caution against the enemy” (2c 113). Like St
Thomas Aquinas he realised that nobody can live without delight in something,
and if we do not as religious find delight in God we will look elsewhere: “When
the spirit is lukewarm and gradually cooling to grace, flesh and blood needs
seek their own. What is left, when the soul finds no delights, but that the
flesh turns to its kind? And then animal appetite uses the argument of
necessity as a pall. Then the carnal sense shapes a person’s conscience... (2c
69)
Of course there are dangers in all-male establishments but this is
no reason to abandon them. Just because some married people commit adultery is
no reason to abolish marriage! Or just because “incest affects one in twelve
families in South Africa” (20) and one in five families in the USA is no reason
to abandon family life. Should we ban slogans like “have you hugged your child
today?” because of the danger of incest or child abuse? Obviously not.
ASSOCIATION:
Incest like pederasty probably may have something to do with the
power of association as mentioned above. For example the British
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children protested to a leading British department store about a
certain brand of satin clothing for little girls and the store agreed to remove
them. The NSPCC complained that the provocative clothing could encourage child
abuse: “By wearing clothing normally associated with sexy woman children
could be inadvertently giving out signals which put them at risk.” (21)
On the other hand more and more people are finding they have no self
control and are totally unable to restrain their sexual impulses, as society
becomes more and more erotic and permissive. We probably live in the most
erotic age in the history of the world and so sexually transmitted diseases are
out of control also. Secularisation with the loss of the Christian worldview
with its emphasis on things like discipline, fasting, self denial means that
people no longer know anything about self denial or the need to strengthen
one’s will power to overcome temptation when it comes. As many Christians
cringe at words like discipline, self denial or fasting it is a pity that
people battling to overcome compulsive habits can no longer look to Christians
for help and so turn to Buddhist or Hindu ascetical practices with the dangers
of a loss of faith that this entails.
SELF CONTROL:
The early Christian proclamation of the Gospel involved the good
news that Christ means freedom and liberation from bondage and slavery to sin,
and self control of our passions. This was a gloriously liberating cry to a
decadent Greco-Roman world sunk in depravity and vice. With many Christians no
longer interested in asceticism today the media especially the ‘agony’ columns
are asked by concerned readers to give advice on how they can control
destructive compulsive habits like overindulgence in food, cigarettes, alcohol,
sex etc.
The Star newspaper (22) had a half page article entitled Ways
to boost willpower. It began: “For every hurdle we want to overcome, we
need willpower. For every difficult decision we want to carry out, we need an inner
strength that will push us to confront the challenge and keep us going. The
fact is willpower is not some immutable trait with which we are ether born or
not. It is a skill that can be developed to help us achieve our goals”. Stoicism
and Hinduism as well as other religions taught their followers techniques to
strengthen willpower for without it man becomes an animal. Christians also
believe in techniques in strengthening the will for “grace builds on nature”,
but there is more to Christianity than grinning and bearing it or “white knuckle
Christianity” where we clench our fists and overcome!
God releases His power into our lives and transforms our lack of
self-control into deliverance from the power of sin. This transforming power
characterises the lives of many who have come to know Jesus Christ and undergo conversion.
To be converted is to receive the spirit of Jesus and one of His fruits is the
gloriously liberating one of self-control. (Gal. 5:23)
LACK of IMPULSE CONTROL:
Dr Armand Nicholi, a psychiatrist on the faculty of Harvard Medical
School says “the family is also affected
by the lack of impulse control in our culture today... The deep moral confusion
we have observed over the past decade seems to have lifted all restraint.
During the past ten years, I have noticed a marked change in the type of
problems that bring people to a psychiatrist. Previously, a great many came
because of their inability to express impulses and feelings. Today, the
majority because of an inability to control their impulses... prevalent
in society is the failure to control sexual impulses.”
Dr Nicholi states, that as family life continues to deteriorate,
mental illness will increase dramatically. This illness will be characterised
primarily by a lack of self-control.” (23)
There are so many references to the need for self-control in the New
Testament that it was obviously regarded as a very important doctrine and
without it one could not really regard himself as a Christian. For example in
Acts 24 we read of the Roman governor Felix, who was curious to hear more about
‘The Way’ of Christianity: Felix sent for Paul and gave him a hearing on the
subject of faith in Christ Jesus. But when Paul began to treat of righteousness,
self-control, and the coming Judgement, Felix took fright and said, ‘You may go
for the present; I will send for you when I find it convenient’. In other words
don’t call me, I’ll call you! Words like self-control were never very popular
and the same is still true today!
