Monday, August 1, 2011

Sex In The 21st Century Is Not About Biology, It's About The Spiritual Power Of Love

I can easily imagine God was a hard act to follow.


Over at his Wild Reed blog, Michael Bayley has a really important post regarding a paper written by Catholic moral theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether.  The following is the final three paragraphs Michael excerpted, and I reprint them here because they make some extremely important points.  I encourage readers to read the entire extract on Michael's blog.  In the initial paragraphs, RRR brilliantly explains the Augustinian tradition which has come down through the centuries and is the basis for what still passes for Catholic sexual morality.  I've written many time before that we need to develop a sexual morality based on right relationship, but this piece by RRR seems to state parts of my position far better than I have.

.....We should see sexuality as an integral part of our total psychosomatic being, not something that can be separated out and repressed without damage to our fullness of being. We should recognize that the love-relational purpose of sex has its own integrity and goodness as the creation and expression of bonding, affection, and commitment. It is not dependent on procreation for its justification, and indeed today out of many thousands of sexual acts in the lifetime of any person, only a small percentage can be intentionally reproductive. The defense of marriage between sterile people, sex after menopause, and the acceptance of birth control, including the so-called rhythm method – all tacitly accept the autonomous love-relational purpose of sex.

Once one has accepted any non-procreative sex to be moral for heterosexuals, one can no longer define homosexuality as immoral because it is non-procreative. One cannot even say that homosexuals avoid the responsibility to raise children, since celibates also do not raise children, while many homosexuals are raising natural or adopted children. Once one has accepted the understanding of humanity in which men and women are complex psychological wholes, not stereotypic opposites, and that the goodness of relationship lies in mutual support of the wholeness of each, not the mutual deficiency of masculine-feminine interdependence, then the difference between loving and bonding with someone of the same sex as yourself or someone of the other sex can no longer be rigidly distinguished. Both are relationships with another person, with all the complex problems of developing a healthy mutuality, rather than pathological dependency and exploitive misuse of each other. (Incomplete or immature sexual relationships almost always result in the perceived exploitative use of one person by the other.)

There has emerged among Catholic moral theologians in the last twenty years a comprehensive effort to revise the traditional Catholic view of sexuality, although these moral theologians are currently very much under fire from the Vatican, which recognizes that its system of social and ecclesiastical control rests on the older definition of sexual sin. The Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) report Human Sexuality, published in 1977 represents this alternative tradition of Catholic moral theology. The starting point of the moral system developed in this report is that sexual morality or immorality is an expression of moral or immoral human relationality. Relationships are moral when they are mutual, supportive of the full personal growth of each person, committed, and faithful. Relations are immoral when they are abusive, violent, exploitive, keep people in truncated stages of development, and lead to lying, deceit, and betrayal.

This norm of sexual morality, based on moral relationality, eliminates the neat boundaries between moral and immoral sex defined by heterosexual marriage and procreation. Such a norm makes for much stricter judgments about sexual morality in some cases. Much of the sexuality promoted in patriarchal marriage, which, for example, saw the husband as having a right to force his wife to have sex with him, would be regarded as immoral by such a standard. What is moral or immoral sexually becomes more a question of a scale of values than of clear boundaries. No one achieves perfectly mutual love, and perhaps few relationships are totally evil. Rather, such a norm promotes a developmental goal. We are to grow toward healthy, loving, mutual, and faithful relationships, away from abusive and dishonest ones. The morality of homosexual or heterosexual relations is judged by the same standard, rather than by different standards. (These concepts surrounding relational notions of moral sexuality are critical for the raising of healthy children.)

*********************************************

 There is one line in these paragraphs which speak volumes about how difficult it is going to be to ever effect serious reform in the hierarchical structure of the Church.  I have it in red, in italics, and bold.  It is this line:
although these theologians are currently very much under fire from the Vatican, which recognizes that its system of social and ecclesiastical control rests on the older definition of sexual sin.

