Mags GarganSeminaries need to better prepare future priests for living a celibate life according to a senior psychiatrist.
Prof. Patricia Casey, who said she personally “had no difficulty with married priests”, rejected suggestions that compulsory celibacy was too difficult for priests.
“Priests have done it for many years and it seems to me that only in recent decades, since the sexual revolution, that celibacy has been viewed as too difficult and almost pathological,” Prof. Casey said.
“If people are prepared, supported and resilient, celibacy is not going to damage their health. It might be difficult, but that is very different to suggesting it is damaging. It is clearly too much for some priests, but priests are often not prepared properly and they are surrounded by sexual images, because we live in a very sexualised society.”
Speaking at a rally in Belfast in support of Fr Ciaran Dallat, who has not been seen publically since a woman claimed she had a two-year affair with him, Fr Tony Flannery said it was time for the Church to tackle its “dysfunctional” rules on celibacy.
Fr Flannery said priests live in “isolating situations” and that he had met “so many” priests who had been in secret relationships.