The Holiness of Celibacy

A poor, angry, confused man who left the Catholic Church has recently written an article denouncing celibacy and blaming it for the sexual abuse of children by pervert priests, yet all the while rejecting the truth of the matter: homosexual pervert infiltrators into the Sacred Priesthood.

Celibacy is firstly a gift from God. Celibacy is the imitation of Christ, Our Lord; who was celibate. Priests are called to imitate Christ to a very close degree. This is not a denial that priests are not sexual beings. Everything we do has a sexual component to it. But sexuality is far, far more than the marital act, or any licit act that may lead to or enhance the marital act. Indeed, the marital act is a sign of holiness and reflects something of the love of the Holy Trinity. Sexual love is a great gift from God to man and woman within the state of matrimony.

A priest, a nun gives up the marital act because they are following more closely Christ, the Lord. But they do not give up their sexuality. Priests should be real men, more than even soldiers - they should be soldiers for Christ. Nuns too - do not become asexual beings. Sisters retain their feminine sexuality, but in abstaining from acts proper to the marital state they focus their feminine sexuality on loving - non physically - all who come within their reach.

Priests and nuns are not forbidden to have holy friendships. We can think of St. Jerome and St. Paula, St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, or St. Francis and St. Clare. One can be quite sure that their non-physical love was much stronger than the vast, vast majority of love between husbands and wives. In Paradise, they are now receiving their reward by being closer to each other than can ever be imagined. Truly celibacy has its rewards - not only in this life, but in (and this is what is infinitely more important) the never, ever ending afterlife of Heaven.