If anyone had asked me what I thought about Eastern Orthodoxy before I converted, I would have said it was basically a popeless Catholic Church, except that its priests can marry. My presumption was mostly wrong. While there are certainly important similarities between the theologies of world’s . . . . Continue Reading »
BARTH'S LEGACY I am grateful to Phillip Cary for his admirable review of my book Reading Barth with Charity (April). I have only one demurral. I would simply like to enter a plea for greater historical consciousness. After all, it has not yet been fifty years since Barth’s death. It seems . . . . Continue Reading »
David Mills has found himself in trouble—for making the stunning claim that conservative Catholics are not conservative Protestants, and conservative Protestants are not conservative Catholics. Continue Reading »
Generally speaking, there are two principal vocations in the life of the Catholic Church: marriage on the one hand, and celibate priesthood and religious life on the other. Both are expressions of conjugal love. In the normal calling of marriage, an individual binds himself for life to another . . . . Continue Reading »
Celibacy is not simply a practice that improves an individual's self-mastery. It is a way of life that strengthens churches, communities, and cities. Continue Reading »
At an academic conference not too long ago, I delivered a paper on St. Paul’s view of marriage and celibacy. In my paper, I took Paul’s side, extolling his vision of marriage and celibacy as interlocking, mutually reinforcing Christian vocations. On the one hand, I said, marriage can be a melody hummed by any pedestrian Christian couple that still calls to mind the full grandeur of the symphony of Christ’s love for the Church. Likewise, the Christian celibate can bear witness to that same love. By giving up the solace of an earthly spouse and the prospect of birthing heirs, the celibate gestures with her very body to a future time when “they neither marry nor are given in marriage . . . because they are equal to angels” (Luke 20:35, 36). Continue Reading »
While marriage and celibacy may technically be opposites, they have at least one thing in common. Both can seem overwhelming when one imagines them lasting for a lifetime. Continue Reading »
C. S. Lewis once offered advice to a soon-to-be-married man on why he ought to avoid masturbation. But his rationale speaks to celibate Christians as well. Continue Reading »
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