The word self-control appears with various synonyms in the New
Testament: 1 Tess. 4:3-7; Phil. 3:13-14; Rom. 6:12-18; Rom:13.11-14; 1 Cor.7:9
and 9:25; 2 Tim.2:3-7; Tit. 1:8 and 2:2-6,11-12; Eph. 6:13-17; Gal. 5:23; 1
Pet. 1:13, 4:7, 5:8-11; 2 Pet. 1:6; Heb. 12:7-11. A true Christian can only
be known by the fruits and one of the fruits we are told is self-control (Gal.
5:2)
Traditional manuals of
spiritual theology like the famous Spiritual Life by Adolphe Tanquerey
which deals with ascetical and mystical theology as commonly held by all
schools of spirituality deals with self-control in its sections on
mortification, concupiscence, sacrifice, self-denial, penance etc. (24)
St. AUGUSTINE and CHASTITY
It was this Christian doctrine of liberation from vices and compulsions
that so attracted St. Augustine of Hippo before his conversion. Somehow he
heard in the promiscuous stage of his life of Christian monks who were able to
live chaste lives and this fascinated him as he himself was a slave to lust by
his own admission. In his Confessions he writes:
“So many boys and girls, so many young men and
young women, people of every age, staid widows and maidens of ripe years and in
all these chastity was not barren, but the mother of delights begotten of you
Lord their bridegroom and she mocked gently at me, as it were saying, ‘Cannot
you do what these men and women did?’” Later Augustine was to beg
God, “Lord, give me chastity. But not
yet!”
When chastity programmes were first introduced into American schools
they were laughed at and ridiculed. (But not any longer with the disastrous
failure of other programmes!) The ridicule probably stems from the incredible
influence that Sigmund Freud has had on American society – or rather a
misinterpretation of what he said. Freud is often associated with the present
disastrous permissiveness in the world today.
SIGMUND FREUD:
Freud believed falsely that sex was the one and only mainspring of
all mental illness e.g. sexual abuse in childhood. Hans Eynsenck in his Uses
and Abuses of Psychology showed the falseness of this theory. Recent
studies have shown how Freud deliberately distorted evidence to fit his own
sexual theories which he propounded “less as a scientist than as a general out
to defeat his enemies.” The Star newspaper (25) (19/2/91) carried an
article on a report compiled by American experts which stated that Freud made
exaggerated claims of cures, drew conclusions with little evidence and
generally ignored basic principles of scientific research and that he was more
of a ‘slick salesman than a scientist’.
Many people wrongly concluded that Freud was advocating sexual
permissiveness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Herbert Marcuse in Eros
and Civilization has observed that Freud believed that civilisation is based
on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts – that the free
gratification of man’s instinctual needs is incompatible with civilized society
and that renunciation and delay in satisfaction are the prerequisites of
progress. Freud said “happiness is no cultural value” and it must be
subordinated to the discipline of work, monogamic reproduction and the establishment
of law and order; the methodical sacrifice of libido, it’s rigidly enforced
deflection to socially useful activities and expression is culture,
Freud believed. (26) (H. Marcuse Eros and Civilization, 1956, p3)
Freud’s followers like Dr Brill also believed in the importance of
strict self discipline which is the opposite of self indulgence. (27)
To return to the false notion wrongly associated with Freud that
sexual restraint or chastity causes mental illness, the two following
statements show that chastity cannot cause any illness physical or mental:
1. Statement of the professors of the Faculty of Medicine at Oslo
(Norway):
“The saying that a life of purity would be detrimental to health has
no foundation whatsoever. We have never been aware of any prejudice resulting
from a pure and moral life.”
2. Declaration voted unanimously by the 2nd
General Congress of International Conference on sanitary
prophylaxy of Brussels (Belgium): “one must say to young boys that chastity is
not only harmless, but that it is to be recommended from a purely medical and
physical point of view.” (28) SONOLUX, Know yourself: a study on Human
Sexuality, Munich, p.28.
