LIVING A CELIBATE LIFE
Dr. Paul M. Midden
(Adapted from a presentation given to diocesan clergy)

Much has been written about the ins and outs of living a celibate life. Such material comes from a variety of sources: mental health workers who work with clergy; spiritual directors who companion those in the consecrated life; and those charged with formation. All of these are valid sources of information about a complicated and personal issue.

This article is about some of the psychological and emotional factors involved in living a celibate life, especially as those appear in the lives of men and women who present themselves for treatment. It is not based upon a theory as much as it is based upon our experience working with men in treatment who have had trouble living their celibate commitments happily or safely, or more sadly, who live the life with no real joy.

In our experience, there are six features that are present in a successfully integrated celibate priest. These are:

1) A personal center; 2) insight about one’s own needs; 3) sexual awareness; 4) emotional skills; 5) a solid social network; and 6) clarity about one’s vocation.

A personal center refers to a personal recognition of who the person is. It is an identity that a person recognizes and claims as his own. It is based upon an internal sense of self and involves what psychologists call an ‘internal locus of control’. For a priest, this includes the awareness of his personal identity as a celibate. It is not what his mother, father, siblings, pastor, friends, relatives, or other people think. It is his identity, his vocation.

To maintain this personal center, three things are required: a strong commitment to priesthood, a good understanding of how celibacy undergirds that commitment; and a strong prayer life. These are not optional.

Many men want to be priests and accept celibacy as a condition of entry, as a necessary but perhaps not so desirable part of the package. Certainly for men in treatment, this is not enough. One of the things that makes Catholic clergy different from other denominational ministers is that it is a celibate fraternity. Here theology and understanding matter. Call it 'eschatological witness' or whatever you want, but a celibate life must make sense to the person living it just as a sexual life must make sense to married people. Sex is not just something people do because they are married; it defines a type of intimacy which is intrinsic to the relationship. Similarly, sexual abstinence is not just something one does because he is a priest; it is intrinsic to the state. In the absence of clarity about this, it is easy to find oneself challenged and wondering about its value when the going gets rough, as it invariably does. A priest must be able to come home to this personal understanding of his celibate vocation.

Every writer on the topic of celibacy emphasizes the importance of prayer in living a sexually abstinent life, and rightly so. There are many reasons for this rooted in the theology and spirituality of priesthood, yet even on a simple psychological level, prayer is very useful: it keeps one centered; it feeds one’s life; it is one’s part in one’s relationship with God. It is not optional. By the time most people get to treatment, they do not have a prayer life and have not done any praying outside of liturgy for years. This is no coincidence.

The second feature is insight regarding personal needs.

In the assessment procedure used at the Consultation Center when a man first comes for evaluation, one of the most common findings is a high score on a scale called succorance. This means that people long for other people to pay attention to them, to listen and understand them, and to show care and concern for them. The reasons these scores are so high--and so consistently high--is that these simple needs are being frustrated and unmet. This finding suggests that the man in question feels neglected and misunderstood.

Why is this?

Often priests are very attuned to the feelings and needs of others while neglecting their own. They are other-directed, as they should be, but to the point of neglect of self.

In formation, service to others is emphasized, as is appropriate in preparation for pastoral ministry. Self-care, however, tends not to be esteemed or taught with the same enthusiasm. Even if it were, one's needs shift over time, and the task of knowing one’s needs is ongoing throughout life.

One of the inescapable facts of life on this planet is that our emotional life, like much of the rest of our life, is our responsibility. On an emotional level, this means that it is the task of each of us to identify those things that we need to thrive and grow. Starting when we are small, however, and continuing through formation, the louder and more consistent messages we hear are "Be nice. Think of the other person. Don’t be selfish." As adults, we often feel vaguely or even acutely guilty about putting any priority on our own needs. Many people feel guilty about having needs at all much less acting on them. Setting limits or carving out and protecting time for self can feel uncomfortable if not completely foreign. When people are launched into ministry and conflicts occur stressors begin piling up, and they most need attention, what do many men often do? Work harder. Subtract time from themselves. Stop talking about themselves.

Sadly, when men begin spiraling downward into depression, anxiety, or compulsive behavior, they do just that: they turn away from themselves, they minimize their distress, and they try to focus on other people. This often provides an immediate sense of relief and makes some sense in terms of service, but if it continues over time, it makes any clinical condition worse. It is important to take one’s self into account, and it is more important to do this when in distress.

So what does this mean, taking one’s self into account? What does a celibate priest need to function best?

For the most part, what everyone needs: affection and warmth, a sense of connectedness, individual attention, an honest relationship, a sense of belonging, a sense of being important, of mattering. These are things that everyone needs.

