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By A. W. Richard Sipe
Richard Sipe, himself a former monk and priest, has made a lifelong enterprise of settling on the truth and that means of non secular celibacy. Even an enough operational definition of spiritual celibacy, he says, has been kept away from by means of Catholic hierarchy and students to maintain the celibate fantasy. Having spent 25 years accomplishing a learn of celibacy and sexual habit in Roman Catholic clergymen, Sipe concluded that at anybody time not more than 50 percentage of clergymen have been training celibacy. To extra totally comprehend what celibacy is, the way it is practiced, the have an effect on it has at the humanness of fellows of ladies, and the social results it offers, Sipe says we will use the process awarded during this ebook. particularly, we will be able to learn ancient males who awarded themselves or have been perceived as dwelling examples of celibacy and likewise concentrate on the main profound truths of celibacy present in literary accounts.
Psychology, faith, and literary feedback interface and are woven jointly during this publication with minimum jargon. The Serpent and the Dove was once written within the desire of fascinating sincere research of the essence of spiritual celibacy and to foster a recrudescence of real sexual energy with all of its evolutionary power. Human sexuality isn't really going away; neither is it beside the point to the health, growth and happiness of the human neighborhood, says Sipe. And the perform of actual celibacy won't disappear both. absolute confidence, the Catholic Church wishes profound reformation. yet in all my paintings i've got selected to not throw any infants out with the horrendously soiled 'holy water' the church maintains to treasure and disseminate. the following, as in all my paintings, i attempt to foster discussion among faith and technology, equivalent to literary feedback. The Catholic Church (and faith) is at a Copernican Moment whilst it has to cede to technological know-how the character of sexuality. The Serpent and the Dove is another paintings between Sipe's many books and articles making the necessity for that clear.
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Additional resources for The Serpent and the Dove: Celibacy in Literature and Life (Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality)
Example text
I expect that the reality of publicly exposed clergy sex will generate a great many literary portrayals beyond journalistic accounts. 6 The Serpent and the Dove It is abhorrent to many unbiased people to think that priests and bishops who are extolled as moral leaders could be the source of moral corruption. 7 THE VICTIMS OF CELIBATE VIOLATION Certainly the crisis of sexual abuse of minors is an extreme of clergy behavior, but it opens a door to the sexual/celibate life of priests and bishops. The consequences of being abused are deep and long lasting.
Priests have achieved the status of media stardom on their own. In the 1930s, the Reverend Charles Coughlin used his mellifluous voice, a voice made for promises, to attract an audience of 40 million enthralled listeners to his radio broadcasts. He was a priest who would be heard. In the 1950s, Reverend-Monsignor-Bishop Fulton J. Sheen provided his viewers with a vision of priestly glamour, enabling him to outdraw Hollywood stars in the television ratings. His penetrating blue eyes have been rivaled only by the likes of Paul Newman.
The priest predator is an angry man, often with the face of a calm and gentle pastor. Outward grace, superficial interaction, and social charm frequently cover the isolation and friendlessness that an abuser feels. Of necessity (except when predators ban together to share their sexual predilection), a child sexual abuser has to hide his activity and his real self. Sometimes the abusing priest may have been abused himself, and not rarely by a priest. The hidden life of the priest abuser requires that he split his life into two parts: The acceptable and even exemplary public life has to be separated from (and reconciled with) the socially reprehensible and morally defective secret life he pursues.