Martin Pable OFMCap, “Skills Needed for Celibacy”,

Review for Religious, 57/3 (1998), 275-285

What I offer is not a biblical or theological rationale for nsecrated chastity, nor do I
explore its spiritual or mystical significance. Such reflections have in recent decades been
put forth in masterful fashion by other writers. My purpose is different. Assuming that
readers of this journal already have an understanding and appreciation of the value of
religious chastity, I focus on this question: What skills ar.e required in order to live out
this commitment in a faithful and life-giving manner?
I was prompted toward offering an answer to this question by reading a couple of
years ago Father Raymond Carey’s "Psychosexuality and the Development of Celibacy
Skills." As many readers may know, Carey favors a strongly behavioral approach to the
assessment of candidates’ fitness for priesthood or religious life. Instead of relying on
someone’s verbalizations about the value of celibacy (which may be impressively lofty and
eloquent without being grounded in lived experience) or even on psychological testing,
Carey bases his assessment on the person’s life history. The underlying principle is that
the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. In assessing people’s capacity to live
the vow of chastity, the key question would be: Is the candidate for religious life
developing the skills needed for celibate living?
Carey went on to name--very briefly--twenty-seven such skills. I found his list a bit
overwhelming, but I selected a few of the skills and worked out a retreat conference for
religious who were already in final vows. The retreatants later encouraged me to put my
talk into written form. That is the genesis of this article. I will follow Carey’s distinction
between intrapersonal skills (needed to manage internal conscious states) and
interpersonal skills (for dealing with other persons), but sometimes my naming of the
skills will differ from his.

Intrapersonal Skills

Self-knowledge

Dr. William Menninger once noted that the first meaning of intimacy is "that
which constitutes one’s own inner self." This . implies, he said, that we must become
intimate with ourselves-- know ourselves--before we can hope to be intimate with others.
"Know thyself" is a well-known axiom of the ancients. St. Teresa of Avila used to say,

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"Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from lack of self-knowledge." Why is self-
knowledge so foundational? Because it is the precondition for freedom of choice. If I
know when I am feeling sad or inadequate or confident or resentful or contented or
discouraged, I will have important data for making better decisions; whereas, if I am
unaware of these internal states, I will likely fall or be driven into choices without really
intending them. Then come the regrets: "Why in the world did I do that?" The same
dynamics apply to my awareness--or lack of it--of long-standing patterns of people-
pleasing or compulsive activity or competitiveness or demanding my own way. Without
self-knowledge, change and conversion are not possible.

Such self-knowledge is especially crucial in matters of chastity. I need to know

what is driving me: my erotic feelings and desires? my tendency to seek companionship
to feed my vanity or soothe my bruised ego? my need to feel important to at least one
person so as to compensate for my sense of failure in my ministry? None of these
necessarily precludes honest celibate living, but I need to be aware of them if I am to
manage them. The skill here consists in the ability to tune in to and correctly identify
these internal feelings and tendencies.

How do we grow in self-knowledge? The basic tool is internal reflection, such as

the process described by Father George Aschenbrenner in his famous article
"Consciousness Examen" (Review for Religious 31, no. 1 [January-February 1972]).
Instruments such as the Myers-Briggs or the enneagram can be helpful in coming to
know ourselves. So can the regular practice of journaling and the time-tested practice of
spiritual direction.

Enjoyment of One’s Own Company

We have all seen the opposite of this: people who seemingly cannot stand to be
alone. This does not come naturally for those who are extroverts. Still, most extroverts do
develop the capacity for solitude as they grow older; it is one of the tasks of midlife. Also,
we find religious who always have to be busy doing something; they seem unable to just
be still or engage in quiet reflection. One has to wonder: What are they avoiding or
running away from? Perhaps it is some inner voice that keeps chiding, "You will never be
good enough, will never measure up."
In any case, celibates need to develop the ability to be alone, to enjoy their own
company. This is simply a demand of reality. Having chosen not to marry, we cannot
expect that someone will always be there for us. Even in the best of religious
communities, there will be times when no one is around. It is the same in ministry, even
in these days of collaboration. Much of our time may be spent alone--in our office, our