Individuals may have particular needs, such as being creative, being musical, needs for solitude, certain types of prayer, reflection, challenge. If a person does not know what it is that he needs to thrive and grow, it is time to find out, to explore. This cannot be foisted upon the self. Each person must discover his own needs in the real world. There is no exception to the task of identifying those things in life which we need to be happy.

This business of getting one’s needs met often gets bad press. Sometimes people return from treatment acting as if their needs are their only concern. They may demand that others meet whatever needs they believe they have. This is not mature responsibility for one’s life; this is hostage-taking.

One of the principal needs adults have is for integrity. Being what one claims to be. One of the reasons sexual behavior is so damaging to a celibate’s mental health is that is runs counter to the identity-based value; it involves a surrender of integrity. Once this happens, it is very difficult for a man to be happy. Integrity can be restored only when one returns to the state of being who he says he is.

The third feature present in a successfully integrated celibate priest is sexual awareness.

Sex is hard to talk about for most men and for celibate men in particular. But ignoring it, as with ignoring one’s needs, leads to trouble.

Just as for all humans, it is important for celibates to make a place in their lives for sexuality, that is, to recognize that we are all sexual even though some of us are celibate, and consequently, sexual feelings affect us.

Three things are essential in the area of sexuality:

1) To recognize that we have sexual responses. Our bodies are incarnate, so in our lives, whether we want to or not, we will have sexual responses. It is important to recognize that we have them and when we have them. This leads to:

2) An attraction profile. This is a description of the type of person to whom we are drawn sexually. It includes sexual orientation as well as the specific types of people to whom we are attracted, the type of personality; the type of activity; the types of circumstances. This is part of knowing oneself as a sexually aware member of the species.

It is very important to examine our attraction profiles in a compassionate and accepting way. This is not about shame; it is about knowing ourselves in specific ways. Even today, men in general are not taught how to address the specifics of sex with openness, candor, and respect. Both shame and locker room humor still have an enormous impact on how most men deal with sexual issues. Healthy celibate priests cannot afford this.

3) It is important to understand the role and importance of warm and reciprocal relationships in one’s life, especially as these support a celibate commitment. Being celibate does not mean being cut off from human relationships. Being celibate does not mean being lonely. Being celibate does not mean being miserable. Humans crave warm connections, and so do celibate priests. Warm connections are built on emotional candor and availability, not on political or intellectual discourse, as interesting as that might be; and they are a necessary condition of any intimate or close relationship.

When these three things are ignored, unfortunate situations arise, such as when people in midcareer or later remain uncertain or afraid of facing their own sexual orientation, something they did not choose and something about which they continue to feel shame. It is surprising how many men, for example, have histories of exclusively homosexual attractions and even behavior and still claim to be heterosexual. Maintaining those kinds of contradictions takes energy and involves an ongoing distortion of reality. This process weakens one’s grasp of the obvious. It lays the groundwork for sexual feelings creeping into one’s behavior in ways one does not see. In sexually tinged comments, for instance, or in intolerance of others who are more emotionally available or more sexually secure.

Recognizing an attraction profile can be a delicate matter when it includes children or teenagers. But it is not safe to avoid recognizing such attractions; avoidance simply makes it more likely that a person will engage in at least questionable behavior.

It is critically important to recognize that awareness of sexuality is not the same as simply talking about it or reading a book about it. Many men have an intellectual understanding of how humans function sexually. The critical part is recognizing and dealing with the attendant feelings, whether these are shame, excitement, fear, frustration, or something else.

The fourth feature is emotional skill, which refers to the skills to identify the specific ways emotional states impact a person’s life and the development of safe and healthy ways of addressing emotional needs.

If a person is going to have supportive relationships and is going to navigate his sexuality successfully, he must deal with his feelings. Psychologists and therapists are forever talking about this, but it is hard to underestimate the importance of this process. Sexuality is about emotional responses and how these fit into one’s life; it is not about bloodless theory.

Each of us has responsibility for our emotional lives. This is something we cannot avoid or sidestep. It requires the ability to identify feelings and emotions, to express these appropriately, and to take responsibility for them. Three feelings seem to be routinely problematic for clergy:

Anger is particularly difficult for those involved in public ministry, where it is often inappropriate to express anger toward those whom one is serving. Not to have any place in one’s life to talk about such feelings, however, is dangerous. Recent research has shown that the single subscale on the MMPI--a test commonly given to clergy and religious--that reveals denial among members of the clergy is ‘Overcontrolled Hostility’. This is just what it suggests: it is so common among clergy to overcontrol feelings of anger that statistically it differentiates clergy as a group from the general population.