Desmond Morris, the famous zoologist has said about religious that
“providing they are well adjusted and valuable members of society outside the
reproductive sphere, they must be considered as valuable non contributors to
population explosion!” (Naked Ape, Corgi, 1976, p.89) (29)
Of course our fidelity to chastity or celibacy is not based on the
mercurial opinions of zoologists or psychologists etc. as they could change
their opinions in years to come, nor are we to take our cues from opinion
polls. We take our cues from the Word of God. “How can the young remain
sinless? By obeying your word.” (Ps. 118:9) “The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to
those who obey Him” (Acts 5:3): by listening and obeying God’s Word we receive
God’s Holy Spirit – the “Spirit of Grace” (Heb. 10:29) and live by His grace
and one of the gifts or graces is the fruit of self-control (Gal. 5:23).
SUBLIMATION:
Sigmund Freud is associated with the word sublimation,
defined as an unconscious process by which a sexual impulse or its energy, is
deflected so as to express itself in some non-sexual, and socially acceptable
activity. (30)
There is no repression or suppression with all their dangers –
rather like putting down forcefully a manhole cover when something underneath
is trying to escape! It is a perfectly normal thing for the force and power and
the surge that can flow through one instinct to be sublimated in the service of
another.
Russell Abata says that “sex that is not released (in promiscuity)
is like the power of an active storage battery. It has good physical,
psychological and moral effects. As sex seeks out a dozen or more ways to find an
acceptable release, it alerts one’s whole being’s sensitivity. It prompts a
seeking out of another to show that other kindness and consideration. It
stimulates imagination. The daydreams technicoloured by unreleased sex are
beyond numbering. They become the searching themes of love songs, art, poetry
and other high forms of culture. It excites passion that can be converted into
energy. It inspires idealism and urges the undertaking of noble causes. It
gives life buoyancy and zest.” (31) Russell Abata CSSR, Sex Sanity in the
Modern World, Liguorian Books, 1975)
CHASTITY:
It is important to see chastity in a positive way not as a negative
thing associated with words like ‘You shall not’ and other prohibitions.
Chastity is freedom according to a programme from USA for school
kids.
Freedoms From:
1. Pregnancy
2. Hurry-up wedding
3. Adoption decision
4. Abortion decision
5. Guilt
6. Sexually transmitted
diseases and AIDS
7. Genital cancer
8. Hazards of birth control
9. Self induced sterility in
females
10. Being used
11. Loss of reputation
12. Ruining your future
Freedoms to:
1. Develop friendships
2. Help others
3. Understand sex
4. Resist temptation
5. Plan you future
6. Grow in holiness for
‘without holiness, no one can ever see God’ (Heb. 12:14)
Chastity or self-control is at the root of culture and civilization
as the free gratification of man’s instinctual needs is incompatible with
civilized society and renunciation and delay in satisfaction are the
prerequisites of progress. The famous historian Arnold Toynbee saw that one of
the reasons for the rise of Western civilization and culture was not due to
racial superiority of Europeans but due to the fact that sexual awakening in
children was put off long enough for them to imbibe a good education and
appreciation of cultural values. Perhaps it should be pointed out that the West
had the advantage of receiving the sublime ethic of Jesus Christ first with its
strong emphasis on moral values and self-discipline. The early Letter of
Diognetus makes this clear:
“The organization of their community does
exhibit some features that are remarkable, they marry and beget children,
though they do not expose their infants (i.e. abortion). Any Christian is free
to share his neighbours table, but never his marriage bed... they do not live
after the flesh... they obey the prescribed laws,... the relation of Christians
to the world is that of a soul to the body...” (Divine
Office II, p.5)
Where there is no strong moral code culture is shallow and
superficial. For example Rosemary Haughton has pointed out that the culture of
the South Sea Islanders (Samoans) “was crude and limited and rather dull, they
had no national heroes or religious leaders, and their personal relationships
were superficial.” This was because of their easy attitudes towards
promiscuity: marriages were not sexually exclusive and premarital sex was
“everyone’s favourite sport”... The result of all this was a free and easy
atmosphere in which nobody felt very strongly about anyone else, and sexual
‘passion’ or ‘being in love’ was just not done... In this situation sex is used
to ‘defuse’ emotions. It’s fun, it’s cheap, it’s easy, it keeps people occupied
and they don’t want other things. It disinclines people from having strong
convictions, feelings or desires about anything else. So the art of the Samoans
was crude and limited and rather dull. (32) There were no passionate love songs
like the Song of Songs in the Bible which uses human love as a allegory for
divine love and shows the passionate love of God for man. God is a passionate
lover who is jealous of infidelity. For the superficial Samoans life was
nothing more than “birth, copulation and death” as T. S. Eliot has it in Murder
in the Cathedral.