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cubicle, our car. The skill lies in the ability to accept that reality and deal with it
creatively.
Some religious may need therapy to help them understand and manage those
inner voices and restless feelings that drive them to avoid solitude. But ordinarily the skill
is acquired with time and practice. We begin to actually enjoy quiet time for reading,
walking, listening to good music. To do that well, though, perhaps most of us will lneed a
reasonably comfortable room or office and some degree of pleasant surroundings.

It would be well to include here what Carey calls "skills to monitor fantasy." This
would obviously exclude behavior such as indulging in sexually stimulating reading or
viewing, but it would also exclude allowing oneself to fantasize about "what might have
been" (or still could be) in terms of romantic/sexual relationships. It is certainly
appropriate to do the necessary grieving over such renunciations, but not to keep
revisiting them in one’s imaginatio.

One of the instructive stories from the life of St. Francis of Assisi is related by St.
Bonaventure. One night, when Francis was severely tempted by lust, he ran out into the
snow and formed several snow figures. Then he said to himself, "Look, Francis, the larger
one there is your wife and the others are your children. Now hurry up and find clothes
and food for them--they are cold and hungry. But, if all the trouble it takes to look after
them is too much for you, then keep your services for God alone." The story is a stark
reminder of how chastity sometimes requires a hard dose of "reality therapy" to iolt us out
of our dreamy fantasies. The "greener grass" on the other side can turn into a cold night
and a hungry family.

Being grounded in the love of God, I recognize that this is not so much a skill as an
attitude or conviction. But it needs to be acquired and strengthened through behavior.
Initially, probably most of us accepted celibacy as part of the "package deal" of religious
life, or celibacy made sense because it gave us greater freedom to be of service. But over
the long haul that will not be enough to hold us in our commitment to chastity.
Something more profound, more soul-inspiring is needed. Stephen Rossetti has called it
"the celibacy experience" (Review for Religious 41, no. 5 [September-October 1982]).

Rossetti quotes psychologist Ignace Lepp as saying that the chastity of those
consecrated to Christ must be "counterbalanced by a genuinely mystical life." There must
be, then, a necessary connection between celibacy and mysticism. Rossetti uses Karl
Rahner’s definition of mysticism as "a genuine though mediated experience of encounter
and communication with the personal God." It is this personal experience of being held in
the unconditional embrace of God’s love that protects religious chastity. It is not

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something that happens once and for all, but is a chain of real encounters that renew and
strengthen the individual’s surrender to God. Rossetti says: "It is this experience and the
resulting vision which grounds the celibate’s apostolate. The celibacy experience, which
eventually grows into a total response to the radical question ’Do you love me?’ provides
the charter and gives life to his or her ministry. Without this growing intimacy with
Christ, the celibate’s ministry is without an anchor and will drift with every theological
and psychological breeze that comes along" (p. 676).

The skill required here, it seems to me, is to make oneself available to this
experience and to foster it. In the concrete, this means regular, personal prayer. If
celibacy is grounded in my personal relationship with the living God embracing me with
unconditional love, that relationship can grow and be sustained only by communication,
by opening myself to that Mystery, by allowing the risen Christ to address me as "friend."
Psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe puts it very clearly: "Prayer is indispensable and
fundamental for the celibate life, for there is no other effective way to confront God-Self-
Other within the core of celibate reality.. ¯ . All other relationships and friendships are
grounded in this core or, in the end, they will fail from the point of view of celibacy or
celibate love. In studying religious celibacy for thirty-five years, I have never found one
exception to this fundamental rule: prayer is necessary to maintain the celibate process.

