Flesh and the Devil
Rosaries
The Catholic church is the only religious denomination to demand that its priests abstain totally from sex (there are two exceptions: Anglican converts to catholicism who are married may become priests, as may married men in the in the Catholic churches of Eastern Europe and the Middle East – but even in these groups, men may not marry after becoming priests).
Now, amid hundreds of accusations of child abuse and with fewer and fewer men choosing to join the priesthood, the church is in crisis. A seminary in Ireland which 40 years ago had more than 500 students preparing to join the church now has only eight; since 1960, across the world, 200,000 priests have renounced their vows. Is this because the vow of celibacy is simply impossible to maintain? And does enforced abstinence warp minds and drive men to abuse children?
Painful substitute
Other religions may see celibacy as an ideal state but only Catholicism holds it as an imperative. Its origins lie in Sinai, in St Catherine’s, the oldest monastery in the world that dates back 1,800 years. The early Christians who founded that community saw sex as polluting so they removed the monks from their families and from all forms of human love, and whipped, burned and starved their bodies to drive out the sexual feelings.
Today’s neuroscientists say that the brain is programmed for reproduction so if a person has no sexual outlet, the body’s need must be rechannelled into some other form. In Mediaeval Europe, whole populations would whip themselves in the streets. Today in the Philippines, people commemorate Christ’s suffering by causing themselves extreme pain – even to the extent of hammering nails through their hands – and in the process give themselves visionary experiences.
The biology is quite well understood. Pain makes the body produce opiates which can lead to ecstatic states. Sexual psychologist Dorothy Hayden sees a clear connection between Christianity and sado-masochistic sex. Both require a reduction in the ego – submission, either to God or a sexual dominator, a surrender of the self, total trust and a willingness to lose control.
Married to God
Images of Christ in ecclesastical art represent notions of physical beauty through the ages. Nuns like Marie Cecile, a member of the Sisters of the Visitation, a Canadian closed order, say that God is their only love, and that he is worthy of all their attention. Such communities are shrinking in the West (Catholics call it ‘the bleeding’) but the draw of female celibacy is still strong in poorer countries. Roumania, for instance, has more than 200 Orthodox Christian convents. They offer food, shelter and sanctuary to their residents, who wear black in this world because they believe that their wedding night will be in heaven.
The power and the glory
Sexual lapses have always been a fact of monastic life, and for some 1,000 years, a debate raged about whether priests, as well as monks, should be celibate. The church itself has a great deal to gain from the celibacy of its priesthood since, if they have no children, the church inherits their wealth.
The downside for the institution, in this more liberated age, is that with revelations of sexual abuse, the previously hidden pain and betrayal must now be compensated, which is why the church faces legal settlements of many millions of pounds. It also faces the recurring exposure of its complicity in crimes and its hypocrisy in covering up the sexual activity of its priests, monks and nuns, whether that was with consenting adults or abused children.