Can a celibate priest guide you in matters of sexual intimacy?

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I bet you had been looking at the lady on the left far longer than necessary. I would even go so far as to say that you clicked on it to see an enlarged version. You ignored my writing here for a moment and then came back. If that be so, I can’t blame you my friend. And you don’t have to feel guilty either. It’s not sinful and it’s biological.

“Wait a minute. Since when did you assume priesthood and started prescribing what is sin and what is not?” you ask me.

No, I am not a Catholic, much less a Catholic priest to tell you that.

In as much as you wouldn’t expect me to be an authority on sin and morality, how can you trust a celibate priest to navigate you through this treacherous land laid with land mines like the one on the left or a forest with trees tempting with its forbidden fruits (Remember it was the forbidden fruit that banished us all from His kingdom) and lead you to salvation.

“Watch your words. You are on dangerous ground here”, I warn myself.

Yes I am aware. Let me go a little further.

Assuming that I have tasted the forbidden fruit and would like to confess:

  1. Where would I go to confess?
  2. A church?
  3. What if I come to know that four percent of all priests who had served in the U.S. from 1950 to 2002 faced some sort of sexual accusation?


The point is: it is debatable.

Let me explain. While any child sex abuse is reprehensible and punishable, an involvement of a clergy with a consenting adult falls in the grey area and becomes moot.

I shall be more specific and draw your attention to a recent sex scandal involving a Catholic priest (the media or the Catholic institution may call it a scandal, though I wouldn’t. Not even if I am shown the photos of a lady wrapping her legs around Rev. Alberto Cutié or his hands reaching for the rear ends of the lady in her swim suit) that came in this week’s issue of Time.

And I cannot help find a striking similarity between this incident and a movie I saw years ago. In Monk Dawson (aka Passion of the Priest), Dawson a student of a Catholic school, who driven by idealism, decides to genuinely help those who were lost in their way to salvation. So he opts for priesthood, does an excellent job of serving the needy and also writing a regular column on religion in a local newspaper. Given his experience in counseling, he writes about a few topics (including some that deal with intimacy in relationships) which the Church finds to be inconsistent with its rules. So he falls out of favor and opts out of priesthood. Now he enters our world of carnal desires, greed, and betrayal. In short he reaches a nadir of his life. He was so full of remorse about his sins; he decides to return back to the monastery. Back in the monastery, he assumes a vow of silence and never speaks again.

If I were to confess, I would choose Monk Dawson ‘ the sinner’, who has firsthand experience, to confess my sins.

My view coexists with that written by the author of the above Time article:

“To any Catholic who’s had to suffer through a lecture on marriage from a celibate kid just out of seminary, Cutié’s romantic romp might just make him a more appealing priest — more human, perhaps, than Catholic clergy who deny communion to divorcees, gays and anyone else who dares violate the Church’s litany of “non-negotiable” rules.“

What do you think?

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