With not even a trace of irony

Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 this morning featured an interview with a 105 year old spinster, who not only never married, but remained a virgin her whole life.

Like a true modern, the interviewess was amazed that anyone could go for so long without sexual congress, and that her subject had no regrets whatever. How horizons have shrunk in this brave new age!

The maenads then introduced a single mother who after a string of broken relationships embraced celibacy, and who discoursed on how empowering her experience of celibacy has been. Whereat all and sundry sang the praises of celibacy and lauded it as a magnificent virtue that gave rise to all sorts of wholesome benefits. It was even remarked that celibates lived longer and were healthier and happier than those who were not.

Melancholicus does not ever remember hearing the state of celibacy being treated with such awe and admiration on BBC radio.

Those who have been called by God either to the service of the altar or to the cloister voluntarily renounce the possibility of marriage and of sexual intimacy with another person. They remain in the celibate state, that they might more effectively order their lives and give themselves to prayer and works of mercy.

Yet their celibacy is regarded by the likes of the BBC not with awe and admiration, but with ridicule, derision and relentless critical hostility. It is even claimed that their celibacy has warped their psychology, even to the extent of turning ordinary decent men into compulsive child molesters.

Celibacy in the service of God, it seems, is an evil thing; whereas celibacy in the service of oneself is a virtue.

At least that is the opinion of the BBC.

Cardinal Etchegaray on married clergy

From Catholic World News:

Married priests not a solution to shortage, cardinal says

Paris, Nov. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com) - An influential French cardinal has said that the ordination of married men is a possibility that could be discussed, but "it is not a solution to the vocations crisis."

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray (bio - news), the former president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, explained to the newspaper Le Parisen that priestly celibacy is a discipline rather than a matter of doctrine. "It can be discussed," he said.

However, the cardinal voiced his extreme skepticism about suggestions that a provision for married priests would end the shortage of clergy in Europe. The fundamental response to that crisis, he said, must involve a renewed appreciation for service to the Church.

One constantly hears from dissenting ‘Catholic’ and secular sources repeated affirmations that if only holy Church would cease to require lifelong continence from her clergy, the current dearth of vocations would be solved overnight.

It is true, as his emninence says, that the ordination of married men is a possibility that could be discussed, for celibacy is not a matter of doctrine, or of divinely-given precept; it is a disciplinary matter, which could be revoked by the Holy See if it so wished.

The question is not whether celibacy is a changable policy, but whether changing this policy would be of benefit to the Church. At this point in time, however, Melancholicus cannot really see the benefit of relaxing the discipline of the Church, especially when sacerdotal discipline generally is at an all-time low and needs vigorous rejuvenation.

If the history of the past forty years has shown us anything, one does not improve the calibre of clergy and religious by making things easier. All true reforms of the Church, as opposed to the post-Vatican II deformation, have resulted from a return to the sources, and a rediscovery of the value of asceticism and penance. To relax the discipline of the Church in a time of already prevalent laxity, is to invite further deterioration, and would perhaps encourage into clerical ministry many persons who ought not to have any part in ministry in the first place.

Furthermore, the Orthodox and the Anglicans have a married clergy, and can it be said that they are awash with vocations? The Church of England in particular, even though the marriage of clergy in that church has been permissible since 1549, is struggling; since the advent of women’s ordination in 1993, the C of E is now in the curious situation of ordaining more women than men, which means that the priesthood of that church may well in time become a female preserve.

But despite the fact that the Church of England can draw upon both male and female, as well as the married and unmarried, it seems to have a harder time recruiting new clergy than the Roman Catholic Church in the same country.

The paucity of vocations in the Roman Church at present owes nothing to celibacy, or to the position of the Church on women’s ordination; rather it owes everything to the stranglehold exercised by modernism on Catholic schools, universities, seminaries and houses of formation.

Not to mention the current state of the liturgy which, far from inspiring vocations to the priesthood, would make one embarrassed to be Catholic.

It is strange (though not unwelcome) that prelates such as Roger “spirit of Assisi” Etchegaray, formerly noted for dotty theological looseness bordering on dissent, now seem to be talking orthodox Catholicism, and in a more sober and serious vein.

Would our Holy Father Benedict have anything to do with that, I wonder?

Church of England to investigate child abuse

Well, this is certainly news.

In fact there is a veritable rash of news stories on the BBC website concerning the abuse of children by personnel of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

In 2002, when the most intensive spate yet of scandals concerning the abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests (in the USA and elsewhere) hit the headlines, it was widely alleged that the sexuality of the abusers had been warped by the discipline of compulsory celibacy. In other words, because these men had no legitimate sexual outlet, their inclinations perforce became twisted and perverted, and when they could no longer restrain themselves, they began raping children in order to ease their frustrations.

At least that is how the story goes.

Melancholicus considers that blaming celibacy for the sexual misdeeds of clerics is a disingenuous tactic used by those who wish to force the Church to revise her discipline, and to lower the high standards she expects from her clergy. This tactic is also used by those who would deflect attention from the real nature of the problem, and the profile of most clerical abusers — namely, same-sex attraction.

It is often alleged by those who blame celibacy for these horrendous crimes that permitting the clergy to take wives would, as it were a magic bullet, “solve” the problem of child sexual abuse among members of the clergy.

According to this logic, had Fr. Brendan Smyth been allowed to marry, he would never have raped so many young boys.

Leaving aside the fact that such claims are totally preposterous, they are also deeply insulting, not only to those clergy—the overwhelming majority—who do NOT abuse children, but to every other person, unmarried, or not otherwise involved in a sexual relationship.

The clergy of the Church of England have since the reign of Edward VI — 1549 to be exact — been permitted to marry. Celibacy is simply not an issue for Anglican clergy. On the logic of those vocal opponents of celibacy in the Roman Church of whom we have just been speaking, we ought not to find any hint of child sexual abuse in the Church of England, since in that church celibacy as a requirement does not exist.

How then, do these critics explain the occurrence of such crimes among not only the clergy of the Church of England, but among laymen also? Not to mention the fact that most abuse of children occurs within the family, and that there is a far higher proportionate incidence of abusers among married men than among celibates, and a higher proportionate incidence of abusers among men who experience same-sex attraction than among straight men.

Continence, self-discipline, chastity and restraint are not the cause of perversion in those who practice them; rather, they are a remedy for disordered inclinations. The sating of lust does not purify the soul of evil desires; it only increases them. And marriage, which is a holy sacrament — “an honourable estate” in the words of the Church of England’s Prayer Book — is demeaned by being reduced to the level of a mere outlet for sexual frustration.

It is also interesting that the Roman Church is not alone in its abject failure to deal with these reprobates in its midst; institutional dysfunction seems to be endemic in our time.