Sexuality, Celibacy and the Religious Quest

Keynote address delivered at the

Second National Gathering of Catholic Psychologists and Counsellors

New Delhi, September 29, 2001

“We are fired into life with a madness that comes from the gods and which would have us believe that we can have a great love, perpetuate our seed, and contemplate the divine.” It is with this paraphrase of one of Plato’s sayings that Ronald Rolheiser opens book on Christian spirituality. The contents of his very first chapter, entitled: “What Is Spirituality?” are not what most of us might expect. It is an analysis of desire. Spirituality, Rolheiser explains, is about our inner fire, our deepest longings. (Rolheiser, 3-5).

We are talking about two inner fires today—our sexuality, with all its myriad expressions and ambiguities, pushes us towards the other, and the Other Fire which religion is supposed to mediate—the push towards the Invisible Lover. Sexuality would be cheap (less than human) if it stops with sex, and religion would be emptied of its heart if it disregards the body and our sexual nature.

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I am tempted to start from the end. If we were to have a look at the list of books and articles I have used in preparing this paper, we would get some idea of the topics and issues that are being discussed today in the areas of sexuality, celibacy and their interface with religion/spirituality. The issues are central, the publications many and gripping, the debates many-hued. You will, perhaps, have a look at the readings at the end.

This paper is not only or mostly on my readings. The concerns expressed here, as well as the contents, stem from my experience—my own search as a celibate religious and priest, the struggles and solutions close friends have shared with me, the touching breakthroughs I have witnessed in counseling and spiritual direction (including group therapy), the intense anger and discouragement generated by cases of child sexual abuse, the lack of satisfactory answers in many cases.

Let us take the three points of this paper in order, namely, sexuality, celibacy and the religious quest. We begin with the first.