"Better yet, think of Jesus of Nazareth, who most serious Scripture scholars agree (for a variety of reasons) never married. Does anyone doubt that Jesus was a loving person?....
"The sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church was, as I see it, more about a small percentage of psychologically unhealthy men who should have never been admitted into seminaries or religious orders in the first place, and some bishops who should have never shuttled them from one parish to another than it was about chastity per se."
Whether we're celibate, single, or married, we're called by God to be chaste. Celibacy is not chastity. Fr. Martin distinguishes between celibacy and chastity: technically, celibacy refers to the "restriction against marriage for the Catholic clergy.....Celibacy is a canonical (church law) requirement that could, theoretically, be lifted by the Catholic Church. During the first half of church history, no restrictions existed against marriage, and many priests were married men. As the Rev. Donald Cozzens writes in "Freeing Celibacy," not until the twelfth century did clerical celibacy become the norm for the entire Western, or Latin, Church. We know, for example, that St. Peter was married, since the Gospel of Mark speaks of his mother-in-law (1:29-31). Today there are many married Catholic priests: priests of the Eastern rites, or branches, of the Catholic Church, and priests from other Christian denominations who convert to Catholicism but stay married."
But - those of us who have chosen to be celibate and those of us who choose to be married are all called to be loving in a chaste way. Chastity is the proper and loving use of our sexuality, a task that it takes all of us a lifetime to learn, because every human person is a sexed being, prone to confusion and temptation. Chastity is, simply, as Fr. Vincent Genovesi says, "'honesty in sex,'" where our physical relationships 'truthfully express' the level of personal commitment we have with the other. In other words, the goal of chastity is receiving and giving love. The Catholic Church believes that everyone - married, single, vowed, lay, or clergy - is called to this kind of chastity, where your physical relationships express the degree of personal commitment, where you make the proper use of your sexuality, and where your sexuality is guided by love and care for the other person. Most people would agree with those general ideas: love, commitment, honesty, and care in our sexual relationships." (Martin).
"Honesty in sex" is a foreign concept to much of society today. The watchword is "If you feel passion, express it," in much the same way we talk about scratching an itch. But our sexuality is deeply intertwined with our personal sense of who we are. A married - or a vowed celibate or single person - might very well refuse an offer of sexual love from a friend with the response "I'm sorry, but that's not who I am." In other words, if we are in a marital relationship with someone, honesty in sex is keeping the beauty of sexual expression for that relationship in which there is total personal commitment. The goal of chastity for a vowed celibate, or single person, however, is to love as many people as possible with friendship love, which does not include sexual expression. In both cases here, love is the answer to who the person really is, but the expression of that love is different.
If we who are married love chastely, we keep the sexual part of our relationship in perspective. Sex is meant to celebrate and deepen our relationship and our commitment to it. But - what if there's nothing to celebrate or deepen? What if we think that marriage, or love, is "all about sex"? We're missing out on so much, then!
Chaste Love, for everyone, is all about deeds which make others feel respected and loved. If you know how to really love others intimately and well, you know how to:
- Listen compassionately.
- Be present, be "there" for others.
- Do something practical for others.
- Love freely, accepting others' loving you as he or she can, not as you want to be loved.
- Forgive. Free yourself from a world of bitterness and recrimination.
My husband and I personally know many priests and sisters who have many male and female friends, who love joyously, warmly, and sincerely, and whom people trust because they know that they are loved freely with "no strings attached." We also know many married couples - many deacons and wives, for example, - who also love many people freely, joyously, and well, both inside and outside their families. These are all people who know themselves, who understand and accept that they are sexual human beings who choose either not to have sex because they aren't in a committed relationship,or who reserve sex for their committed relationship.
Love can take many forms. Whether you're single, a vowed celibate, or married, you can and should have many deeply loving, intimate, chaste relationships. When sexual expression is reserved for committed marriage, we're all freer to love chastely, intimately, and well. We can give a quality of love in our real, day to day relationships which gives others hope because we give them Christ's love.