Short description:

This book offers a sociological study of the the sexual and emotional lives of Catholic clergy, the role played by chastity in the Church and the way the institution trains its staff to be, at least outwardly, celibate, as well as the effects of this.

Long description:

Based on interviews with Roman Catholic seminarians, priests and former priests, as well as with managers of seminaries, teaching staff, psychologists and psychiatrists, this book considers the lives of the clergy, beginning with the period before entering the seminary. With attention to both heterosexual and homosexual relationships ? and so addressing the tension that exists between Catholic teaching and the reality of clerical lives ? this wide-ranging description of seminary life encompasses many issues which are not strictly sexual or emotional, such as time organisation, the importance of study, hierarchical relations and friendship. Showing that the lives of seminarians ? and later, priests ? are absorbed in in balancing the expectations of their role with their need for an emotional life and with maintaining an independent, free inner self, with the result that celibacy can come to be viewed as a pretence to be upheld scrupulously in the public sphere only, Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood: The 'Chaste' Caste will appeal to scholars of sociology and religious studies with interests in gender and sexuality, the Catholic Church and priestly vocations.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements

1        THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ROOTS OF A RESEARCH PROJECT: THE MYSTERY OF CLERICAL SEXUALITY

2        IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH: THE STORY OF A CHALLENGING ENQUIRY

3        CATHOLIC PRIESTHOD AND PASTORAL POWER: AN UNBREAKABLE UNION

4        CHASTITY AND SACRALITY IN CATHOLICISM: THE CELIBACY OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY

5        MANUFACTURING ?GOD'S MEN?: THE TASK OF THE CATHOLIC SEMINARS

6        SEMINARS AS TOTAL INSTITUTIONS

7        PERSONAL IDENTITY AND CLERCIAL VOCATION: WHO GOES INTO A SEMINARY TODAY?

8        OBSESSION AND GUILT: SEMINARIANS? TROUBLED SEX LIVES

9        HOMOPHOBIA AND HOMOPHILIA IN THE SEMINARIES: TWO FACES OF A SINGLE COIN

10      HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE SEMINARIES - PAIN, DENIAL AND CYNICISM

11      RARE BIRDS IN THE SEMINARIES: THE CHALLENGING LIVES OF HETEROSEXUAL STUDENTS

12      THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: SECRETS, DENIAL AND LIES IN THE TRAINING OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY

13      A FREE FOR ALL. THE SEX LIVES OF HETEROSEXUAL PRIESTS

14      EMOTIONAL NEEDS AND UNBRIDLED SEX: THE HOMOSEXUAL CLERGY

15            CLERICAL LIES AND PUBLIC WELFARE

      Bibliography

      TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN BY ISABELLE JOHNSON.