A&E gets one right: God or the Girl, a five part "reality" series
 

I've been hearing great things about this upcoming series on A&E.

"This Easter Sunday, April 16th, on the A&E Network, a five-part "reality" series entitled God or the Girl premieres, giving viewers a personal encounter with four Catholic young men who allowed A&E to journey with them as they contemplated the most important decision of their lives - the choice between priesthood or marriage - God or the girl."
--Tom Allen, Editor and President of Catholic Exchange

The full series schedule is as follows:

PART I - EASTER SUNDAY APRIL 16, @ 9PM EASTERN/8C MOST IMPORTANT

PART 2 - EASTER SUNDAY APRIL 16, @ 10PM/9C

PART 3 - EASTER MONDAY, APRIL 17, @ 9PM/8C

PART 4 - MONDAY, APRIL 17, @ 10PM/9C

FINALE (PART 5) - SUNDAY, APRIL 23, @ 10PM/9C

Boston Herald article:
http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=134208

New York Daily News article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/407455p-344959c.html

Although I am always right on time with supporting your commitment to your faith Stephano, I have to admit, I wanted to gag and shoot my tv when I saw the trailers for this show. I will watch it once and report back in fairness to you:)

Hell, it's a no brainer. TAKE THE GIRL !!!!!!!!!:D

Yeah, I'm basing my opinion so far on what I'm hearing. But I did talk to someone tonight who has seen it with his wife (advanced copy because she's a journalist). He said they were both expecting the worst and were actually very impressed.

I was reading a student paper a couple of days ago on the ethics of the erotic and it occurred to me that I've never read anything about the value of celibacy to society. Lots of sex education programs stress abstinence but it is usually based on a temporary abstinence until marriage.

I'm curious as to what people think of the value of celibacy. I can certainly understand celibacy as an outlet for homsexuality in a society where heterosexuality is the norm, but in a society in which all forms of consensual sex are acceptable, what would be the value of celibacy? It's even hard for me to understand the theological value of celibacy unless sexuality is interpreted as inherently sinful as a result of the fall of humanity.

I can see how dualists could use celibacy as a method of trying to affirm the supremacy of spirit over matter, but is this its only value? Can it serve any purpose in non-dualist philosophies which affirm the goodness of the body? I can't recall anybody on this board being celibate. If there is a celibate, how do you understand your practice?

Any personal sacrifice for a greater good is self-rewarding for people so motivated.

How is it a sacrifice for the greater good? What good does celibacy serve? How are other people benefitted by celibacy?
I can understand how celibacy served an important purpose in society prior to the development of birth control. If sex meant children, it also meant that a far amount of energy needed to be expended in family relationships and raising of the children. So, scientists, philosophers, theologians etc, who needed to spend a lot of time studying their field, would be better of celibate since it enabled them to get more work done. Lots of the most important figures in the history of the West have been unmarried. However, now this requirement is unnecessary. Is there a substitute rationale?

well, are there any MASTERful celeBATES here?

I'm just guessing here but I'll bet a query of the Internet will provide us with a wealth of carefully argumented reasons wgy celibacy is a gift that brings one closer to God. Probably since about 1300 AD or so.

here's one (HRCC) perspective.

You in England cannot understand how completely engrained it is into our people that a priest is a man who sacrifices himself for the sake of his parishioners. He has no children of his own, in order that all the children in the parish may be his children. His people know that his small wants are supplied, and that he can devote all his time and thought to them. They know that it is quite otherwise with the married pastors of the Protestants. The pastor's income may be enough for himself, but it is not enough for his wife and children also. In order to maintain them he must take other work, literary or scholastic, only a portion of his time can be given to his people; and they know that when the interests of his family and those of his flock collide, his family must come first and his flock second. In short, he has a profession or trade, a Gewerbe, rather than a vocation; he has to earn a livelihood. In almost all Catholic congregations, a priest who married would be ruined; all his influence would be gone. The people are not at all ready for so fundamental a change, and the circumstances of the clergy do not admit of it. It is a fatal resolution. (A. Plummer in "The Expositor", December, 1890, p. 470.)

A testimony given under such circumstances carries more weight than long explanations would do. Neither was it the only occasion on which the historian so expressed himself. "When a priest", Döllinger wrote in a letter to one of his Old Catholic friends in 1876, "can no longer point to personal sacrifice which he makes for the good of his people, then it is all over with him and the cause which he represents. He sinks to the level of men who make a trade of their work [Er rangiert dann mit den Gewerbetreibenden]." (See Michael, Ignaz von Döllinger, ed. 1894, p. 249.)

I can certainly understand that argument. Give up children of your own so you can focus on the good of others. It's a version of what I noted above. It doesn't apply any more. The rule could be changed to get married but don't have kids. A simple process achieved with a quick slice of the scalpel. It could also be achieved by homosexual relations.
My question is, how is celibacy constructed today? To put it another way, how would a comprehensive sex education in the public schools deal with the question of celibacy? What would a celibate say to youth considering their budding sexuality?

