Clerical Celibacy in the Era of the Sexual Revolution

In 1974 and 1975, two members of the French Catholic episcopate died suddenly and in circumstances that compromised their public images as celibate priests. The two deaths, of Jean Cardinal Danièlou and Bishop Roger Tort, coming within six months of each other, re-ignited long-running debates about the practice of celibacy in the Catholic Church. These scandals provide a window into discussions of clerical celibacy in the era of changing sexual practices and values in France.

This paper examines debates inside and outside the French Catholic Church regarding clerical sexuality. The possibility of married priests had long been discussed and even promoted by some members of the Catholic Church.  At the Second Vatican Council, some were disappointed that Church leaders backed away from this question. Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting Catholics from using hormonal contraception, only seemed to widen the gap between the sexual morality of the Church and practices of the public. In this context, celibate priests became another symbol of the Catholic Church’s apparently outmoded views of human sexuality. This paper examines how the question of clerical celibacy shaped French Catholic culture and the Church’s position in public life in the years after Vatican II.

Discussions and debates about priestly celibacy in the 1970s shed light not only on French Catholic history, but also promise to reveal widely held assumptions about masculinity and men’s sexuality at a moment when the public was also engaged in heated disputes about abortion, homosexuality, and women’s liberation.