Church and sexuality: the severe effects of celibacy and abstinence

Claudio Ibáñez
Psychologist
CEO
Chilean Institute of Positive Psychology
www.psicologiapositiva.cl

Original spanish version

ABSTRACT

The beliefs of Catholic Church about sexuality and the practices it promotes (chastity, virginity, abstinence and celibacy) are not innocuous, but "tremendously negative and destructive of the best functioning of people," explains psychologist Claudio Ibáñez.

The idea that these practices are virtuous, he says, "is an indoctrination that generates socio-emotional immaturity, sexual deprivation and, for sure, a guilty struggle between normal human sexual reality and the unattainable, mythical and fanciful “sexual ougth to be”. He adds: "Church's inability to manage the sexual behaviour of its consecrated persons will continue as long as it does not change the fallacious assumptions about sexuality contained in their doctrine and incorporates a positive view of human sexuality based on the best current state of psychological knowledge”.

Recently, it is a time of listening and discernment to address the roots that allowed such atrocities to take place and perpetuate, and thus to have solutions to the abuses scandal, not with merely containment strategies - indispensable but insufficient- but with all the necessary measures to be able to fully assume the problem in its complexity.

Pope Francis

It took three and a half centuries for the Church to officially recognize, in 1992, that Galileo was right and that his theologians were deeply mistaken: ¡the earth revolves around the sun! The ecclesiastical stubbornness to acknowledge his mistake condemned Giordano Bruno to death by burning at the stake and Galileo to life imprisonment in his home. That the Church persists in believing, contrary to what science holds, that sexual abstinence is the way to human perfection and that sexual abstinence is possible for life, is a mistake of unimaginable and unlimited impact that has been transforming many of his shepherds into wolves and thousands of sheeps into victims.

CHURCH AND SEXUALITY

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCE for its acronym in Latin), which is its doctrinal compendium, its beliefs about sexuality are synthesized (CCE 2332-2351). According to the CCE, chastity (abstention from sexual pleasure) is a virtue and all baptized persons, in any situation other than marriage (single, engaged, separated, widowed, homosexual, etc.), must practice sexual abstinence for life. Sexual intercourse is permitted only between married couples and only for procreative and unitive purposes. Consecrated personnel (priests, men and women religious) should practice sexual abstinence for life. According to the CCE, chastity integrates sexuality into the person, develops self-mastery and imitates the purity of Christ, and furthermore, in the case of consecrated persons, celibacy (which is the state of singleness) eminently facilitates exclusive dedication to God (CCE 2337-2349).

This restrictive, if not negative, view of sexuality rests on at least two great assumptions: that sexual abstinence is key to personal and spiritual perfection and that it is possible to practice it for life. What is the degree of truth that these assumptions have in the light of contemporary psychological science?

PSYCHOLOGY, SEXUALITY AND SUBLIMATION

The first to raise the importance and strength of sexuality (libido) was Freud, who argued that its repression led to major mental disorders. However, he postulated that if the sex drive was not satisfied, the energy of the libido could be channeled and redirected to higher targets, a mechanism he called sublimation. Currently, the concept of sublimation , and the hydraulic model on which it rests, is not supported by contemporary empirical psychology (1), to the extent that in scientific studies on emotional regulation the term sublimation is not even mentioned (2).

Today it is known that motivational drives are not sublimable. For each drive there are specifically suitable satisfiers. For hunger food, for thirst water, for love affection, for sex mating. Hunger is not satisfied by observing artwork, nor is sexuality satisfied by dedicating one's life to higher spiritual ends.

The concept of sublimation is also questioned by existential-cut psychology. As an example, Viktor Frankl, argues that motivations such as the meaning of life and love do not result from the sublimation of the sexual impulse, but rather constitute fundamental primary forces by themselves (3). More recently, Positive Psychology has shown that virtues, strengths and positive emotions are not the product of sexual sublimation, but that the so-called bright side of people exists by itself, resulting of the evolutionary value it has had for the success of the human species (4 and 5).

THE DRIVES AND THEIR STRENGTH

From the psychological point of view, the needs, motives or drives are physiological or psychological conditions that selectively mobilize the organism towards a goal. The primary or basic motives (hunger, thirst, breathing, sleeping, sex, parenting, etc.), so called because they have to do with individual and species survival, are innate and their functioning is sustained by complex homeostatic, neuroendocrine and cognitive mechanisms.

Our basic needs are usually met: we breathe, drink fluids and eat several times a day and engage in sexual practices every so often. As a consequence, we do not realize the force of these drives, since the force of drive can only be observed when it is dissatisfied or "deprived", as it is said in technical jargon.

