KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
May 22, 2019
By Michael Sean Winters
Every sentence of James Carroll’s recent article in The Atlantic, “Abolish the Priesthood,” is theologically inept, historically anachronistic, self-referential, or all three. None of it is a surprise.
Carroll’s embrace of theology is thoroughly opportunistic. At one point, he yearns for the pre-Constantinian church of Jesus’ early followers, but later he states, “When the Catholic imagination, swayed by Augustine, demonized the sexual restlessness built into the human condition, self-denial was put forward as the way to happiness. But sexual renunciation as an ethical standard has collapsed among Catholics, not because of pressures from a hedonistic ‘secular’ modernity but because of its inhumane and irrational weight.” But it is in the Gospels themselves that Jesus advocates self-denial, encourages the unmarried to remain celibate, and tells his followers to take up their cross and follow him. Following Jesus can lead down many different paths, but none of them have to do with sexual liberationism.
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