Wednesday, April 26, 2023

celibacy, continence, chastity

One thing I appreciate about the USCCB's Program for Priestly Formation, 6th edition is the emphasis on the virtue of chastity. The virtue was covered in the PPF 5, but there seems to be a slightly stronger focus in the PPF 6, if the number of times the term appears is any indication (14 in the PPF 5 and 32 in the PPF 6). 

Celibacy simply means not being married. Continence is avoiding sexual intercourse. Both of these are exterior conditions that do not require an interior regulation and transformation of the sexual powers.

I'm thinking of the recent heated discussion between Matt Fradd and Dennis Prager about masturbation and pornography. Prager's position is explicitly that morality is exclusively concerned with behavior. Lust and sexual desire are simply the same and that Jesus was wrong that a man can commit adultery in the heart. Fradd, on the other hand, considers the interior entertainment of a lustful impulse involving a person to whom one is not married to be in itself sinful. This, of course, is classic Catholic spiritual doctrine. One needs to cultivate the virtue of viewing the person to whom one is sexually attracted as a person made in the image and likeness of God with a dignity and destiny that would be derailed if he or she were to engage in a behavior that fulfilled your sexual desire. Not to mention your own soul! He or she is destined for something better and greater--the fulfillment of their sexual nature either in chaste marital embrace ordered to fruitfulness, or celibate chastity, which transforms the energies of the sexual desire into a spiritual fruitfulness. 

Archdeacon Claude Frollo could have used a little formation in celibate chastity! He could have learned a thing or two from Quasimodo. I would say that his seminary should have followed the PPF 6, although there were no seminaries in the 15th century.

No comments: