As usual, I love what you have to say on this subject. I share your thoughts entirely. For myself, I’m more immersed in the western tradition, and as much as I love the medievals, their attitude toward sex is one reason why I can’t take Catholicism seriously when it says its dogma has never changed. Margery Kempe was a mystic who moved out of the house so as to avoid becoming polluted by her husband. The man had horribly asked of her that she eat dinner with him on Friday nights and have sex with him on just that night. But see, that would make her less a bride of Christ. Lewis in his Allegory of Love talks about how medieval attitudes, if not dogmas, were highly negative about sex. It was presented by many as something inherently impure and tolerated only for procreation. This was the very attitude that allowed courtly love traditions to develop on grounds of adulterous love affairs; sex within a sacramental union defiled the sacrament. Better to have romantic love outside the sacrament. St Bernard likewise speaks ill of sex, and Peter Abelard repented of his entire marriage to Heloise because their passion was too strong. He was grateful for his castration because it relieved him of this burden and sin. One of her letters to him on this subject is among the most painful and poignant things I’ve ever read. To act as though Pope St John Paul II and his Theology of the Body was always the Catholic teaching is enough to raise my eyebrows.
And likewise, I’m with you. I never really thought about it in these terms until recently, but the level of feeling I have for many great novelists and poets is akin to how many more theologically minded people than I feel about the saints. The great works are where I find my wisdom and guidance, always subordinate to holy scripture and guided by the wisdom of tradition. But, frankly, I think Dante has a great deal more wisdom on this subject than celibate priests and monks.
She did have a ton of kids, yes. Fair enough, I guess; however, it went way beyond just not wanting to have sex anymore. She moved out of the house, and only came back when her husband fell ill and got injured. That entire section of her autobiography is filled with her complaining about how taking care of her husband took her away from her service of Christ and contemplation of him, saying she’s not even really married to her husband but to Christ, and she was only married to him in the flesh (I believe that was her language). Call that what you want, but whatever it is, it’s not Theology of the Body.
You write very well on this topic. If you ever do undertake a book, this should be its theme.
When I was a youth, raised without religion I nonetheless felt a strong religious impulse, I had a powerful sense of the divine and transcendent. I experienced that other world through three modes of relation: my relation to the natural world (including as shaped by human effort), my relation to the arts (especially music and literature), and my relation to the opposite sex. Even today, I cannot imagine the divine except through these relations. Nor can I imagine these relations without the divine.
Thanks very much for that -- it means a great deal to me. My young experience was similar -- perhaps the difficulty comes that for me, later, I also experienced it in consolation for loss, and thus it got tied up with suffering in a certain way that eventually became unbalanced. Hence my having to unwind all this.
Yes, it's all very complicated and often tragic. And I do think there is a deep wisdom at the root of the ascetic/renunciant impulse, even if it has been perverted and misapplied with horrific consequences. Something I learned while still quite young was that there is only one Spirit, one energy of life. If you restrain the sexual expression of that energy, it will out in some other way. This can be turned to good effect. Or it can be disastrous. But powerful it always is. What does Alvy Singer say to Annie Hall... "There goes another novel."
That seems to be the crucial point, in my experience, at least: simply restraining the sexual energy isn't an inherent good and can ultimately backfire. It needs to be re-directed and transmuted in to something else. It's a generative force that's much too powerful to allow to remain in a stagnant state.
You missed King David in your list of models,called the man after God’s own heart! A quote from an early church father - “the glory of God is a man fully alive”. David was a fully alive Renaissance man from way before the Renaissance - skilled shepherd, slayer of lion and bear, harpist, poet, singer, warrior, skilled general, knower of God’s voice, inspiration and guidance, poet, judge, king, administrator, liturgist - designed the temple service, architect, diplomat, wily and deceptive as a serpent when that was called for, gave instructions on his deathbed like a Mafia godfather, lover of multiple wives and concubines, beloved by his men who followed him at the risk of their lives, man of prayer. A title of our Savior is Son of David.
