Celibacy explores the different questions about life, love and altruism through an insightful and revealing analysis of the essential elements of sexuality as they relate to celibacy. These include gender, orientation, degree of desire, object of excitation, developmental experiences, behaviors, relationships, patterns of integration, and identity.

When twenty-eight-year-old Maria Giura fell in love with Catholic priest Father James Infanzi, she had no idea how needy and angry they both were nor how complicated their attraction would become. His attention seemed to fill the void left by her fractured family, but he also seemed to be a sign for her to finally face the celibate vocation she'd been running from ever since she first felt God's call. Celibate focuses on her ten-year struggle to let go of this priest, to heal from her childhood, and to finally embrace her true calling. Fiercely honest and tender, this memoir is ultimately a story about surrender, forgiveness, and facing one's deepest needs.

2020 Association of Catholic Publishers second place award in general interest In this volume, Br. John Mark Falkenhain, OSB, a Benedictine monk and clinical psychologist, provides a well-researched and thorough program for celibacy formation for men and women, adaptable to both religious and seminary settings. Attending to the theological and the psycho-sexual dimensions of what it means to pursue a life of chaste celibacy, Br. John Mark identifies and expands on four major content areas, including motives for chaste celibacy, theological aspects of celibate chastity, sexual identity, and skills for celibate living. Formation goals and benchmarks for discernment are discussed for each content area, and implications and suggestions for ongoing formation are offered.

Though we often hear about the "gay problem" today, there is an even deeper problem in the church today--one that we often overlook. The call to follow Christ is a call to costly obedience for all, not just for gay Christians. Far too often, the church has elevated homosexuality above other sins and required a costly obedience from gays that it is unwilling to demand of others. And yet, the answer is not to weaken the demands of obedience. Instead, gay Christians who make the difficult choice to align their lives with the biblical view of sexuality are a gift to the church, reminding all of us that spiritual growth and maturity is costly. There is a price to pay in following Christ and devoting our lives to the call of the gospel, and it is one that we all must pay--gay and straight Christians alike. Through the stories and struggles of gay Christians who are reorienting their lives around the costly obedience required to follow Christ, Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets call the church to reorient as well, leaving behind the casual morality that is widespread today to pursue the path of radical discipleship. Unlike any other book on homosexuality and the church, this is a call to examine your life and consider what God is asking you to lay down to take up your cross and follow him.

The first published novel by the award-winning, bestselling and acclaimed Michael Arditti 'It is unusual to find an English first novel of such unflinching moral seriousness ... a varied and involving read' Gregory Woods, Times Literary Supplement 'An exceptional book - at its core it combines the sexual with the spiritual' Sunday Times 'An ambitious first novel, which traces the liberation of a human soul through a gradual revelation of the meaning of passion and the Passion' Candia McWilliam, Independent on Sunday The Celibate is the story of a young man with a mind full of God, but a heart closed to love. While studying at the theological college, he is confused by his feelings for a fellow ordinand and suffers a nervous collapse at the altar. His college principal sends him on a placement to London, where he enters an unfamiliar world of outcasts, down-and-outs, rent boys and religious fundamentalists. In increasing despair, he embarks on a journey through the world of Jack the Ripper, the devastation of the Great Plague and the mysteries of his own family. As the past and present come full circle, he finally understands the true meaning of Passion. This is an intelligent and emotive novel, potent with atmosphere and rich in ideas and insights. It employs a unique fictional structure which integrates the contemporary and the historical, the personal and the theological, the comic and the polemic in a revelatory way. On its initial publication, it was hailed as the debut of a major literary talent.

“The Church today demands a profound renewal of celibate priesthood and the fatherhood to which it is ordered.” Priestly celibacy, some say, is an outdated relic from another age. Others see it as a lonely way of life. But as Fr. Carter Griffin argues in Why Celibacy?: Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest, the ancient practice of celibacy, when lived well, helps a priest exercise his spiritual fatherhood joyfully and fruitfully. Along the way, Griffin explores: the question of optional celibacy some pitfalls of celibate paternity the selection and formation of candidates for celibate priesthood why biological fathers are also called to spiritual fatherhood the powerful impact of celibacy on the Church and the wider culture In a critical moment for the Catholic priesthood, Fr. Griffin brings light and hope with a new perspective on the Church’s perennial wisdom on celibacy.

Cozzens explores priestly celibacy as a source of power and burden of obligation, as spiritual calling and gift of the Spirit. He affirms celibacy as a charism, a gift that is true for some, but only when received as a grace.

In the midst of the worst crisis the Catholic Church has seen in almost 500 years, this book challenges Catholic authorities to renew, rethink, or reform the long-standing institution of celibacy.

The evolution of an AI engineer into a Jesuit, a Christian priest, and later an Aghori Sadhu, a naked Hindu monk, is the story. On holiday in Goa, Grace, a local girl, invited Abe to stay with her on condition he wouldn't touch her. He became madly in love with Grace but evolved into a celibate. At the Kamakhya temple, Emma, from Amsterdam, a researcher of Aghori Sadhus, prompted him about the joys of sex that challenged Abe's manhood. Her greenish eyes mesmerised him, and the lure tore him apart. A reverberating saga of sparkling aspirations and fleeting visions of Abe, Grace and Emma, enthralled in the zest of living and entrenched in captivating catastrophe sans exit, elevates the reader into a delightful psychic amorphous experience. This explosive existential surrealistic fiction exposes the absurdity and futility of celibacy, asceticism, and renunciation. Grace and Emma are two facets of womanhood, and Abe is the quintessential artist who tries to circumvent his anguish through painting their portraits. The Aghori Sadhu symbolises the meaninglessness of life. His nudity is civilisation's primaeval status, the freedom to be naked

When Christians have same-sex attraction, how should the church respond? Pastor Ed Shaw experiences same-sex attraction, and yet he is committed to Scripture and the church's traditional position on sexuality. In this honest book, he shares his own experiences and shows us that obedience to Jesus is ultimately the only way to experience life to the full.