How about vows against stupidity?

Based on several pieces I've read, this post on the RantRave.com site sums up well the stupidity flying around out there about celibacy and the priesthood:

The time has come, too much has gone wrong for too long, Catholicism needs to change. This most recent story involving a priest and sexual infidelity has sparked national attention, though this time not the type that could land you behind bars, and cost the church millions in legal fees and settlements. This time, it merely involved a priest giving into his natural attraction and sexual desires, and being caught on camera doing a little kissing and hugging.

Rev. Alberto Cutie is the object of all of this drama. Cutie was the head of Miami archdiocese's international radio network and the head of his parish until he was removed last week after "the Spanish-language magazine TVnotas ran photos of Cutie embracing a woman at a bar and at a beach." Cutie was so well known and liked on the broadcast that he even earned the nickname "Father Oprah" for his superb relationship advice. It turns out that his advice was aided by some research and not simply instincts, as he has admitted that he has had a romantic relationship with the woman in the photos for about two years, involving sex. Outrage!

I've written already about what I call the "animal view" of vows, noting:

In the animal view, whatever seems to keep someone from fulfilling their natural desires—often described as "personal fulfillment"—is unnecessary and likely "unhealthy." A vow of chastity or celibacy is seen as a cage and a form of imprisonment; in addition, it is understood as demeaning or even antagonistic toward sex. Since sex is understood (correctly) as something good and natural, it is assumed (incorrectly) that abstaining from sex is bad and unnatural.

Of course, if we are simply complex animals whose passions and natural desires point us unerringly to what is most important and vital for us, the animal view makes sense. The animal view would say that vows are fine and dandy to the degree that they help us find "personal fulfillment" and, perhaps, aid us in getting along with others. Wedding vows, then, are nice because they express a certain romantic sentiment and help us feel good about ourselves and our spouses; naturally, if those feelings and needs change (as, alas, they often do), the vow goes to the wayside. ("We love each other very much," someone I know recently said about getting divorced, "but when it comes to being in a relationship with each other, we aren't compatible.") It served a purpose, but it makes no sense to force yourself or someone else to adhere to it if it threatens to stifle or thwart your desires.

Perhaps this situation with Fr. Cutie needs to be put into different terms—terms understandable (hopefully) to people who think sex is a commodity along the lines of soft drinks, summer apparel, and iPods. How about this:

Fr. Cutie lied. He broke public promises. He claimed, by virtue of his freely given vows and by being a priest, that he would abstain from sex. By carrying on a two-year-long affair, he betrayed trusts and he lied to his superiors, his fellow priests, his family, his friends, and those who looked up to him as a virtuous man of God. He even lied to the woman he was carrying on with. He was, put simply, being selfish and putting himself before others.

I wonder if those who think it is no big deal that Fr. Cutie was having this sexual relationship would change their minds if they learned the woman he was romantically involved with was their girlfriend or wife. If that were the case, I'd like to ask: "Why does it bother you? She was just giving into her natural attraction and sexual desires. Ah, you feel betrayed? So what? Stop being a baby! You need to get over your backwards, old-fashioned notions about promises and commitments and realize that this is the twenty-first century! Who cares about promises of fidelity and vows of love when natural attraction and sexual desire is in charge of one's libido? Just how stupid are you?"

I don't think I'm naive about the self-serving, blind nature of humanity (hey, I'm human too!), but why don't people see that if vows are empty, promises are pointless, commitment is transitory, and loyalty is dead, a civilized and humane society is toast? Is it so difficult to comprehend the connection between solemn vows—whether religious or secular in nature (think, for example, of the oaths sworn by police officers, politicians, judges, etc.)—and social stability? Without trust, relationships cannot exist, grow, or thrive. Without authentic commitment, the bonds that hold together families, communities, and social institutions rot and break, creating the sort of semi-anarchic, corrosive, and cynical public square that is fast becoming the norm.