Motivational studies of deprivation in humans, for ethical reasons, are very rare. There is, however, a classic study of food deprivation, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (6). Its objective was to investigate the impact of hunger and supply actions for its management in the Second World War. Thirty-six volunteers, aged between 22 and 33, were subjected to a drastic and sustained food restriction for six months. In addition to weight loss and thinness, participants began to exhibit emotional disorders: irritability, aggressiveness, anxiety, depression, bipolarity, psychotic behaviors, and social isolation. Food became a real obsession. The whole functioning of people revolved around food. They spent hours compulsively reviewing recipes, looking at pictures of food and only thinking about mealtimes. The anodyne and limited food they received was increased with water and they spent hours eating, tasting and licking the dishes. Food appeared in ther fantasies and dreams. Although they had voluntarily adhered to the rules of the experiment, they began to cheat and find ways to get food.

The researchers had to set up a monitoring and chaperone system to ensure compliance with the rules. Abstinence had increased and exacerbated the force of hunger, even turning food into an obsession.

Deprivation of any basic drive transforms it into an overpowering drive that dominates behavior. In the specialized scientific literature, no concept or mechanism has been described suggesting such energy can be redirected to objectives other than those specifically related to the satisfaction of unmet need. If deprivation of a basic need is prolonged over time, it ends up altering the entire physical and psychological functioning, even though abstinence is voluntary and the person has a superior meaning for carrying it out, as is observed in hunger strikes. In the extreme, unlimited deprivation of a basic need ends with the death of person, as is observed in many cases of anorexia (7).

SEXUAL ABSTINENCE

All motivational theories consider that the sexual drive is a basic physiological need that is as much or more powerful than the rest of needs because, even though it has nothing to do with individual survival, this drive the survival of the species depends on.

There are real situations in which sexual deprivation occurs, as for example, in prisons. And it is known that in them, as in the Minnesota study about hunger, the sexual impulse is exacerbated and appear all forms, subterfuges and loopholes imagined to satisfy it, including abuse of power, physical and psychological violence and concealment networks.

Abstinence increases the strength of the sex drive. But is sustained sexual abstinence possible over time? In 1948 Alfred Kinsey reported the results of a pioneering and, at the time, controversial study (8 and 9), because it brought to light widespread sexual practices that were not thought to occur among people, not least in the magnitude found: masturbation, homosexual relations and bisexualism, in both men and women. One of the things that this report highlighted was that permanent sexual abstinence was virtually non-existent.

The fact that permanent sexual abstinence does not exist or is, at least, very difficult is also evident in the results of sexual education programmes that promote "abstinence until marriage" as a means of preventing pregnancy: instead of reducing teenage pregnancy, increase it. (10).

MOTIVATION AND SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Maslow argued that human needs are ranked in a hierarchy of relative predominance, postulating that the drive with the greatest influence on behavior is that of the lowest unmet need in the hierarchy. At the base of the hierarchy are the physiological needs (thirst, hunger, respiration, temperature, sex, etc.). The unsatisfaction of any of these basic needs not only makes it overpower, but the person's life begins to revolve around the unmet need, which prevents progress towards maturity.

At least partial satisfaction of basic needs, including sexuality, is key to personality development and progress towards maturity, a process Maslow called self-actualization (11).

SEXUALITY IN THE CLERGY

The media coverage of cases of sexual abuse of children by consecrated persons in the Catholic Church, which have already reached the magnitude of a worldwide scandal, may leave the impression that the issue is exhausted here and that consecrated persons who do not abuse children are indeed chaste. Indeed, the Church believes and has led to believe, without any study to prove it, that the majority of their consecrated persons are sexually abstinent and live their chastity in an exemplary manner.

In fact, studies conducted by external and independent people not belonging to the Church show a very different picture. Child sexual abuse is just the tip of the iceberg of clergy sexual incontinence. Other practices, since they are not crimes, do not go public and are hidden in confessionals, as sins, under the cloak of secrecy.

Although not the only one, Richard Sipe's study (12), based on data collected over 25 years on more than 3,000 priests, is considered the benchmark study on sexuality among clergy. Indeed, his statistics served, with impressive precision, to guide the world-renowned journalistic research on sexual abuse of clergy in Boston in 2001 (this work by The Boston Globe's team of journalists was brought to cinema by the Oscar-winning film Spotlight in 2015).

Richard Sipe concludes that child molesters make up only 6% of the clergy - What about the rest? Between 80% and 90% masturbate and 50% of priests engage in adult sexual relations, both heterosexual and homosexual.

As a result of their sexual relations, many consecrated persons generate pregnancies and procreate children. Vincent Doyle, son of a priest and founder of Coping International.com (an organization dedicated to psychological and pastoral support for the children of priests and linked to the Vatican for this purpose) conservatively estimates that there would be around 4,000 children of consecrated persons worldwide.