When an institution controls the bedroom, and they do it through a system of sin which places sex in a very much inferior position relative to their own supposed sexless selves, they have a great deal of power if their followers believe it.  This is why Archbishop Chaput can truthfully say that gay marriage is the single most important issue of his time.  Gay marriage is based on a relational concept of sexual morality and as such it undercuts the entire thinking that places sexless celibate males closer to heaven than the rutting laity. Gay marriage is a critical and actually nuclear issue for the Vatican.  They must fight it for the very survival of their entire claim to sole authority.  Their own complicity in covering up their own sexual abuse is very much tied to the notion that their virginal sexless being validates their sacerdotal power.  They are holy almost strictly because they do not engage in sex, not because of any other activity like actually doing what Jesus did, or living the Way as Jesus taught it.   It's much easier to refrain from sex, or pretend that's the case, than it is to actually live and do as Jesus did.

This will be a very long battle and we have only begun to fight it---and the Vatican is and will continue to fight back.  It won't be enough for 90% of the laity to reject Humanae Vitae or +60%  to accept gay marriage.  It will take a significant portion of our priests and bishops to stand up and affirm the relational qualities of sexuality and reject the authority they have over laity on the basis of their having rejected sex.  Spiritually healthy sex isn't about biological sex, it's about affirming a committed loving relationship.  Until we get that notion down, we won't ever be able to integrate our sexuality with our spirituality.  

23 comments:

  1. The phrasing of Rosemary Radford Ruether surely seems inspired. I look forward to read more of her work in these times that there are so many who are censored. Seems that most works that challenge our minds and understanding are censored by those who profess to be “orthodox,” or conservative. dennis

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  2. Now THIS is a "theology of the body"! Will most definitely be sharing this with other student members in our now FOCUS controlled campus ministry...

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  3. Pardon my blunt nature but...

    Please explain to me why intelligent and educated adults should listen to the 'advice and counsel' of a caste whose principal qualifications on the matter is that they have never done any of the things they are giving 'advice and counsel' about?

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  4. The Augustinian tradition is firmly rooted in Manichean beliefs. Mani taught that there were 2 gods of equal power: one good, one evil. The good God created spiritual reality, the evil one created physical reality. Therefore everything in the physical world, which you can perceive with your senses, is evil. Sex, therefore, became dirty and nasty, and those leading a celibate life (or pretending to) were superior to those who did not. That's why so many people were ticked off by that picture of Joseph and Mary since it implied that they had a sexual relationship in their marriage. Our Blessed Lady would never do anything that yucky!

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  5. Thanks for bringing Rosemary Radford Ruether's work to our attention.

    Scientific evidence shows Catholics behave in the same way as the rest of the population regarding use of contraception and yes, unfortunately in my opinion, even abortion. Based upon studies by Pew and others, the rejection rate of the Church teachings on sexuality is more like 97%. HV has been a complete disaster for the church.

    Canada recognized same sex marriage in 2005. Canadian experience would suggest that Chaput is wrong. After a while there will be acceptance in the general population. Eventually it will be no big deal, probably about the same time the first same sex marriage divorces clear the courts.

    On the other issues I think RRR is absolutely right.

    p2p

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  6. Well said, Tim. Going to my parish priest for counseling on marriage/children issues would not likely be on MY radar. Not only because they have no experience about those issues, but because priests rarely receive training in the area of counseling!! Would you go to your priest if you were physically ill and in need of a doctor? Then why would you go to him for counseling matters?--Linda G.

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  7. Lest we forget THE SEXUAL PERSON: TOWARD A RENEWED CATHOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
    By Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler

    http://ncronline.org/node/3205

    I have read this book and it is also excellent. dennis

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  8. Speaking of theologians under fire:
    Others who read the Salzman-Lawler book included the USCCB Committee on Doctrine under then-Abp. Wuerl in 2010. They issued a press release and scathing 24-page rebuke on "Inadequacies In The Theological Methodology And Conclusions". The bishops declared in their conclusion: "The efforts of theologians, however, can only bear fruit if they are in fact carried on within a hermeneutic of continuity and in the framework provided by the Catholic theological tradition and the teaching of the Church."

