Deals with the moral, psychological, and social challenges faced by Roman Catholic priests who left the active ministry in the 1960s and 1970s to get married--men who chose responsible sexual relationships over a life of obligatory celibacy.

Deals with the moral, psychological, and social challenges faced by Roman Catholic priests who left the active ministry in the 1960s and 1970s to get married--men who chose responsible sexual relationships over a life of obligatory celibacy.

There are many rules a priest can't break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God. I've always been good at following rules. Until she came. Then I learned new rules. My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I'm twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again. I am a priest and this is my confession.

He was a Roman Catholic priest whose love affair became headline news. Now, he shares his explosive story-in his own words... In this deeply personal and controversial memoir, Father Albert Cutié tells about the devastating struggle between upholding his sacred promises as a priest and falling in love. Already conflicted with growing ideological differences with the Church, Cutié was forced to abruptly change his life the day that he was photographed on the beach, embracing the woman he would later call his wife. Once a poster boy of the Roman Catholic Church-loved and admired by millions-Cutié found that he was not happy and able to live as a celibate priest, especially having to defend the number of positions he was no longer in agreement with. For years he kept his relationship a secret, while he soul searched and prayed for answers. The love that he deemed a blessing was bringing him closer to God, but further from the Church. In Dilemma, Cutié tells about breaking that promise, reigniting the very heated debate over mandatory celibacy for Catholic priests, beginning a new way of life and discovering a new way of serving God.

"Rooted in the lessons of history and the saints and woven together with prayer, Archbishop Emeritus Hughes calls present and future ministers of the Church back to the transformative basics of the priesthood." —From the foreword by Bishop Robert Barron Clerical sexual abuse, COVID-19, declining parishes, and racial unrest—these are some of the many challenges facing Catholic priests and bishops today. Where can they find the wisdom they need to address these and other daunting difficulties? Archbishop Emeritus Hughes draws on the some of the greatest spiritual guides the Church has ever known to offer a vision for contemporary priestly life—Ignatius of Antioch, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and beyond. He also turns to the timeless advice found in great conciliar documents. What emerges from his survey of the past is the understanding that the Catholic priesthood has overcome many trials throughout its history and the confidence that it will do so in our own day by rediscovering the timeless sources of renewal. This book is intended to serve a double purpose. It can be used as a text for seminarians, together with a reader drawn from the cited classics, or as a rich source of spiritual reading for priests and bishops.

In Made for Love, Fr. Michael Schmitz presents the Catholic teaching on same-sex attraction and same-sex "sexual" relations. He begins by giving background information regarding the different worldviews of the human person, the philosophical ideas of nature and purpose, the differences between objective and subjective truth, the principal of non- contradiction, and the fallen human nature that resulted from Original Sin. He then discusses in great detail the nature and ends of human sexuality and the nature of true love, while, in a compassionate and non-judgmental way, explaining the flawed nature of same-sex "sexual" relations. While this book is intended primarily for those who have same-sex attraction and their family and friends, its presentation of the compassionate truth of Catholic teaching on same-sex attraction will be of great benefit to everyone in today's society.

An Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Romance of 2018! I'm not a good man, and I've never pretended to be. I don't believe in goodness or God or any happy ending that isn't paid for in advance. In fact, I've got my own personal holy trinity: in the name of money, sex, and Macallan 18, amen. So when the gorgeous, brilliant Zenny Iverson asks me to teach her about sex, I want to say yes, I really do. Unfortunately, there are several reasons to say no--reasons that even a very bad man like myself can't ignore. 1. She's my best friend's little sister. 2. She's too young for me. Like way too young. 3. She's a nun. Or about to be anyway. But I want her. I want her even with my best friend and God in the way, I want to teach her and touch her and love her, and I know that makes me something much worse than a very bad man. It makes me a sinner. And it's those very sins that are about to save me... ***Sinner is a standalone companion to Priest about Father Bell's brother Sean. You do not have to read Priest or Midnight Mass to read Sinner***

Based on one hundred fifteen interviews augmented by biographical, survey, and historical research, Keeping the Vow tells the story of married priests and their wives, their unusual and difficult journey from Anglicanism, and their life in the Catholic Church. The book combines personal narratives and sociological analysis to provide a clear view of the priesthood's collective features, and discusses the implications of the married priesthood for the future of the Church.

Thirteen-year-old Danny Bates is obsessed with becoming a Catholic priest, and he enters Southport, Wisconsin's, Resurrection Seminary in 1957. But a tragic fire in Chicago ignites doubts about the God Danny is so eager to serve, and he falls in love with Jessica Fernettan, his best friend Pat's twin sister. As Jessica urges both Danny and Pat to leave the seminary, and with the Church in a period of dramatic change following its second Vatican Council, the young seminarians face agonizing choices. In a powerful and sensitive account of competing personal values, To Become a Priest-a Love Story follows the intertwined lives of Danny, Pat, and Jessica over the next forty years to a memorable ending at the place where their story began. "An engrossing account of the seminary and priesthood during this period, with the best depiction of the troubled terrain of sexual longing among seminarians that I have read." -Raymond Hedin, author of Married to the Church Professor of American Literature, Indiana University "A conflict of fundamental values, and a great love story besides." -Phillip Gaustad, author of The Ordnance "An incredibly sweet story." -Christine DeSmet, author of Spirit Lake University of Wisconsin-Madison