A problem that I see is that a layer of sayings and teachings of various saints and fathers is inserted between the believer and direct engagement with the Bible. In the beginning of The Way of the Pilgrim the pilgrim is told that he needs the Philokalia as a means to understand and apply the scriptures.
David was definitely a hot mess of a guy, yet “For David had done what was right IN THE EYES OF THE LORD and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life - except in the case of Uriah the Hittite” 1 Kings 15:5 and Nathan the prophet stated that David”s multiple wives were from God! 2 Samuel 12:8. Whew! It’s complicated isn’t it.
John Paul II wrote and taught beautifully on this topic. "Love and Responsibility" is s philosophical work written before he became pope (Karol Wojtyla). The "Theology of the Body" is the name he gave to his multi-year series of catechetical talks when he first became pope. Both explore the goodness of marital sexual love and explore the eschatological meaning of vowed celibacy. The Catholic Church has canonized a number of married saints this past century: Louis and Zelie Martin (the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux) were canonized as a couple, and Gianna Beretta Molla, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Thomas More ("A Man for All Seasons") were married but canonized ad individuals (their spouses weren't). If you go back farther you can find Elizabeth of Hungary as s shining example of a saint whose marriage was part of her sanctity.
Such a timely piece, my friend. Wonderfully written as always. Klages has certainly had me pondering recently whether the typical Christian notion of salvation is not merely a petrification of the narcissistic ego in the worst possible and potentially unredeemable state. That of a purely individualistic salvation and neurotic concern with the standing of one's own "soul". Which may seem unrelated to what you have spoken of here to some. I know, however, you will understand my grievance.
As a cradle Orthodox I found the Church to be quite the hotbed of narcissism. It’s a big part of why I stopped going. So many people terribly worried about theological debates and being in the “true church” that they forget something as basic as spending time with their own children. Not because they simply have to work a lot to feed their family but because they need to seek out some strange intellectually masturbatory practice, often online.
The question is how close you want to be to Christ. The closer you get the more of what you considered goods you have to give up for the promise of a good that is far better. The monks have chosen the path of the most good. It is not to say that those things which you defend are not good or that they are bad. There is just something better.
Ah brother! Well spotted. I almost became a Catholic when I reconciled with the Church after some time in the wilderness. I even toyed with the idea of secretly communing in both churches and not telling either one about it. In the end, that felt like it would be dishonest to both; and in the end, the Orthodox Church is simply my home; after all these years, my soul is shaped like the Orthodox liturgy, and I can’t spend another Pascha away from it. So here I am, I hope a witness for the beauty of Catholicism to the Orthodox.
Give me a menologion of the saints of the world! And give me determination to find the holiness in each of them, in spite of whatever hot mess may surround it."
Long before I discovered Orthodoxy, Nietzsche was very much akin to a saint for me, and even now, whenever I come across some insight of his, I'm reminded of what drew me to him in the first place, and why I still appreciate him now, even knowing his faults, and I still think he had a keener sense of the divine within this world than many pious Christians, Orthodox or otherwise. I recall coming across a description of him as a "damned saint."
A lot of this resonates the thoughts I’ve been having about sex and sexuality. (I do think there is something very important about celibacy, and that we need celibates living in the real world doing real world things, too, but that’s a different topic.) It seems to me—and here I speak as a gay man in the church—that the church has only just now begun to wrestle with sexuality. Great writing!
I’d watch The Heart of Man and include in your reflection the profoundly addictive nature of sex and how addiction and compulsion and unhealthy attachments connects with idolatry. I’d also recommend ‘Addiction & Grace’ Gerald G. May, M.D.
Eating food is a hot mess also. So is drinking wine, yet in Deuteronomy the Lord says tp spend a portion of your tithe on wine and meat and strong drink and go have a celebratory barbecue. Deuteronomy 14:24-26 Yep, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” Marriage is a hot mess, church life is a hot mess ( read 1&2 Corinthians), family life is a hot mess, life at work, and on and on and on. Interestingly it says in 1 John 3:6 “no one who dwells in him keeps on sinning” A way out! Let’s go for it.