    This was shortly after declaring "The issues treated in The Sexual Person are indeed vital matters for the life of the Church in our time. They should be thoroughly studied and discussed by theologians as part of their service to the Church and to society." Sounds like a narrow, winding road for theologians to stay on.
    http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2010/10-165.shtml
    http://www.usccb.org/doctrine/Sexual_Person_2010-09-15.pdf

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  9. Having gone to this link in the article:

    http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2011/08/vatican-accuses-enda-kenny-of-attacking.html

    - I thought it was bad; not what Kenny said, but the attempts to discredit him.

    "One high-ranking cleric told a newspaper that the Irish government, officially bankrupt and the recipient of a controversial EU-IMF bail-out, might be seeking to distract public opinion from economic woes.

    Some Irish priests have reacted furiously to Mr Kenny's speech.

    In an article headlined "Heil Herr Kenny" Father Thomas Daly, a priest in County Louth, compared the Irish prime minister to the Nazis.

    "The last European leader to make such a blistering attack on the Pope was the ruthless German dictator Adolf Hitler," he wrote in a parish newsletter last weekend."

    ## That is very unwise logic. If Kenny can have an ulterior motive for attacking the Vatican - why should not the Vatican have an ulterior motive for what it teaches ? Why should Enda Kenny have a monopoly on such *agenda* ?

    At least there is evidence for theevil intentions of the Vatican, in its flailing to blacken the names of others while denying its own responsibility. If it stoops to using poisoned weapons, it cannot complain if they are used against it. That is the problem with its adoption of a totally anti-Christian ethical POV.

    What is not addressed, is the possibility that the Pope deserves to be castigated.

    For a sensible & Christian comment on recent affairs im Ireland, this is hard to improve on:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jul/29/vatican-child-abuse-row-ireland?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

    -------------------
    See also this:

    http://mumbailaity.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/im-sorry-for-saying-kenny-is-like-hitler/

    -------------------

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  10. A few days ago a commenter referred to what he or she thinks is the unchanging nature of church doctrine. It is an error to think of church doctrine this way. I made reference to the case of Galileo Galilei.

    At the time Galileo made his discovery that the movements of the planets were heliocentric he immediately realized such a discovery would be considered heretical. After all, there are many references in the scriptures that indicate a geocentric universe. Galileo suppressed his discovery for years, even when he had the protection of the pope. To no avail. He was tried and sentenced, his works suppressed.

    By 1758 Galileo's books were no longer forbidden. Even so in 1990 the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Ratzinger, could not bring himself to admit the error of the church's teachings. (As late as 2008 Ratzinger's planned visit to La Sapienza University was protested for his 1990 remarks) JP2 was more generous.

    In 1992 he said: "Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture..." In 2000 JP2 asked forgiveness on behalf of all the errors made by Catholics in the past 2000 years, specifically referencing Galileo.

    Today's Vatican carries on the tradition of those medieval popes not knowing what to do with science, or in this case, advancements in knowledge having to do with psychology and the other social sciences. They can't even deal with advances in theology. They are stuck in the past. The "orthodox" long for pre-vatican days. One commenter here seems to long for pre-Reformation days. The cardinals themselves seem to long for a simpler time, pre-Genesis, really.

    Those damn women, temptresses all, encouraging Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

    Like most other faithful Catholics in the laity I can't wait so long for the errors of the present Vatican to be realized and eventually corrected. Do they have so little faith that they do not realize revelations take place even today?

    p2p

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  11. Paul, I'm pretty sure it's more about fear than faith.

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  12. @Linda G.
    Priests are trained thus, it's part of the training at seminary.

    @P2P.
    Galileo Galilei was not simply arrested for his scientific views, but because he consistently set himself against the Church and persisted in publishing slanderous works directed against individuals. Whether one agrees with that decision or not, the situation is very different from the one you paint.
    It was only after his placement under house arrest that he published his great work, the Two New Sciences, a book finally free of the slanderous vitriol of his earlier works.
    Right or wrong to have arrested him, it's not as you say it is.