The Mahatma Gandhi once said that “Moral results can only be
produced by moral restraints” and the same can be said for cultural results.
William Barclay said “It may be that what the Church needs to get
people back, is not compromise, but a message of uncompromising purity.” (33)
As regards sublimation Fr Bonaventure Hinwood ofm writes that:
“Sexuality which is denied and
repressed can easily lead to mental and physical disorders. The consecrated
virgin or celibate does not repress, but frankly accepts his sexuality and
channels his sexual energy into the worship of God and service of other people.
He does not deny or repress his need to love and be loved but he puts Jesus at
the centre of that need, and loves people and allows them to love him, without
giving in to the desire to possess anyone.” (34) (S. Cross 11/10/87)
To lust is to want to possess somebody. The celibate is one who can
love people without wanting to possess them as the saying goes: “If you love
something set it free, if it comes back to you, it’s yours and if it doesn’t,
it never was.” Infatuation with someone has no place in the celibate life.
He who bends to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Loves in eternity’s sunrise. (William Blake)
It should be noted that sublimation is a way of dealing
constructively with unruly temptations not something to be deliberately sought
in itself as this could constitute what the prophet Ezekiel calls “occasions of
sin” (Ezek. 18:31) Willem Pauck in his biography of Paul Tillich the protestant
theologian says that Tillich “had convinced himself that his work suffered when
he was deprived of the experience of the erotic, whether actual or sublimated.
Without such stimulation Tillich could not produce.” (35) (p.83) Perhaps the
same could be said of the late Ravi Zacharias.
Wisely does St Francis warn that “when the spirit is lukewarm and
gradually cooling to grace, flesh and blood seek their own. What is left, when
the soul finds no delights, but that the flesh turns to its kind? And then
animal appetites uses the argument of necessity as a pall. Then the carnal
sense shapes a person’s conscience.” (Second Celano 69)
St Thomas Aquinas also observed that “no man can live without
delight and that is why a man deprived
of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.” If we do not delight in the
Lord and love him passionately like St Francis, we will try to find substitutes
like Paul Tillich did as he seemed to have required sexual stimulants as a
junkie needs a fix to continue working! If we test the spirits as Holy
Scripture says (1 Jn. 4:1) what spirit is motivating us? The Holy Spirit of God
or a carnal spirit?
So sublimation can be a good and constructive way of dealing with
disordered and unruly emotions and passions inadvertently stimulated by a
member of the opposite sex but it can be dangerous when consciously sought
after as a drug or stimulant as in Tillich’s case. In fact the Biblical
injunction mentioned above of “avoiding occasions of sin” (Ezek. 18:31) and the
warnings of Jesus about plucking out the eye or cutting off the hand rather
than carrying them intact into hell applies also here whether it is eroticism
in art, sculpture, dancing, ballet, music, novels, magazines or whatever. The catechetical instructions of St Don Bosco
are also relevant: no one would drink
poison even if it were served up in the most beautiful, decorated cup! So with
‘artistic’, ‘tastefully done’ pornography.
In her biography of her husband Paul Tillich, his wife says that
towards the end of his life he became more and more addicted to hard core
pornography as milder forms of sublimation – inducing material wore off and
which he needed to find the stimulation without which he could not produce.
We are sexual beings until we die and we have sexual desires,
energies and urges which we need to face and recognise not suppress.
By self-control we still retain our sexual powers but as servants
not tyrannical masters. G. K. Chesterton said that “sex cannot be admitted to a
mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and
sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant.” (36) (St
Francis of Assisi Chapter 2). The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
So sexual desires are always seeking an outlet and if denied a
heterosexual outlet can tend towards homosexuality as in the cases of the
school boys in the private schools mentioned above who, denied access to female
company, become attracted to males. Though it is obvious they were
looking for sexual stimulation in hunting for ‘talent’ as they put it. They
were hardly shunning immorality as St Paul says we should. (1 Cor. 6:8) If as
religious we are trying to be chaste we will hardly look for sexual arousal in
the first place: We can lose the anointing of the Holy Spirit by deliberately seeking
sexual arousal.