I was taking a very much needed life-imposed break from Substack for the past month or so, so I was not able to read this article until much later. But I did find it thought provoking. I find it interesting in that I have run into the same questions as well, but from almost an opposite angle.
Modern Catholic discourse about married sexuality is very, very different from the historical norm. While people may pay lip service to things like Josephite marriages, like perhaps the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux intended to have originally, the clergy I have talked to usually have a very positive view of marital sexuality (within the prescribed bounds, obviously). That's to say nothing of Catholic internet personalities which can range from run-of-the-mill "it's good for babies and bonding," to what I would consider borderline scandalous (Christopher West, for example).
This is radically different from the pre-modern norm of say, St. Augustine, who talks about how the fact that married people perform the act in private is evidence that it is shameful and at least venially sinful. Or there are Irish penitentials that basically boil it down to "every once in a while, for procreation, probably isn't sinful."
As a married man, you might expect me to recoil from that. And I do think it's an excess. But I also think that a lot of modern sex positivity can be alienating for real people in real world situations. Sex is not always a positive experience. Married people have scruples and moral quandaries and thorns in their consciences that celibate people just don't. For my wife and I, as a result of repeated very difficult pregnancies and emergency c-sections, we have had to practice a lot of abstinence. The existence of celibacy and suspicion of sex that is in the DNA of the Latin Church as well may have some negative side effects, but it is also enriching to married couples who need a bit of that as a wall to lean against. So I would be loath to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think those older celibates may have overreacted to the spiritual dangers of the flesh, but modern people obviously underestimate the intoxication that it brings. Obviously St. Paul meant something when he advocated the celibate life, but was it an invitation to flee temptation or to place one's focus from a good thing onto a greater thing for the sake of the brethren?
I dunno, I'm just a layman, self-taught, probably wrong about a bunch of things. Appreciated the article, at any rate.
It’s no surprise that many monasteries become secret bastions of homosexuality. The Church would do well to face head-on all the messy, complex aspects of life instead of avoiding and spiritually bypassing them. Many are the saints among us who have walked these paths, quietly and humbly, unknown by the world, with no festal troparia or entry in the Menaion.
Respectfully, it just sounds to me like you're still far too worldly — you accuse the saints of being obsessed with sex, but you seem to be the one who's obsessed with it, borderline idolizing it. Which is certainly easy to do, because sex/marriage/procreation is an icon of God. But the fact that you are so critical of them for choosing celibacy is very strange to me, and really makes it seem like you're far too focused on sex. I began thinking as I was reading: "Of course they spoke a lot about sex, because it's one of our strongest impulses, and so it's one of the most challenging aspects of the devout life, much like pride is one of the most challenging aspects of the devout life, so would he accuse them of being obsessed with pride because they discuss it so much?" And ironically you did — you essentially criticized them for being too humble, which shocked me.
It really seems to me like you just have a distorted view of sex, humility, and the religious life. I mean seriously, you praise Nietzsche over the Desert Fathers? That's a terrible sign, and I wish I could offer you more than just criticism, but ironically I think what you need to do is simply strive for greater chastity, and especially greater humility. Open yourself up to the possibility that these devout men and women were far more wise and holy than you are.
As usual, I love what you have to say on this subject. I share your thoughts entirely. For myself, I’m more immersed in the western tradition, and as much as I love the medievals, their attitude toward sex is one reason why I can’t take Catholicism seriously when it says its dogma has never changed. Margery Kempe was a mystic who moved out of the house so as to avoid becoming polluted by her husband. The man had horribly asked of her that she eat dinner with him on Friday nights and have sex with him on just that night. But see, that would make her less a bride of Christ. Lewis in his Allegory of Love talks about how medieval attitudes, if not dogmas, were highly negative about sex. It was presented by many as something inherently impure and tolerated only for procreation. This was the very attitude that allowed courtly love traditions to develop on grounds of adulterous love affairs; sex within a sacramental union defiled the sacrament. Better to have romantic love outside the sacrament. St Bernard likewise speaks ill of sex, and Peter Abelard repented of his entire marriage to Heloise because their passion was too strong. He was grateful for his castration because it relieved him of this burden and sin. One of her letters to him on this subject is among the most painful and poignant things I’ve ever read. To act as though Pope St John Paul II and his Theology of the Body was always the Catholic teaching is enough to raise my eyebrows.