    @Colkoch.
    "When an institution controls the bedroom(1), and they do it through a system of sin which places sex in a very much inferior position relative to their own supposed sexless selves(2), they have a great deal of power if their followers believe it. This is why Archbishop Chaput can truthfully say that gay marriage is the single most important issue of his time. Gay marriage is based on a relational concept of sexual morality and as such it undercuts the entire thinking that places sexless celibate males closer to heaven than the rutting laity(2). Gay marriage is a critical and actually nuclear issue for the Vatican. They must fight it for the very survival of their entire claim to sole authority(3). Their own complicity in covering up their own sexual abuse is very much tied to the notion that their virginal sexless being validates their sacerdotal power(4). They are holy almost strictly because they do not engage in sex(4), not because of any other activity like actually doing what Jesus did(4), or living the Way as Jesus taught it(4). It's much easier to refrain from sex, or pretend that's the case, than it is to actually live and do as Jesus did."

    "Spiritually healthy sex isn't about biological sex, it's about affirming a committed loving relationship(5). Until we get that notion down, we won't ever be able to integrate our sexuality with our spirituality."

    Hold your horses! There's a great risk of misunderstanding in reading this post.

    i. The Church is more than just an 'institution', and it cannot control anything at all - in the sense you suggest. It can do nothing to prevent people doing what they want, it accepts this, and without this the notion of free-will (and individual responsibility) would collapse...however these principles inhere in Catholic doctrine, and form much of Church teaching.
    ii. Nor does celibacy ensure greater holiness, and - more pertinently - the Church does not teach this. Search the Catechism, and you will find nothing there, nor in any Papal Encyclical. As you blog such opinions, I'd encourage you to research this, so as to avoid slandering the Church in future.
    iii. The sole authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals arises from the word of Christ, not from celibacy. Clerical celibacy is simply a tradition, not a dogma, hence the freedom (accepted even by so-called 'traditionalists') to ordain married Anglican ministers into the Ordinariate. If authority arose from celibacy, that would be unthinkable.
    iv. Personal conduct doesn't remove the sacerdotal state of the ordained, though it does cause many other great and pressing problems. Nonetheless, the angle you take here seems to have been rejected along with Pelagianism. Not, I think, relevant.
    v. And yet for all the confusion above, your conclusion is acceptable. More, it is affirmed by the Church in its social teaching, and in the Catechism.

    Though this begs the question...with that conclusion affirmed by the church in practice, in advice, and in black and white letters on paper...why do you indulge in agressive speech against the Church with "This will be a very long battle and we have only begun to fight it---and the Vatican is and will continue to fight back."?

    That, I think, is the most important question here. The elephant in the room perhaps?

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  13. @invictus

    Galileo realized his work would put him in conflict with the church. Before the issue of heliocentrism there was his scientific proof that contradicted Aristotelian physics (e.g. heavier bodies do not fall faster) That alone would make him an enemy of the Dominicans and somewhat on the side of the Jesuits. So there was some previous politically heated debate prior to his arrival on the scene.

    However, you have made a claim that really needs some documentation. Do you think it is Galileo's use of a dullard named "Simplicio" to represent one side of the dialog that got him in all that trouble? Vitriol and slander are not heresy. He was using a rhetorical device that was popular in his time. It didn't win him any Dominican friends, true.

    Come on. Get real. Don't use Catholic Answers either. http://www.catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp We are not talking about infallibility as that slippery document implies. Even in that "Nihil Obstat" article from 2004 the author attempts to say that the church was righter than the rightness of the Galileo because he made mistakes.

    At the time of Galileo the popes and theologians were committed to a literal interpretation of scripture as a matter of doctrine. Just raising the possibility that this might not be true was heretical. And as you well know many people were executed for heresy.

    To return to Colleen's topic for a moment, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has an international award named for one of those victims of the Catholic Inquisition. That woman was tried and executed for sodomy.

    Invictus you want to return to those days, pre-Reformation. That's clearly what you long for, a state that is submissive to the Church, where the laws never change. For you it is all about rules/canon law/ and authority/magisterium.

    Let's check in with Jesus:

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew22.htm

    "34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
    35 and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking,
    36"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
    37 He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
    38 This is the greatest and the first commandment.
    39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
    40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."


    p2p

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  14. @P2P.

    " That alone would make him an enemy of the Dominicans and somewhat on the side of the Jesuits."

    I'm pretty sure it was a Jesuit who he was mocking, but heigh ho.