If sexual desires are denied a heterosexual or homosexual outlet
they can tend towards paedophilia or sexual sadism which is gaining erotic
excitement by inflicting physical or verbal pain (as in crude, explicit sexual
language which a form of verbal masturbation).
SEX and VIOLENCE:
St Thomas Aquinas maintained that “impurity leads inevitably to
violence” and in a brilliantly perceptive analysis of lust Shakespeare shows
the connection between sex and violence. This is in Sonnet 129:
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and still action, lust
Is perjured, murdrous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.
All this world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
In this poem, among other things, Shakespeare shows that physical
pleasure is not the same as happiness. But then Aristotle in his famous work on
Eudemonia (or happiness) made this clear a long time ago but ‘all this
the world well knows’. We can be stuffed to the gills by physical pleasure and
be very unhappy people. We can survive without pleasure but not without
happiness.
There is a passage in the Bible which exemplifies the truth in
Aquinas and Shakespeare. It is to found in 2 Samuel 13 vv. 1-21 which describes
the incestuous rape of King David’s beautiful daughter Tamar by David’s first
born son Amon. The latter becomes obsessed with Tamar and then no sooner has he
committed rape than he feels disgust and hatred for his victim. He orders her
to get out and then calls a guard to throw her out. The Bible says that “the
hatred he now felt for her was greater than his earlier love.” This reminds us
of Shakespeare’s observation above: “Past reason hunted and no sooner had, past
reason hated.” Of course his “love” was not love at all but infatuation (he was
“obsessed” with her) and lust. As Aquinas says “Impurity leads inevitably to
violence.” In 1986 a USA Government commission said most pornography sold in
the US could lead to violence. (37) So if we want a less violent world we need
to encourage purity of heart!
The South African Bishops (SACBC) have produced protocols for Church
personnel re sexual integrity. They mention the need to “set and maintain clear
boundaries e.g. cautions re touching others, being alone with others, not using
one’s bedroom for communicating with others and other valuable advice in
preserving purity of heart. Failure to observe these protocols can lead to the dire
consequences of clergy abuse and Elizabeth Yore has described this as “soul
murder.”
In the 2004 John Jay Report on the U.S. clergy abuse scandal,
the authors described the particular impact on clergy abuse victims (p.
217):
The effects of sexual abuse on the victims vary, but the impact is
long lasting and may result in sexual depersonalization, depression, sexually
acting out, and suicide. When a child has been victimized by a priest, the
impact of the abuse effects how the child perceives God, the Church and the
clergy. The abuse also raises the question as to how these institutions will
view the victim.
CONCLUSION:
“Church Law should be changed so that priests who commit sexual
abuse are automatically excommunicated” (Archbishop Buti Tlhagale omi)
The word of God states that one should “count the cost” (Luke 14:28)
before following Jesus and that “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Rom.
14:23). In other words: “whatever is done without a conviction of its approval
by God is sinful.” So Jeremiah can state that “cursed is the one who is half
hearted in doing the Lord’s work.” (Jer. 48:10)
The priesthood is a serious matter and celibacy freely and
generously undertaken can be a tremendous blessing for both the priest and the
community. But if done deceitfully it can be a great curse for the priest and
the community. It can lead to corruption, fornication, sodomy, gross
perversion, end even sexual abuse of children, both girls and boys (as we can
see from the above essays boys are a much sought after commodity for pervert
practices). The sexually frustrated ‘priest’ seeks in vain for sexual
fulfilment which will always elude him as he lives his schizophrenic life style
‘aflame with passion’ (1Cor. 7:9)
Above we can see that celibacy is a gift or charism and that all
have a Role corresponding to the gift of celibacy e.g. the unmarried
abstain from sexual intimacy until one is married. (1Cor. 6:13-20) and the
married to short periods of mutually agreed abstinence (1 Cor. 7:5)
St Augustine did not have the gift of celibacy obviously but as we
can see above a personified chastity chided him: “cannot you do what these men,
woman and children did?” And by God’s grace he did.
