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Quotes About Celibacy

Loyalty is like the Doctrine of Celibacy—easy to proclaim but damned difficult to live by.
~ Michael Dobbs
I remember where I was when I wrote that story, 'Mermaid in a Jar.' I was at a boyfriend's, and he was the only boy I ever dated who was rich, and his parents had a ski chalet, and I just didn't know how to break up with him, so I decided I would be celibate.
~ Sheila Heti
Being celibate was so wonderful. It taught me a lot about love, but even more about my own self outside of love. I'd never met myself out of love before, really.
~ Melissa Febos
Well, for what it's worth, celibacy looks good on you." He snorted. "Because I've put on a few pounds? Happens. You eat, because you crave the endorphins you're not getting with an orgasm, and you get less exercise, because you're not practicing any mattress gymnastics." "Cary." I laughed. "Look at you, baby girl. You're all tight and toned from Marathon Man Cross over there.
~ Sylvia Day
The only other person attending who was close to her age was Father St. Laurent, a devastatingly good-looking Roman Catholic priest who made the RC's vows of celibacy seem like a crime against the human gene pool.
~ Julia Spencer-Fleming
You know, in some ways, the celibacy tradition goes back to the tribe of Levi and, certainly, sacrifice and the notion of sacrifice. In the Old Testament, the shedding of blood was for a man to perform. It was not for the woman, who gave life.
~ Vincent Nichols
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
~ Carl Sagan
I've been following the noble profession of hermiting here for nigh on fifty-seven years, practising piety, sobriety, celibacy and the pursuit of true wisdom in the tradition of my father and grandfather and great-grandfather before me.
~ Terry Pratchett
the proscription against married Roman Catholic priests is not doctrinal and could be changed if a pope were so inclined. "I have no problems with celibacy withering away," said Archbishop Keith O'Brien, president of the Scottish Bishops' Conference. "There is no theological problem with it ending. The loss of celibacy would give liberty to priests to exercise their God-given gift of love and sex rather than feeling they must be celibate all their lives.
~ The Boston Globe
But after Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity, told the New York Times that he expected celibacy to be discussed at the gathering of U.S. cardinals in Rome, the Pope quickly shot down that possibility. "The value of celibacy as a complete gift of self to the Lord and his Church must be carefully safeguarded," the Pope told a group of visiting Nigerian bishops.
~ The Boston Globe
Many pointed out that celibacy, although valued from the earliest days of Christianity and first mandated in the fourth century, was widely enforced only starting in the twelfth century. Defenders of celibacy have described it as a gift, a charism, a witness to sanctity. But critics have noted that celibacy was legislated to avoid the problem of Church property being passed along from a priest to his children.
~ The Boston Globe
today married men can be ordained as Eastern Catholic priests and that there are even a handful of married men serving as Roman Catholic priests—those who were ordained as priests by the Anglican Church but then chose to enter the Catholic Church.
~ The Boston Globe
People often ask if it is difficult to be a celibate monk or nun, but to practice mindfulness as a monastic is in many ways easier than to practice as a layperson. To refrain from sexual activity altogether is much easier than to have a healthy sexual relationship.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
I have been celibate for about six or seven months, I think. I would rather just make out and kiss someone instead of sex. I'm single. I said I would be single for a year and I am.
~ Paris Hilton
Celibate? He lived and breathed sex. Considered sex the eighth wonder of the world. Suffering blue balls was for teenagers. Not grown men.
~ Kate Angell
That clerical celibacy doesn't guarantee asceticism is obvious, any more than attending Mass guarantees prayerfulness (trust me on that one). But it preserves the call even when the system is corrupted.
~ Ross Douthat
There are times, Kruppe murmurs, when celibacy born of sad deprivation becomes a boon, nay, a source of great relief.
~ Steven Erikson
Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.
~ Pope Benedict XVI
I'm not unlucky at love, just incredibly lucky with celibacy.
~ Tim Heaton
I might be celibate, but I appreciate the wonder of the sacrament of marriage.
~ Keith O'Brien
Just saying "celibacy is the solution" doesn't make it so. People have to be able to do it. Paul, a huge proponent of celibacy, knew this. The difficulty that divorced people have maintaining lifelong celibacy was part of the pastoral dilemma that forced us to take a closer look at our very restrictive policies regarding remarriage, policies that most contemporary pastors are unfamiliar with because it was the controversy of an earlier era.
~ Ken Wilson
It's been over a year since I've had sex.
~ Ilona Andrews
Los chilenos veneran al Papa, pero no le hacen caso en asuntos sexuales y sus concecuencias, porque un anciano celibe, de buen pasar economico, que no ha trabajado en su vida, poco sabe de eso.
~ Isabel Allende
I decided to try celibacy because I heard it would help the meditation, and I tried meditation because I heard it would help with the music. So, it all really comes back to the music.
~ Rivers Cuomo