Skill to Prize One’s Sexuality

Prizing one’s sexuality involves at least two elements: first, appreciating one’s
sexuality as a positive life energy. In my recent book The Quest for the Male Soul, I note
that one of the Hebrew words for "man" in the Bible is zakar, which literally refers to the
male phallus. The rite of circumcision had deep spiritual significance for the Hebrew
male: it was a sign of his covenant with God as well as of his ethnic identity. Therefore,
every time he looked at or used his phallus he was reminded: "I am a Hebrew. I belong to
God’s chosen people. I am dedicated to God.’.’ What a contrast with our own socialization
into sexuality. There is no sacred ritual to help us to prize our sexuality. The culture
around us tends to idolize it, while our religious training tends to make it an object of
shame. It is crucial that celibates come to value their sexual energy as a positive gift of
God that needs to be channeled toward nongenital forms of love and creativity.
Second, this skill involves coming to a peaceful sense of ownership of one’s sexual
orientation¯ Thankfully, as the wider society is becoming more open about
homosexuality, religious life is likewise becoming more open. It is now widely
acknowledged that there are homosexual and bisexual brothers and sisters in our
communities who are spiritually deep, ministerially effective, and faithfully celibate, just
as there are heterosexual religious who embody these same qualities¯ We salute them all.
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Hopefully, we are growing to the point where we can say: (1) We will not tolerate or cover
up deliberate violations of celibate chastity; (2) we wiil not tolerate any discrimination
against any brother or sister because of his or her sexual orientation; (3) we will not
demand perfection in matters of chastity--only that each of us try to grow, even by our
mistakes and sins, toward faithful and loving celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Interpersonal Skills

Most celibate religious eventually learn to control their genital sexual drive--
through common sense ("monitoring fantasy"), self-discipline, prayer, and the grace of
God. What is often more difficult, however, is to deal with longings for emotional
intimacy: the experience of closeness, sharing, and exchange of affection with at least one
other person as a kind of healing for the sense of loneliness. Celibates know they are
called to love the people entrusted to them, though this is often a one-way love with little
reciprocity. Moreover, celibates can and do have good friendships marked by true
mutuality. But the vow of chastity does require them to renounce the desire for "that one
special person who will always be there for me." That kind of intimacy is realized only in
marriage. That kind of renunciation demands not only a high degree of spiritual
motivation; it also includes the practice of another set of skills: the interpersonal.

Skills for Caring Presence

This skill is probably the easiest to understand and the one most religious are good
at. The vow of chastity does not render us passive and fixated on ourselves and God.
(Someone once said, noticing some religious jealously protecting their time and freedom,
"You would think the vows gave them permission to be lazy! ").
In truth, celibacy is meant to free us to direct our power of love and our sexual
energy toward the love of all God’s people, rath~er than toward a spouse and children. It
is a call to be creative and life-giving in spiritual ways. This requires the simple but
demanding ability to listen to people in their need, to just "be there" for them even when
we cannot always solve their problem or relieve their burden. Sometimes it will involve
the skill of inviting people to share: "It looks like you need to talk; I have time right now"
or "How was your day?" or "How is that project going?"

Indeed, consecrated chastity ought to purify and expand our capacity to love, not
shrink it. Our "caring presence" stretches beyond the good and attractive people who are
easy to love and moves us to embrace more and more of God’s people, including those
who are disagreeable and unattractive, those who are most needy and probably cannot
reciprocate. Johannes Metz urged celibates toward a sense of solidarity with hurting
people of all kinds: "We shall only proclaim the liberating message that God loves those
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who are unfortunate.., if we do not instinctively avoid the company of unfortunate people
and leave on their own those who are isolated and voiceless" (Followers of Christ, p. 61)