And likewise, I’m with you. I never really thought about it in these terms until recently, but the level of feeling I have for many great novelists and poets is akin to how many more theologically minded people than I feel about the saints. The great works are where I find my wisdom and guidance, always subordinate to holy scripture and guided by the wisdom of tradition. But, frankly, I think Dante has a great deal more wisdom on this subject than celibate priests and monks.
Didn’t Margery Kempe have 13 kids? I think maybe she just wanted a break.
She did have a ton of kids, yes. Fair enough, I guess; however, it went way beyond just not wanting to have sex anymore. She moved out of the house, and only came back when her husband fell ill and got injured. That entire section of her autobiography is filled with her complaining about how taking care of her husband took her away from her service of Christ and contemplation of him, saying she’s not even really married to her husband but to Christ, and she was only married to him in the flesh (I believe that was her language). Call that what you want, but whatever it is, it’s not Theology of the Body.
You write very well on this topic. If you ever do undertake a book, this should be its theme.
When I was a youth, raised without religion I nonetheless felt a strong religious impulse, I had a powerful sense of the divine and transcendent. I experienced that other world through three modes of relation: my relation to the natural world (including as shaped by human effort), my relation to the arts (especially music and literature), and my relation to the opposite sex. Even today, I cannot imagine the divine except through these relations. Nor can I imagine these relations without the divine.
Thanks very much for that -- it means a great deal to me. My young experience was similar -- perhaps the difficulty comes that for me, later, I also experienced it in consolation for loss, and thus it got tied up with suffering in a certain way that eventually became unbalanced. Hence my having to unwind all this.
Yes, it's all very complicated and often tragic. And I do think there is a deep wisdom at the root of the ascetic/renunciant impulse, even if it has been perverted and misapplied with horrific consequences. Something I learned while still quite young was that there is only one Spirit, one energy of life. If you restrain the sexual expression of that energy, it will out in some other way. This can be turned to good effect. Or it can be disastrous. But powerful it always is. What does Alvy Singer say to Annie Hall... "There goes another novel."
He made a few truly great films, and that was one of them.
That seems to be the crucial point, in my experience, at least: simply restraining the sexual energy isn't an inherent good and can ultimately backfire. It needs to be re-directed and transmuted in to something else. It's a generative force that's much too powerful to allow to remain in a stagnant state.
You missed King David in your list of models,called the man after God’s own heart! A quote from an early church father - “the glory of God is a man fully alive”. David was a fully alive Renaissance man from way before the Renaissance - skilled shepherd, slayer of lion and bear, harpist, poet, singer, warrior, skilled general, knower of God’s voice, inspiration and guidance, poet, judge, king, administrator, liturgist - designed the temple service, architect, diplomat, wily and deceptive as a serpent when that was called for, gave instructions on his deathbed like a Mafia godfather, lover of multiple wives and concubines, beloved by his men who followed him at the risk of their lives, man of prayer. A title of our Savior is Son of David.
A problem that I see is that a layer of sayings and teachings of various saints and fathers is inserted between the believer and direct engagement with the Bible. In the beginning of The Way of the Pilgrim the pilgrim is told that he needs the Philokalia as a means to understand and apply the scriptures.
David was definitely a hot mess of a guy, yet “For David had done what was right IN THE EYES OF THE LORD and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life - except in the case of Uriah the Hittite” 1 Kings 15:5 and Nathan the prophet stated that David”s multiple wives were from God! 2 Samuel 12:8. Whew! It’s complicated isn’t it.