Why is anger so difficult for members of the clergy? That question actually has as many answers as there are priests. We do know, however, some of the beliefs that priests have about anger. Here are some of the most familiar: "My anger is not justified. Anger is a sin. It’s not nice. It will hurt a relationship. I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it."

The truth is that, justified or not, anger is a common, everyday human emotion. To avoid it or suppress it or try to pretend one does not feel it leads to many other problems. Avoidance of anger makes depression worse; it feeds compulsive behavior; and it hurts relationships.

Like any feeling, if we do not deal with our anger, it will deal with us and surface in our lives in ways we do not see or understand. To practice dealing with anger in a straightforward, honest, assertive way is to find a key skill in managing one's emotional and sexual life.

The second feeling is disappointment. As we go through life, we generally find that the hopes and aspirations we had earlier do not play out in the idealized way we thought they would. Disappointment is built into the process of life. "Once I get ordained and get an assignment, everything will be smooth sailing." Almost everyone thinks this on some level and almost everyone finds out that it is not true. If disappointments cannot be faced on an ongoing basis and the loss of one’s idealizations cannot be grieved, then one is truly stuck trying to hold onto something that is not there but pretending that it is.

Grief is an emotional imperative, a necessity in life. Grief means the actual, invariably tear-filled acknowledgement of loss, of surrender to an unchangeable reality, whether that be death, failure, or some other thing that is impossible to change. Priests often feel it when they change parishes where they have been for many years, or like most people, when they try to help someone who turns away or when they run into their own limitations.

Recognizing this intellectually does not suffice. Addressing disappointment on an emotional level with the attendant turmoil is the only way to work through disappointments and let past losses have less power.

The fifth feature is a solid social network.

Priests need friends, people with whom to share their experiences. It is great when friends can be other priests because there is a lot of common ground built into that equation. Support groups and regular contact in person or by phone or email or instant messaging is wonderful. If other priests are not available, however, other humans will do. The need is to develop a network of people--that means more than one person--with whom one can engage in recreational activities, with whom one can relate and comfortably be with. It needs to include at least one person with whom one feels completely safe to share the details of one’s life, be that a friend, a spiritual director, a relative, a therapist. It is highly unlikely that a celibate man will be happy without friends.

Oddly, it is easy to neglect building a social network. It is easy to be too busy or to shuffle between too much exposure to parishioners and aloneness. How many men close the door with relief after interacting with so many people all day and then open the office the next day with equal relief because they will not have to be alone? Some solitariness cannot be avoided in celibate priesthood, especially as fewer priests staff the same or growing number of parishes, but it does not have to mean loneliness or disconnectedness from others. Solitude and work are critical to the life of a priest; friends are also critical to the life of a priest.

The sixth feature recognizable in a successfully integrated celibate priest is clarity about vocation. This means that it is important to recognize the unique situation of a celibate Catholic priest and to recognize personal responsibility as a minister to maintain appropriate boundaries.

One of the main stressors of public ministry is living in a fishbowl. People watch priests and watch what they do. This fact cannot be ignored; nor can the fact that living in a fishbowl is often stressful and that it takes a toll on the person at the head of the congregation. Another factor is that the behavior of a priest is held to a higher standard than that of most other people, and that is something to keep in the forefront of one’s awareness. These things are stressful but come with ministry, just as other professions have their unique stressors.

This touches upon the issue of boundaries. In almost any given situation, boundaries are the responsibility of the priest to keep. Often men will complain that they were seduced, and sometimes they are. Some men have said this about women; some have said it about other men; some have said it about children. It does not matter how seductive other people are. In any interaction with anyone in your congregation, the priest is the one charged with maintaining appropriate boundaries. The limits are for him to set and protect. To abandon those limits and to forsake those boundaries is a violation of integrity that will rob a man of happiness, satisfaction, and joy. That is too high a price to pay.

These six elements of living a celibate life are not hard to understand. They do not require an advanced degree. They do, however, require awareness. They are certainly ongoing processes and are never completely and totally balanced at any given time, but to forsake these simple things is to abandon oneself. As much as we may want to criticize or excoriate ourselves for whatever mistakes and errors we may have made along the way, it is finally only self-respect, attention, and care that will help us grow.

One of the things we have learned is that growth is a lifelong process. When Abraham Maslow looked around forty years ago for people who he felt were "self actualized", the people he found were in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. Youth need not apply. Perfection is not required in these areas. But attention is.

Paul M. Midden, Ph.D. is Clinical Director of the St. Louis Consultation Center in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked with women religious and clergy for over 20 years.

A  d e c a d e  o f  c o m p a s s i o n a t e  c a r e  t o  c l e r g y  a n d  v o w e d  m e n  a n d 
w o m e  n  r e l i g i o u s  f r o m  a c r o s s  t h e  U n i t e d  S t a t e s