Leonhard Weber in an article on celibacy in Sacramentum Mundi
translates Matthew 19:11: “Not all men understand this (about remaining single)
but only to those to whom it is given... He who is able to understand this, let
him understand it”. He says the term understand or grasp can also mean ‘dare’.
So it would go: “Not all can do this. But if you can summon up the strength
then dare it.” Weber continues: “Hence celibacy in probably not one of the
charisms which is there or not, but one of those which may also be striven for
according to the counsel of Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 12:31 (38) This counsel of St
Paul reads: “earnestly desire and strive for the greater gifts” St Augustine
strove valiantly and succeeded by God’s grace.
The story of Gideon in Judges 7:5 that God can achieve far more by
those in his grace and aligned to His will, even if a minority as in the case
of Gideon’s army reduced from 32,000 to 300.
“All of the great moments of change in history for good or ill begun
with individuals or small groups of like minded people.” (Liam Swords)
Words of Wisdom
“One who is physically chaste must not brag about it, knowing that
the ability to control his desires has been given to him by another
(God).” (Pope St Clement I; Divine Office v.II, p. 572.
REFERENCES:
1. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 111.
2. Jason Evert, Theology of the Body, pp 8 and 23.
3. The Tablet 23/4/94, p.
490.
4. Rollo May, Love and Will, p. 79.
5. WWW. Elizabeth Johnston, Activist Mommy. Siecus is Sick.
6. Thomas Dubay, Fire Within pp. 232/3; 340.
cf Ralph Martin, The fulfilment of all Desire, p. 195.
7. Rabbi Denis Prager, Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality:
Judaism’s Sexual Revolution. Crisis, Sept 1993, p. 33.
8. Catechism of the Catholic
Church, no. 2352.
9. Peter Horrobin, Healing Through Deliverance, Sovereign,
2008 p. 388.
10. Sunday Tribune, 7/7/85 Martin
Amis on Aids.
11. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves,
Chapter 4: Friendship.
12. E. Freinkel, Sunday Star
(Time Out) 1/9/85, p. 16.
13. See also excellent article by psychotherapist, Dr Richard
Fitzgibbons, The origins
and Healing of Homosexual Tendencies. www
14. J. Drever, Dictionary of
Psychology, Penguin, 1964. p. 21.
15. Fr Bernard Huss. C.M.M. Psychology for everyday life, p.7.
16. St Augustine, Confessions
and the City of God, edited by M. Versfield, Cape Town
Carrefour Press, 1990,
p.91.
17. The Hothouse Society: an
Explanation of Boarding School Life through the Boys’
and Girls’ Own Writings, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1968.
18. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by
Joy, Chapter 6:Bloodery, p.73.
19. Surprised... p.78.
20. Sunday Tribune, 17/3/85
21. The Star, 15/1/92
22. The Star, 11/4/92
23. Christianity Today, 25/5/79
24. Adolphe Tanquerey, The
Spiritual Life, section, 752f.
25. The Star, 19/2/91
26. H. Marcuse, Eros and
Civilization, 1965, p.3.
27. B. Huss, Psychology
28. Sonolux, Know Yourself : a
Study of Human Sexuality, Munich, p.28.
29. D. Morris, The Naked Ape,
Corgi, 1976, p.89.
30. Penguin Dictionary of Psychology.
31. Russell Abata, CSSR, Sex
Sanity in the Modern World, Liguorian
Books, 1975.
32. cf Rosemary Haughton, The
Mystery of Sexuality, Darton, Longman, Todd, 1973, p.12.
33. William Barclay, Ethics in
a Permissive Society, p.215
34. Southern Cross, 11/10/87.
35. Wilhelm Pauck, Paul Tillich, His
Life and Thought, p. 83.
36. G, K. Chesterton, St
Francis of Assisi, Chapter 2.
37. Natal Witness 10/7/86
38. L.M. Weber, Celibacy, Sacramentum Mundi, Vol. 1, p. 279.
SOME SCRIPTURE TEXTS:
“Create in me a pure heart O God’ (Psalm 51)
“I made an agreement with my eyes not to look
lustfully at others” (Job 31:1)
“I will not set before my eyes whatever is
base” (Psalm 101:3)
“Fill your minds with
everything that is true,
everything that is noble,
everything that is good and pure,
and everything that we love and honour,
and everything that can be thought virtuous or
worthy of praise...
then the God of peace will be with you”
Philippians
4:8-9
Garbage in, garbage out!