John Paul II wrote and taught beautifully on this topic. "Love and Responsibility" is s philosophical work written before he became pope (Karol Wojtyla). The "Theology of the Body" is the name he gave to his multi-year series of catechetical talks when he first became pope. Both explore the goodness of marital sexual love and explore the eschatological meaning of vowed celibacy. The Catholic Church has canonized a number of married saints this past century: Louis and Zelie Martin (the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux) were canonized as a couple, and Gianna Beretta Molla, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Thomas More ("A Man for All Seasons") were married but canonized ad individuals (their spouses weren't). If you go back farther you can find Elizabeth of Hungary as s shining example of a saint whose marriage was part of her sanctity.
Such a timely piece, my friend. Wonderfully written as always. Klages has certainly had me pondering recently whether the typical Christian notion of salvation is not merely a petrification of the narcissistic ego in the worst possible and potentially unredeemable state. That of a purely individualistic salvation and neurotic concern with the standing of one's own "soul". Which may seem unrelated to what you have spoken of here to some. I know, however, you will understand my grievance.
I see exactly the connection. More than connection: it's the same problem.
As a cradle Orthodox I found the Church to be quite the hotbed of narcissism. It’s a big part of why I stopped going. So many people terribly worried about theological debates and being in the “true church” that they forget something as basic as spending time with their own children. Not because they simply have to work a lot to feed their family but because they need to seek out some strange intellectually masturbatory practice, often online.
Sad.
The question is how close you want to be to Christ. The closer you get the more of what you considered goods you have to give up for the promise of a good that is far better. The monks have chosen the path of the most good. It is not to say that those things which you defend are not good or that they are bad. There is just something better.
Sounds like you should be Catholic
Ah brother! Well spotted. I almost became a Catholic when I reconciled with the Church after some time in the wilderness. I even toyed with the idea of secretly communing in both churches and not telling either one about it. In the end, that felt like it would be dishonest to both; and in the end, the Orthodox Church is simply my home; after all these years, my soul is shaped like the Orthodox liturgy, and I can’t spend another Pascha away from it. So here I am, I hope a witness for the beauty of Catholicism to the Orthodox.
"Give me ... Nietzsche ...
Give me a menologion of the saints of the world! And give me determination to find the holiness in each of them, in spite of whatever hot mess may surround it."
Long before I discovered Orthodoxy, Nietzsche was very much akin to a saint for me, and even now, whenever I come across some insight of his, I'm reminded of what drew me to him in the first place, and why I still appreciate him now, even knowing his faults, and I still think he had a keener sense of the divine within this world than many pious Christians, Orthodox or otherwise. I recall coming across a description of him as a "damned saint."
Bring on the spice!
Here’s a short poem from the Thomas Berry, Catholic priest and monastic:
Earth’s Desire
To be seen
in her loveliness
to be tasted
in her delicious
fruits
to be listened to
in her teaching
to be endured
in the severity
of her discipline
to be experienced
as the maternal
source
whence we come
the destiny
to which we
return
By the way, I agree with you regarding the value of dialogue and conversation with spiritual mentos and friends.
That is wonderful! Which book of his is it from? I have wanted to read him since I saw him called a "geologian."
I don’t know if this poem has been published in a book but it is on a website dedicated to his work: https://thomasberry.org/earths-desire/
I have some other poetry I received from him once, but I’m not sure how much of it was published. He was more known for his scholarly writing.
In the future I'll have to respect your trigger warnings.
A lot of this resonates the thoughts I’ve been having about sex and sexuality. (I do think there is something very important about celibacy, and that we need celibates living in the real world doing real world things, too, but that’s a different topic.) It seems to me—and here I speak as a gay man in the church—that the church has only just now begun to wrestle with sexuality. Great writing!
I’d watch The Heart of Man and include in your reflection the profoundly addictive nature of sex and how addiction and compulsion and unhealthy attachments connects with idolatry. I’d also recommend ‘Addiction & Grace’ Gerald G. May, M.D.