    (No, I'm not taking the bait of your desperate straw-man.)

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  15. @Invictus,

    Bring the facts, not the funny.

    Simplicio was based upon the characters of two of his fierce lay critics, Ludovico delle Colombe and Cesare Cremonini (who famously refused to look through Galileo's telescope).

    Here's the wiki, but there are thousands of other references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems

    On the issue of Dominicans and Jesuits:

    "There are records of the activity of Galileo’s enemies from 1610 until the end of his life. Ludovico delle Colombe, a Florentine of which very little is known, was the head of a group that very early tried to fight Galileo on scientific grounds, using also for the first time against him arguments taken from the Scriptures. Other important opponents were the Dominicans Niccolò Lorini and Tommaso Caccini: Lorini denounced Galileo to the Holy See in 1614, and Caccini, who had preached against Galileo from the pulpit in Florence, went to Rome to support the denunciation. Caccini continued to conspire against Galileo in the years following the condemnation of Copernicanism in 1616. Afterwards two Jesuits must be named, Christopher Scheiner and Orazio Grassi. Only, in these cases it was Galileo who agitated the waters, provoking unnecessary polemics that spoiled the excellent relationship entertained by Galileo with the Jesuits before."

    http://www.unav.es/cryf/newlightongalileo.html

    Why just guess, when you can know? If I make a claim, other than opinion, I am always able to provide references and sources. I expect the same of you. I am not kidding.

    Whether the bible is to be interpreted literally, or not, is a matter of doctrine. Sorry that you could not bring yourself to address any of my points.

    The medieval popes were wrong. The inquisition was wrong. That's the problem with putting the institution first. They ignored St. Augustine of Hippo:

    “It often happens that even a non-Christian knows a thing or two about the earth, the sky, the various elements of the world, about the movement and revolution of the stars and even their size and distance, about the nature of animals, shrubs, rocks, and the like, and maintains this knowledge with sure reason and experience. It is offensive and ruinous, something to be avoided at all cost, for a nonbeliever to hear a Christian talking about these things as though with Christian writings as his source, and yet so nonsensically and with such obvious error that the nonbeliever can hardly keep from laughing."

    From: (I Tim. 1:7) – St. Augustine in The Literal Meaning of Genesis (Probably the most quoted part in modern day. There's more but comments have limits.

    p2p

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  16. Invictus88,

    Perhaps the real straw man was copernicus who was so frightened of Rome that he only published on his death bead.

    "Galileo Galilei was not simply arrested for his scientific views, but because he consistently set himself against the Church and persisted in publishing slanderous works directed against individuals"

    Inviticus when any one makes great discoveries, they usually need to confront others with truth. Galileo certainly did write about what was incorrectly believed by others. This was hardly slanderous it was the only way he could confront those that believed they were omniscient.

    Kind of reminds me of the stem cell debates of today. Many in the RCC claim to have science on their side yet for a scientist to become a member of the Vatican Academy of Sciences, he or she must already profess the church belief, rightly or wrongly. This leaves no room for growth and development. The preponderance of scientists that work in the field of embryology do not see the facts as does the Catholic Magisterium. Yes and these scientists also have the great Galileo to thank for the scientific method that they use. The Magisterium on the other hand performs no experiments that can be pier reviewed. So interesting that again the church claims omniscience rather than to use reason and pier reviewed scientific results.
    R. Dennis Porch, MD

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  17. Personally I think this is an invigorating conversation and want to thank the participants--especially Invictus.

    I rarely write about my own mystic visions because part of my reason for receiving these visions is to put them in context of scientific knowledge, and that has proven to be a difficult task in terms of trying to translate analogical/metaphorical knowledge into an analytical framework.

    Anyway, one vision I had with great clarity had to do with what made this reality so damn important that God would send His Son. Again, you have to understand I'm thinking on multiple levels. I was given to understand the material universe existed so God could explore the sense of touch and taste. Taste is a corollary sense of touch. It's a two for one reality so to speak.