In short, if you are going to act like an animal, don't be surprised when other animals prey upon you. And don't be surprised if no one cares when it happens. In the words of the head-banging gang of sociologists known as Guns N' Roses:

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me

Comments

[Kala]

Cutie has scandalised thousands of people who looked up to him. He broke his promise, as you said, freely made. He placed himself in a proximate occasion of sin which became an occasion of sin. If I have a passion for cream cakes and constantly go to cake shops sooner or later I am going to buy a cream cake. Cutie could have cut all contact with this woman, a divorced mother, and she could have cut contact with him but they didn't. If she hasn't had children by him were they using NFP or artificial contraception? Did he celebrate Holy Mass in the state of mortal sin? Did she receive Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin? He said that hindsight is 20/20 but why stay at the beach when he heard the lifesaver speak his name on the mobile phone, why go to a bar when he knew he was being followed? Did he think that nothing he did would attract opprobrium because he was Fr Celibrity? Fr Hypocrite more like it.

[rd]

sad to hear about fr. alberto. he seems very well liked and respected, especially by youth. did ewtn remove his show from its spanish language network?

[Jack]

Welcome to the Jungle sums it up very well.

[Tim]

I remember some years ago MTV broadcast a music video with the lyrics "you and me baby aint nothing but mammals so lets do it like they do on the discovery channel!"

I have been challenged many a time on this subject with my detractors using the "doin what comes naturally" canard and they ALLWAYS bring up the fact of chimpanzees being, well, hyperpromiscuous.

I readily acknowledge this but counter with the observation that chimpanzees also commit rape, murder, and cannibalism! Ask Dr. Jane Goodall who discovered to her dismay that not only do chimps kill other chimps infants and eat then, they also engage in wars with other bands and practice banishment.

Yeh... lets do it like they do on the Discovery Channel!

[Mark Pilon]

Carl,

From GKC's What's Wrong With the World:

"The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender.
In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite another matter, it is amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage In both cases the point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the practical result would be that no one would have the courage to begin a conversation. It would be so embarrassing to start a sentence in a friendly whisper, and then have to shout the last half of it because the other party was floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must hold each other to do justice to each other. If Americans can be divorced for "incompatibility of temper" I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible."

Even better is the great passage from Orthodoxy:

"I could never conceive or tolerate any Utopia
which did not leave to me the liberty for which I chiefly care,
the liberty to bind myself. Complete anarchy would not merely
make it impossible to have any discipline or fidelity; it would
also make it impossible to have any fun. To take an obvious instance,
it would not be worth while to bet if a bet were not binding.
The dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality
but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the stunted
and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure
and romance, of which much has been said in these pages.
And the perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure
must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare.
If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting.
If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging.
If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful,
or there is no fun in vowing. You could not even make a fairy tale
from the experiences of a man who, when he was swallowed by a whale,
might find himself at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or when he was
turned into a frog might begin to behave like a flamingo.
For the purpose even of the wildest romance results must be real;
results must be irrevocable. Christian marriage is the great example
of a real and irrevocable result; and that is why it is the chief subject
and centre of all our romantic writing. And this is my last instance
of the things that I should ask, and ask imperatively,
of any social paradise; I should ask to be kept to my bargain,
to have my oaths and engagements taken seriously; I should ask Utopia
to avenge my honour on myself.

All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully,
for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties.
But again I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer
from beyond the world. 'You will have real obligations,
and therefore real adventures when you get to my Utopia.
But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is to get there.'"

[Joe]

This priest is a cad. Lying for TWO years? Cheating on the Church and his parishoners and viewers? Who cares about his desires? Plenty and I mean plenty of people go without... a priest has to go looking for it big time. The fact people would excuse it speaks volumes about what constitutes the American Catholic mind. Oh, I forgot... we elected Obama.

[Dan Fitzpatrick]

This idiocy is going to bring our culture to its sha-na-na-na-na-na knees, knees...