Eating food is a hot mess also. So is drinking wine, yet in Deuteronomy the Lord says tp spend a portion of your tithe on wine and meat and strong drink and go have a celebratory barbecue. Deuteronomy 14:24-26 Yep, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” Marriage is a hot mess, church life is a hot mess ( read 1&2 Corinthians), family life is a hot mess, life at work, and on and on and on. Interestingly it says in 1 John 3:6 “no one who dwells in him keeps on sinning” A way out! Let’s go for it.
Many are shocked by it, but there's something to Luther's admonition "Be a good sinner, and sin boldly"
Eating food and drinking wine has the potential to be a hot mess.
Absolutely true!
And real life monasticism is probably a hot mess also.
I can attest that it is, having seen a few monasteries implode.
Certainly so -- a central element of why sex is a hot mess. Berdyaev talks about this in the chapter on sex in "Slavery and Freedom."
Your litany needs more fictional characters in it! I almost read Rachmaninov as Raskolnikov.
It absolutely absolutely does, please repoast with your favorites!
I was taking a very much needed life-imposed break from Substack for the past month or so, so I was not able to read this article until much later. But I did find it thought provoking. I find it interesting in that I have run into the same questions as well, but from almost an opposite angle.
Modern Catholic discourse about married sexuality is very, very different from the historical norm. While people may pay lip service to things like Josephite marriages, like perhaps the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux intended to have originally, the clergy I have talked to usually have a very positive view of marital sexuality (within the prescribed bounds, obviously). That's to say nothing of Catholic internet personalities which can range from run-of-the-mill "it's good for babies and bonding," to what I would consider borderline scandalous (Christopher West, for example).
This is radically different from the pre-modern norm of say, St. Augustine, who talks about how the fact that married people perform the act in private is evidence that it is shameful and at least venially sinful. Or there are Irish penitentials that basically boil it down to "every once in a while, for procreation, probably isn't sinful."
As a married man, you might expect me to recoil from that. And I do think it's an excess. But I also think that a lot of modern sex positivity can be alienating for real people in real world situations. Sex is not always a positive experience. Married people have scruples and moral quandaries and thorns in their consciences that celibate people just don't. For my wife and I, as a result of repeated very difficult pregnancies and emergency c-sections, we have had to practice a lot of abstinence. The existence of celibacy and suspicion of sex that is in the DNA of the Latin Church as well may have some negative side effects, but it is also enriching to married couples who need a bit of that as a wall to lean against. So I would be loath to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think those older celibates may have overreacted to the spiritual dangers of the flesh, but modern people obviously underestimate the intoxication that it brings. Obviously St. Paul meant something when he advocated the celibate life, but was it an invitation to flee temptation or to place one's focus from a good thing onto a greater thing for the sake of the brethren?
I dunno, I'm just a layman, self-taught, probably wrong about a bunch of things. Appreciated the article, at any rate.
It’s no surprise that many monasteries become secret bastions of homosexuality. The Church would do well to face head-on all the messy, complex aspects of life instead of avoiding and spiritually bypassing them. Many are the saints among us who have walked these paths, quietly and humbly, unknown by the world, with no festal troparia or entry in the Menaion.
Respectfully, it just sounds to me like you're still far too worldly — you accuse the saints of being obsessed with sex, but you seem to be the one who's obsessed with it, borderline idolizing it. Which is certainly easy to do, because sex/marriage/procreation is an icon of God. But the fact that you are so critical of them for choosing celibacy is very strange to me, and really makes it seem like you're far too focused on sex. I began thinking as I was reading: "Of course they spoke a lot about sex, because it's one of our strongest impulses, and so it's one of the most challenging aspects of the devout life, much like pride is one of the most challenging aspects of the devout life, so would he accuse them of being obsessed with pride because they discuss it so much?" And ironically you did — you essentially criticized them for being too humble, which shocked me.
It really seems to me like you just have a distorted view of sex, humility, and the religious life. I mean seriously, you praise Nietzsche over the Desert Fathers? That's a terrible sign, and I wish I could offer you more than just criticism, but ironically I think what you need to do is simply strive for greater chastity, and especially greater humility. Open yourself up to the possibility that these devout men and women were far more wise and holy than you are.