Uh, "let me show you how grown-ups love each other"?

But then there's this assertion that surprised me:

No finer mind than Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica II-IIa, 88, 11) had provided stubborn opposition to those who saw celibacy rulings as part of divine law. Thomas contended that the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests was merely Church law that could be reversed by any time by papal or conciliar authority. (MacGregor pages 108-109)


Especially in light of this:

Whether virginity is more excellent than marriage?

Objection 1. It would seem that virginity is not more excellent than marriage. For Augustine says (De Bono Conjug. xxi): "Continence was equally meritorious in John who remained unmarried and Abraham who begot children." Now a greater virtue has greater merit. Therefore virginity is not a greater virtue than conjugal chastity.

Objection 2. Further, the praise accorded a virtuous man depends on his virtue. If, then, virginity were preferable to conjugal continence, it would seem to follow that every virgin is to be praised more than any married woman. But this is untrue. Therefore virginity is not preferable to marriage.

Objection 3. Further, the common good takes precedence of the private good, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 2). Now marriage is directed to the common good: for Augustine says (De Bono Conjug. xvi): "What food is to a man's wellbeing, such is sexual intercourse to the welfare of the human race." On the other hand, virginity is ordered to the individual good, namely in order to avoid what the Apostle calls the "tribulation of the flesh," to which married people are subject (1 Corinthians 7:28). Therefore virginity is not greater than conjugal continence.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Virgin. xix): "Both solid reason and the authority of Holy Writ show that neither is marriage sinful, nor is it to be equaled to the good of virginal continence or even to that of widowhood."

I answer that, According to Jerome (Contra Jovin. i) the error of Jovinian consisted in holding virginity not to be preferable to marriage. This error is refuted above all by the example of Christ Who both chose a virgin for His mother, and remained Himself a virgin, and by the teaching of the Apostle who (1 Cor. 7) counsels virginity as the greater good. It is also refuted by reason, both because a Divine good takes precedence of a human good, and because the good of the soul is preferable to the good of the body, and again because the good of the contemplative life is better than that of the active life. Now virginity is directed to the good of the soul in respect of the contemplative life, which consists in thinking "on the things of God" [Vulg.: 'the Lord'], whereas marriage is directed to the good of the body, namely the bodily increase of the human race, and belongs to the active life, since the man and woman who embrace the married life have to think "on the things of the world," as the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 7:34). Without doubt therefore virginity is preferable to conjugal continence.

Reply to Objection 1. Merit is measured not only by the kind of action, but still more by the mind of the agent. Now Abraham had a mind so disposed, that he was prepared to observe virginity, if it were in keeping with the times for him to do so. Wherefore in him conjugal continence was equally meritorious with the virginal continence of John, as regards the essential reward, but not as regards the accidental reward. Hence Augustine says (De Bono Conjug. xxi) that both "the celibacy of John and the marriage of Abraham fought Christ's battle in keeping with the difference of the times: but John was continent even in deed, whereas Abraham was continent only in habit."

Reply to Objection 2. Though virginity is better than conjugal continence, a married person may be better than a virgin for two reasons. First, on the part of chastity itself; if to wit, the married person is more prepared in mind to observe virginity, if it should be expedient, than the one who is actually a virgin. Hence Augustine (De Bono Conjug. xxii) charges the virgin to say: "I am no better than Abraham, although the chastity of celibacy is better than the chastity of marriage." Further on he gives the reason for this: "For what I do now, he would have done better, if it were fitting for him to do it then; and what they did I would even do now if it behooved me now to do it." Secondly, because perhaps the person who is not a virgin has some more excellent virtue. Wherefore Augustine says (De Virgin. xliv): "Whence does a virgin know the things that belong to the Lord, however solicitous she be about them, if perchance on account of some mental fault she be not yet ripe for martyrdom, whereas this woman to whom she delighted in preferring herself is already able to drink the chalice of the Lord?"

Reply to Objection 3. The common good takes precedence of the private good, if it be of the same genus: but it may be that the private good is better generically. It is thus that the virginity that is consecrated to God is preferable to carnal fruitfulness. Hence Augustine says (De Virgin. ix): "It must be confessed that the fruitfulness of the flesh, even of those women who in these times seek naught else from marriage but children in order to make them servants of Christ, cannot compensate for lost virginity."

Those justifications still leave a problem for the modern mind. Celibacy as a good is dependent upon the correlated belief that sex for pleasure is bad.
Is it possible to develop a theory of the good of celibacy within the context of belief that sex for pleasure is good. If not the value of celibacy is not long for this world.

I think the best argument for celibacy is that: you get to get paid to live on 'huge tracts of land' (growing less crowded by the day), in the presence of exquisite works of art, and set your own hours. Admitedly, to varying degrees.