Skills for Appropriate Confiding

This is Raymond Carey’s term for what is often called "self-disclosure." It is the
ability as well as the willingness to reveal one’s inner world to others. For reasons both
psychological and cultural, this skill seems to be particularly difficult for men. Most males
learn, apparently at an early age, to keep their personal thoughts and feelings to
themselves. Somehow i’t seems more "manly." Perhaps it is too risky to allow others into
your personal world: they may discover your vulnerable spots and exploit them. Or
maybe we males simply have not learned the language for expressing feelings and dreams,
hopes and fears. As a result, many men have a reputation for being "private persons"
whom no one (at least in the religious community) really knows.
In any case, religious communities often house people who engage in little self-
disclosure. Their conversations are limited to "swapping stories" about humorous
happenings past and present or "solving the world’s problems" by airing opinions about
what someone else should do: But seldom do we share with each other our worries, our
disappointments, our values, our faith. We can think of good reasons for not revealing
ourselves this way: we don’t want to burden others, we fear being judged, criticized,
talked about outside the community. Admittedly, there is a tension between our need for
privacy and our need for self-disclosure. But, if we play the privacy card almost
exclusively, we never experience the richness of mutual sharing, the warmth of mutual
respect and acceptance of differences, the honest caring of our brothers or sisters in the
Lord--in a word, healing for our loneliness. But, when religious cannot engage in healthy
self-disclosure within the community, they often start looking for it outside Though this
can be a saving grace for the individual, it further weakens community bonds, and it can
set the religious up for intimate relationships that may strain the celibate commitment.
This leads into the next point.

Skills for Developing Good Friendships

One of the mistakes we made in past formation for celibacy was to presume that
the love of God somehow will cancel out or supply for the need for human love. Surely
one of the major fears people have about choosing or persevering in celibacy is: Will I be
deprived of love? Will I end up lonely?

Today, I believe, we have a .more holistic understanding of consecrated chastity.

We recognize that healthy human friendships are not only not detrimental to celibacy,
but can be positively beneficial. We note that even Jesus had special friends. A study by
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the United States Bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry concluded: "A circle
of friends is essential to the personal development, and consequently the ministry, of the
priest. . . . Conscious of the integral relationship between friendship, personal growth,
and ministry, it is vital to create an environment in which priests feel free to form
friendships with many persons, clerical and lay" (As One Who Serves, p. 65). Note the
strong words such as "essential" and "vital." While the context is priesthood, there is no
reason to think any differently about religious life.

The skills for friendship are the simple ones we have already noted: the ability and
willingness to listen; willingness to reveal ourselves and invite others to self-disclosure;
"being there" for others; allowing others to care for you; "staying in touch" via an
occasional phone call, letter, or visit. Religious who complain about being lonely would
do well to ask themselves if they have been willing to exercise these skills.

The question might be raised: Where can religious hope to find such friendships? I
once heard Sister Maureen McCann provide a thoughtful answer to that question,
somewhat along these lines: We can spend so much time fantasizing over that one,
special, deep relationship we think we should have and miss all the possibilities for good
relationships right under our noses. Right now, she said, we can probably think of twenty
or twenty-five people that care about us, that we could call upon if we need them. Right
there is the "pool" from which we might draw the friendships we desire.

Skills for Setting Boundaries

In recent years we have rejected the older formation for chastity that required
distancing ourselves from other people lest they become a threat to our vow. In reaction,
we advocated greater freedom and spontaneity in our relationships, sometimes to the
point of ignoring common-sense safeguards, and now we find ourselves wondering if we
have moved too far in that direction. Many religious, drifting into re!ationships that
became intensely emotional and sexual, ended up leaving their vowed commitment.
Others remained in religious life, but continued to be sexually active. Still others have
been publicly accused of sexual misconduct. We appear to have lost some of the restraint
that vowed chastity necessarily entails.
So we are moving toward a renewed awareness of the need for discipline, for
setting boundaries and limits on our relationships with others. This is not a return to the
old patterns of denial of sexual feelings or avoiding all forms of intimacy. Rather, the skill
consists in practicing what psychologists call "suppression." That is, while acknowledging
my sexual or romantic feelings, I freely decide not to encourage or express them. William
Kraft has called this a No in service of a Yes. For example, I become aware of my desire to

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make a romantic overture toward an attractive counselee, but I choose to act on my prior
commitments: to my vow and to my intention to help her become free and whole, to lead
her to God rather than to myself. When we think about it, this kind of suppression is
practiced daily by all kinds of people: physicians, counselors, nurses, married women and
men in the workplace.

