A brilliant jewel: sex, celibacy, and the Roman Catholic Church
As clerical sexual abuse scandals hit the news and the crisis of vocations worsens each year, debate about the merits of mandatory clerical celibacy continues to grow. The fact remains, however, that supposedly celibate priests have been sexually active in significant numbers throughout history and...
| Published in: | Religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
[2019]
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| In: |
Religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Catholic church
/ Sexuality
/ Celibacy
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CB Christian life; spirituality KDB Roman Catholic Church NCF Sexual ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Celibacy
B Ethics B Priesthood B Catholic Church B Christianity B Institutions B Discipline B Masks |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | As clerical sexual abuse scandals hit the news and the crisis of vocations worsens each year, debate about the merits of mandatory clerical celibacy continues to grow. The fact remains, however, that supposedly celibate priests have been sexually active in significant numbers throughout history and that their sexual activity has barely affected the power of the Church. In this article, I focus on the everyday' nature of sexual incontinence' among a group of Northeast Brazilian priests and analyse the relative systematicity with which vow-breaking is accommodated. Such systematicity, I suggest, reveals an ongoing stable-instability at the heart of the Church as an institution; a dynamic which, if better understood, can help to explain the most characteristic (but often overlooked) feature of institutions more generally: their impressive longevity. |
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| ISSN: | 1096-1151 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2018.1525774 |