Questioning Celibacy
Posted on 30. Jul, 2020, in Celibacy/Sexuality, Community, Feminism/Women in the Church, Sexuality, VocationComments Off on Questioning Celibacy
Fr Bernárd Lynch is a Catholic priest who is gay and married. His journey has caused controversy, but in this piece from the archives he argues that he is living true to who he is. He further argues that very few priests are called to celibacy and that not many of them are living up to its expectations.
In this three part series with Miriam Gormally, he makes some extraordinary statements. He says from his work as a therapist, that celibate priest are hard to find – gay or straight: they are often living secret lives. They discussed why, if that were true, more of them didn’t get married or demand changes to the rule of celibacy. They also talked about the potential “non wholeness” of a celibate life and how he has seen the strain it takes on priests in his therapy rooms.
Miriam began by putting it to him that, even if celibacy wasn’t the lived norm, being a gay married priest was still something of a contradiction.
In next weeks issue he looks at what it was like for him to come out within the church when he met his husband Billy Desmond.