I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.
The church may hold whatever it holds with regard to clerical celibacy.
That was the problem with the 'celibate' word because they don't consider for a moment that you'd rather not be, but you just are. I was never a sexual person.
To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.
Asceticism and celibacy can conceal many incapacities.
I tend to agree that celibacy for a time is worth considering, for sex is dirty if all it means is winning a man, conquering a woman, beating someone out of something, abusing each other's dignity in order to prove that I am a man, I am a woman.
In every possible instance Saint Paul begged Christians to restrain themselves to contain their carnal yearnings to live solitary and sexless lives on earth as it is in heaven. "But if they cannot contain " Paul finally conceded then "let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn." Which is perhaps the most begrudging endorsement of matrimony in human history.
Celibacy is a great help, inasmuch as it enables one to lead a life of full surrender to God.
Celibacy bestows on a man the qualified freedom of a besieged city where one sometimes has to eat rats.
Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.
Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes.
Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.
It’s impossible,” he snapped. “Why?” “Because I’m Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. I can’t be celibate. Everyone knows that.
I'd also gone through an entire year of celibacy based on my feeling that lust was the direct cause of birth which was the direct cause of suffering and death.
Good God. I don’t believe St. Vincent and the word ‘celibacy’ have ever been mentioned in the same sentence before.
Celibacy is exhausting.
I left the convent and that was because I wasn't a very good nun. I could see that I wasn't going to make it. It's very difficult to be a nun, or to live a religious life. It's very difficult to live a life of total celibacy or a life without any possessions or material responsibilities at all, or in total obedience to somebody else, and remain a mature whole human being, and I knew that I wasn't going to be one of those.
Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.