What the authors of another document on the priesthood said applies also to
those of us in religious life: "Celibate relationships can never become courtships, and they
disallow the expression of physical sexuality. Self-discipline is absolutely necessary.... The
priest @ishes to be brother to everyone and spouse to no one" (Spiritual Renewal of the
American Priesthood, p. 37). Moreover, the skill of setting boundaries also includes limits
on the time and energy we choose to invest in relationships. Our first priorities are always
to our prayer life, our ministry, and our community.

Skills for Generativity

Raymond Carey does not include this in his listing, though he does mention "skills
for generosity." I prefer Erik Erikson’s concept of generativity, which he defines as
"concern for establishing and guiding the next generation." Its natural and ordinary
expression is through parenthood, but Erikson notes that generativity can take many
other forms of care. The central notion is that of giving life.

I find this to be profoundly meaningful. Surely, not generating and caring for one’s
own children is one of the privations of celibacy. There is a deep need within the human
psyche to give life, to create something that will live on after we are gone. We religious
feel the loss of this possibility, and it is not transcended merely by working harder. At
some deep level we need to feel that we are fostering life, whatever form that may take.

I am thinking of the thousands of religious sisters and brothers who spend long
hours teaching in the classroom and then taking work home; of those who work in
hospitals, nursing homes, jails, and shelters; of those who minister in parishes, whether as
pastors, pastoral associates, catechists, or visitors to the homebound; of those who work
in neighborhood and community development services. What, besides their faith in God,
keeps them going when the work becomes frustrating and stressful? Is it not the
conviction that somehow they are making a difference in people’s lives? that somehow
they are giving life? We are being generative each time we help an individual or a group
move from a negative state to a more positive state: from ignorance to knowledge, from
compulsion to freedom, from desire for revenge to forgiveness, from resentment to
gratitude, from lethargy to enthusiasm, from discouragement to hope, from victimhood
to empowerment.

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 Perhaps generativity is more attitude than skill, but it clearly requires behavioral
expression. It involves continual study of the ministerial situation, listening carefully to
the concerns of people, trying to imagine new possibilities, calling forth the latent gifts
and potentialities of those we serve, trying out new initiatives and not giving up if some of
them fail.

The healthy celibates I have come to know are of this type. They do not waste
energy pouting about the loneliness of their lives or about life’s "unfairness." They have
invested their energies in building the reign of God, in giving life to other people; and
that, in turn, makes them feel alive. They work hard, but they do not experience it as
drudgery or "a damn job." It is a labor of love that spills over and enlivens them. That is
generativity. Focusing on celibacy as a set of behavioral skills may serve at least two useful
purposes. First, it can provide us with a framework for assessing our own growth in
celibacy. It will move us beyond the lofty language we sometimes use to talk about
celibacy and will ask us to confront our actual behaviors in living out what we profess. In
other words, it can be a structure for regular selfexamination of conscience. Second, this
framework may be useful in assisting formation directors to assess their candidates’
potential for living vowed chastity in a healthy and life-giving manner. For both the
church and society, the witness of consecrated celibacy is too important to be approached
with anything less than wholehearted commitment.

On Reading Countee Cullen

(whom I greatly admire but can’t agree with)

I am one who ponders

the riddle of being and breath,
and the wee blind mole
who will gnaw my bones
will be wrong if he says that the answer is death.
I have seen rainbows, and children - I’ve stood by the sea –
strangers have been kind –
this for me is proof enough of immortality.
Janet Benish OCV

Martin Pable OFMCap has a doctorate in pastoral counseling, has taught courses in it, and has
done extensive counseling. Besides giving retreats and workshops, he directs a wellness program
for his order and does evangelization ministry. His address is House of Peace Community Center;
P.O. Box 05656; M!lwaukee, Wisconsin 53205
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