PRAYERS:
Create within me a pure heart, O God (ps. 51)
Help me to be like Job who made a covenant with
his eyes not to look lustfully at others (Job 31:1)
Forgive me for pampering lust in my life: help
me to guard against it faithfully.
May the ‘meditations of my heart be pleasing in
your sight, O Lord, my God’. (Ps.19:14)
Jesus help me to love as you do. Make me pure
of body, pure of mind and pure of heart, that I might see God and enjoy his
plan for me. Make me clean, and heal me from the wounds of sin. Strengthen me
to live the love you call me to each day. By myself, I am weak and my heart is
not pure, but in you I can be strong and pure.
Mary I want to be pure like you are.
St Joseph, I want to have your courage to guard
the purity of others and myself. Please help me in my walk with Jesus, so that
I can glorify God in my body, and join you all in heaven one day. AMEN
APPENDIX:
As it appeared in the February 15, 1987 edition of Boston’s Gay
Community News, we are given a glimpse of the hidden homosexual agenda. It
reads as follows:
“We shall sodomise your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of
your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in
your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports
arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theatre
bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male
clubs, in your houses of Congress,
wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do
our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and
adore us.”
“The family unit – spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity,
hypocrisy, and violence will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens
imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be
conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in
communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.”
“All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are
handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and aesthetic. All
that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated... If you dare to cry
‘faggot, fairy, queer’ at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and
defile your dead puny bodies.”
Tablet 22/8/92 p. 1046
Sir: I am a “gay” Catholic who does not share the generally adverse
reaction to the latest document from Rome on the subject. Actually, I am sure that there are thousands
who do not, but we make less noise than the “gay activists.”
I am homosexual, but accept, without reservation, the teachings of
the Church on that subject. I welcome any affirmation from Rome of those
teachings and I am entirely out of sympathy with those, whether priests or lay
folk, who want to concede respectability to practicing gays and lesbians. All
their arguments, to me, smack of special pleading and expediency, not Christian
charity. There is no moral argument in favour of such a change. The Church will
not, and indeed cannot change those teachings.
I was brought up in the Protestant world but never really committed
myself to Christianity in my youth. I realised my homosexuality when I was
about 21, long before the changes in the law decriminalising homosexual acts.
Reading the first chapter of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans one day, I decided
that I could not possibly be a Christian of any kind, and for years had nothing
to do with any form of religion at all. My views on the subject changed,
however, after several years of sporadic involvement in the homosexual life of
London.
In The Tablet of 8 August
there was a letter from Dr J. Dominian mentioning the Pope’s teaching that that
human experience is a channel of God’s revelation. It was in the direct
experience of homosexual life that I began to realise its negative and ultimately
unsatisfactory nature. As one homosexual friend put it, “There is no future in
it.” My own orientation did not change on realising this, but I became
increasingly convinced that there was something wrong with the whole thing,
that homosexual relationships do not really work, and that homosexuality is
indeed as the Church says, an “objective disorder.” I believe that the
recognition of this fact was just as much a revelation of God as any form of
human love, though I had no religious beliefs at the time.
I made a definite decision to abandon homosexual life – a decision I
have never regretted – and involved myself heavily in social and charitable
work, in which I eventually came into contact with a convert to Catholicism. I
began to see Christianity with new eyes, and was received into the Church. St
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, which had driven me away from Christianity ten
years earlier, now made perfect sense to me. It still does, and I do not see
how anyone who calls himself a Christian can possibly reject it
L. Nicholson
London NW7
Further readings: Leanne Payne, The healing of the homosexual,
Crossway Books,
1991
Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: how Jesus
heals the Homosexual, Creation House, Florida, 1989.
PARTICULAR or EXCLUSIVE FRIENDSHIP:
Particular friendship is an exclusive association between two
persons based on upon emotional fascination. As such, it is a perversion of
God’s gift of good and wholesome friendship. In the very definition of
particular friendship is found the distortion of truth that it is. It is an
exclusive association and therefore detrimental to the universal charity due to
all. It is a friendship based upon
emotional fascination and motivated more by the selfish interest of the
“friends” than the desire of each to promote the good of the other. Therefore,
it does not deserve to be called friendship except in an extended sense of the
term.