The Episcopal Conference of Ireland has had to publish a declaration that establishes as the main responsibility of the priests who father children, the personal, moral and financial care of the child and the mother. The Vatican is considering adopting this declaration as a global procedural guide to these cases

THE CELIBACY

Most of those who enter the religious life do so in their youth, excited about their calling, but psychosexually immature and, what is more serious, unaware of the impact on them of sexual abstinence for life on one hand and, on the other hand, the lack of a romantic, affectionate and intimate relationship that celibacy implies. As result many become intellectually and physically adults, but socially, emotionally, affectively and sexually immature, transforming themselves into sneaky transgressors of sexual continence.

Has chastity contributed to generating more virtuous human beings and of higher spirituality than ordinary lay people who do not abstain sexually and enjoy their sexuality? Where are the benefits of sexual abstinence and celibacy raised by the CCE?

Instead of benefits, the negative consequences of sexual abstinence and celibacy flourish every day, consequences that dramatically impact on consecrated persons themselves, those who come into contact with them and the Church as an institution.

Some people argue that celibacy is not the cause of the sexual crisis in Church (13). It is argued that not all celibates are child abusers and that abusers are also found among married people, among non-religious people and in their own families.These facts, however, only show that child sexual abuse is a complex phenomenon that has different causes, but they do not allow us to exclude, as a basal cause of improper sexual behaviour, a blocked and repressed sexuality preached as a virtue when, in reality, it constitutes the breeding ground of criminal expressions or, at least, insane, sinful and problematic expressions of sexuality (14).

The largest investigation about sexual abuse, and that links it to celibacy, is the one carried out in Australia by the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It is an independent, high-level commission set up by the Australian government to investigate tens of thousands of sexual abuse cases between 2012 and 2017. This commission established that the majority of abuses occurred in religious institutions and in entities dependent on them and that Catholic Church had the highest percentage of cases.

The commission’s opinion is that celibacy is a risk factor that, together with others, facilitates the appearance of psychosexual alterations in consecrated persons. But not only this, but because celibacy is impossible for many consecrated persons to achieve, it "leads to a double life and contributes to a culture of secrecy and hypocrisy and this culture seems to contribute to avoiding the transgression of celibacy and to minimizing sexual abuse as a forgivable moral lapse". That is why, in its final report, the Commission recommends for the Vatican to put an end to the obligatory nature of celibacy.

GLASS CONFESSIONALS

The sexual misconducts of consecrated persons have resulted in thousands of abused children, thousands of children and mothers hiding in anonymity, billions of dollars in compensation paid by the Church to victims and hundreds of investigations and trials in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Australia, Argentina and Chile. But probably the most overwhelming is the loss of confidence of the faithful and society in the Church and its clergy, as surveys have shown.

The loss of confidence reaches to the extent that in many catholic schools they have come to glaze the confessionals or to regulate that confessions are made in environments exposed to public gaze (15). How can a flock be driven when the sheep fear and distrust their shepherds? What organization based on mistrust is sustainable?

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION

That Church has believed, until very recently, that the earth is the center of the universe and that the sun revolves around it is truly irrelevant, trivial, and had no practical consequence. On the other hand, the mistake of believing that sexual abstinence is the way to human and spiritual perfection and that it is possible to practice it for life is not an innocuous belief, but a tremendously negative and destructive for the best functioning of people, because it subjects them to practices such as chastity, virginity, sexual abstinence for life and celibacy, which hinder and block their normal development and functioning.

The conception that such practices are virtuous and lead to human flourishing, distilled systematically and permanently in the minds of their consecrated persons, is an indoctrination that generates social-emotional immaturity, sexual deprivation and, of course, a guilty struggle between the normal human sexual reality and the unattainable, mythical and fanciful "sexual ougth to be" that is demanded as an ideal.

This is a high-risk factor, especially for people whose work is based on close and warm interpersonal relationships, but asymmetrical in terms of power, influence and trust: the optimal scenario for manipulating consciences and depredating people.

The fundamental question of the crisis, then, is that the ecclesiastical beliefs about sexuality, and the institutional practices promoted by such beliefs (chastity, virginity, abstinence and celibacy), constitute a paradigm that collides with psychological science, just as theological geocentrism collided with astronomical science.

The Church's inability to manage the sexual behavior of her consecrated persons will continue as long as it does not change the fallacious assumptions about sexuality contained in its doctrine and incorporates a positive view of human sexuality based on the best current state of psychological knowledge.

Although the geocentric conception of the universe was not a dogma and its change did not bring about any collapse of the beliefs system in the Catholic Church, its theologians took centuries to accept the reality shown by science. His negative view of human sexuality is not a dogma either. Will three and a half centuries have to pass again for the Church to correct, in the light of science, their beliefs about human sexuality?

Theologians have the saying... But not just them. Because of the far-reaching and widespread negative impacts that the Church's sexual paradigm has, its change must be demanded by consecrated persons themselves, by victims, and by communities and governments of countries in which the Catholic Church operates.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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