    This has profoundly changed my understanding of sex. Sex is touch at it'd most vulnerable and intimate. It is the most profound opening to relationship. It's probably why this moment results in procreation, biologically speaking, but emotionally speaking, it is profound. It is also nothing to be trivialized or codified in some superficial sense. We make far more than physical connections through sexual activity. We make life long energy connections--not all of them good by any means. I could write a book on the not good energy connections. I'll only say this much for this comment. Clerical abuse victims describe the results of their sexual connection as 'soul murder'. That's because it is.

    I could write way more on this, but tonight I'm too tired. Maybe tomorrow.

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  18. I do not believe a priest is a fully trained and qualified counselor. While they may have a class or two on pastoral care, that does not qualify them to counsel people on marriage issues, addictions, or anything else that would require a counselor with a DEGREE in counseling.--Linda G.

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  19. Linda,

    You are very correct. Many celibate priests who attempt counseling of any kind, but especially marriage counseling are preforming akin to what medical doctors call malpractice. In fact they could and should be sued in some cases for practicing without a license.

    There are other priests such as Richard Sipe who trained in marriage and family counseling many years ago. Most good priests will simply tell a person to see a professional. dennis

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  20. What is so odd is that the ideal Catholic Family is made up of:

    1. A husband & wife who do not have children
    2. A Child Who is the son of the mother, but not of her husband
    3. A mother who has only that one Child
    4. No siblings of the Child.

    This, AFAIK, would make the Holy Family exactly what a Catholic family is meant *not* to be.

    The HF would be a splendid model for gay families. No wonder the CC is so pro-gay. Oh, wait...

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  21. I feel compelled to add my two cents on this side track about priest vs counselors. I have met way too many counselors whose degrees only covered up their own unresolved dysfunction, and I've met a couple of priests whose wisdom was worth it's weight in counseling gold.

    The real issue is whether there is a difference between secular counseling and spiritual healing. I happen to think there is, although both are parts of each other, and very few in either profession have a clue about how spiritual healing fits into the overall scheme of things.

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  22. @Invictus:

    "Clerical celibacy is simply a tradition, not a dogma, hence the freedom (accepted even by so-called 'traditionalists') to ordain married Anglican ministers into the Ordinariate. If authority arose from celibacy, that would be unthinkable."

    ## That's the theory, yes. But in practice, the Vatican fights for clerical celibacy - not, alas, for clerical continence - as though clerical celibacy were a dogma. As though, forsooth, forbidding clerics to be married,could make them chaste or continent !

    Times beyond number, the Vatican's own supporters have spoken only of celibacy - not of continence as well. An incontinent celibate cleric is more than capable of committing the evils which were hidden by the bishops, and are now racking the Church. Clerical incontinence is one of the roots of the evil - insisting upon clerical celibacy will do absolutely nothing to amend it.

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  23. Colleen,

    It is very true that there are many levels of training in therapy and that many therapists are not open to spirituality. That said, there are also many extremely well trained therapists. In that training many reach levels of spirituality that may have little to do with religious denominations. Most analysts that I have been involved with are very well acquainted with many or even most of the worlds myths. Myths are often the key to the unconscious. I would not undersell them in helping a person develop from their unconsciousness a spirituality that is very much like what Jesus Christ was speaking about.

    Most priests, except those well trained in therapy, do not practice (real) therapy. It is true that some may be spiritual people but when it comes to really helping a person examine their unconscious problems of the soul, they usually fall very short as they are mostly not trained to do this. While it is true that there are some people more able to become therapists than others, this profession is one of training not of innate ability. Psychoanalysts, for instance, have there own training analysis for five or more years and this is after a MD and psychiatric residency or a person is a PhD in Psychology or at least an MS in social work. There are those that begin with Masters in Counseling but most of these people must earn a PhD along with their training analysis.

    There are wonderful priests and shamans that are able to help a person center and even find spiritual pathways, and even show the way to spiritual experiences, these people who are good at what they do but they certainly know their limitations. This would be true of a good therapist that can not lead a person on a "vision quest," but can on the other hand help them discover what that quest unconsciously really means to their life.

    All of that said most priests are not shamans or even men that lead people to spirituality. They are far too busy for that. Many priests are called to intervene in serious marital and personal problems and they just are less prepared than those that are trained and in many cases are really practicing a medical subspecialty without licensure.

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