The danger of forming particular friendships is directly
proportional to a person’s emotional instability. Such an association exists
most often between those who are emotionally insecure. Particular friendships
are an expression of the human tendency to love and be loved, which in this
case is applied wrongly. Such friendships can develop between those of the
opposite sex, or those of the same sex.
The characteristics of particular friendship are as follows:
1. Exclusiveness
– all one’s attention is focussed on one person to the point that there is
resentment of the intrusion of others.
2. Jealousy
– because all attention is focussed on one person, there is jealousy if that
person has other friends.
3. Absorption
of mind – the friends think of each other continually in much the same way
that young lovers do. As a result, the freedom to pray, study, to work, do
one’s duties or be with others is hampered.
4. The
tendency to manufacture affection – because this type of friendship has the
marks of the relationship between young lovers, the friends feel more and more
the desire to manifest affection. This they do by talking in a sentimental way
and even by the physical expression of love. Because of this, it is obvious
that particular friendship can easily lead to violations of chastity. This may
not always happen, but even when it does not lead to this, the detrimental
effects of particular friendship are numerous.
Avoidance of particular friendship and freeing oneself from it
involve the use of means consistently recommended by spiritual writers.
These are:
1. Conviction
– the persons must be firmly convinced that such friendships are harmful and
therefore must be avoided or eliminated.
2. Confidence
– when emotions dominate a person, victory can seem impossible, but one must be
convinced that victory is possible.
3. General
self-discipline – just as an alcoholic cannot break his habit without a general practice of self-discipline,
so neither can one break a particular friendship without a similar
self-discipline.
4. Physical
separation – one must carefully avoid all unnecessary association with this
kind of “friend” and when association is necessary, must be careful to control
the emotional response that accompanies it.
5. Mental
separation – one must avoid thinking about the other person as much as
possible, for this only feeds the flame of emotional involvement.
6. Cultivation
of other interests – such persons cannot succeed in a vacuum, as it were, but
must substitute for the object sacrificed an interest in the right things. Only
in this way is it possible to avoid or remedy a grave defect.
To see the so-called particular friendship for the perversion that
it is, one need only compare it with the good and healthy friendship in which
the friends grow mutually in goodness and the pursuit of higher ideals.
See also FRIENDSHIP; FRIENDSHIP, SPIRITUAL
Bibliography: G. A. Kelly, Guidance for Religious (Westminster. Md. 1956) 55-81.
A.
Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life (Wesrminster, Md. 1945)
(C. Browning)
NEW
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA
Volume
6
FRIENDSHIP, SPIRITUAL:
A mutual sharing between two persons who seek the same spiritual ideals.
As such, it far transcends the so-called friendship that is merely carnal or
selfish as well as the friendship that is based upon a sharing of the same
natural interests. Spiritual friendship is a close bond between two individuals
who share and incite each other to the attainment of the higher spiritual goals.
The value of spiritual friendship is stressed by Scripture. In the
book of Sirach we read: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he
who finds one finds a treasure. A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can
balance his worth. A faithful friend is a life saving remedy, such as one who
fears God finds.” (6:14-16)
Christ gave us the example of close spiritual friendship. During His
life He shared the friendship of His Apostles and Disciples. Toward some of
them He showed special predilection, e.g. St. John. He even showed that the
highest spiritual friendship can exist between man and woman, as is seen in His
relationship to Martha and Mary.
The Fathers of the Church as well as spiritual writers of all ages
have emphasised the good contained in spiritual friendship. The treatises they
have written on this subject form a chain that reaches through the history of
the Church.
The lives of many saints exemplify the teaching of Scripture and spiritual
writers on this point. St. Teresa of Avila and Mother Anne of Jesus, St.
Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal are examples among many that
could be cited of friendship based upon and fruitful of holiness.
The ideal and goal of spiritual friendship is thus summed up by St.
Peter Damian: “When I look on thy face,
on thee who are dear to me, I lift up my gaze toward Him who, united to thee I
desire to reach.” (Letters 2.12)
Bibliography: Thomas Aquinas, ST 2a2ae, 23. H. D. Noble. L:Amitiรจ avec Dieu (new ed. Paris 1932)
(C. Browning)
