Description:
Examining the negative impact of celibacy on the Roman Catholic priesthood, this book offers a sociological analysis of the factors that lie behind mandatory clerical celibacy and argues for the acceptance of married priesthood as a legitimate means of living the priestly vocation in response to the challenges of our age.
Review Quotes:
'Conceptually this is a book that is desperately overdue. That is to say that the need to understand the origins and "logic" of certain Catholic practices in a wide socio-cultural context is still lacking in many places, and this book is a good beginning to address such a lack. This is especially true with issues such as sex, celibacy, and marriage in a theological context, which can function sometimes to obscure important, perhaps even predominant, social and cultural factors as well as the psychological.' - A.A.J. DeVille, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Saint Francis.