Richard Sipe, himself a former monk and priest, has made a lifelong venture of determining the reality and meaning of religious celibacy. Even an adequate operational definition of religious celibacy, he says, has been avoided by Catholic hierarchy and scholars to preserve "the celibate myth." Having spent 25 years conducting a study of celibacy and sexual behavior in Roman Catholic priests, Sipe concluded that at any one time no more than 50 percent of priests were practicing celibacy. To more fully understand what celibacy is, how it is practiced, the affect it has on the humanness of men of women, and the social effects it presents, Sipe says we can use the approach presented in this book. Specifically, we can analyze historic men who presented themselves or were perceived as living examples of celibacy and also focus on the "most profound" truths of celibacy found in literary accounts.
An internationally known expert on priest celibacy and sexuality shows how the most profound truths about celibacy are found in literary accounts.The modern Catholic church has no more careful observer than Sipe (www.richardsipe.com ), author of Sex, Priests, and Power and Celibacy in Crisis . This book continues to deepen Sipe's thoughtful and at times angry engagement with the Catholic church's policy on clerical celibacy, this time dwelling principally on writers—Andrew Greeley, Graham Greene, and J.F. Powers, to name a few. Sipe's book moves somewhat uneasily between life (the dubious examples of Coughlin and Sheen) and literature (the fictions of Joyce, Silone, and the others), and his writing is inelegant in the academic matter. However, his work as a kind of prophet for a revised, renovated understanding of celibacy is important. For most collections
[Page 76]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
Shopping Cart
