BOOK REVIEW: VIRGINITY

Virginity, A Positive Approach to Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom of Heaven by Raniero Cantalamessa

“Its too late for you!” was my wife’s comment when she saw me reading this book (or booklet really – its only 94 pages long). Indeed, reading a book on virginity written by a Roman Catholic priest might seem an odd choice for a protestant pastor with four children and a frequently expressed enthusiasm for marriage and family life. However, it is good to be broadminded!

One of my first posts on this blog was to reference a book I was reading by Cantalamessa on the Holy Spirit. He is a very good writer. Engaging and clear; succinct yet profound. I’ve had this one on the shelf for ages, and it was a spare August moment that made me pick it up and read it.

If you want to understand why the Church of Rome insists on its clergy being celibate you should read this book. Rome’s position is often ridiculed, but as is generally the case with Catholic moral theology, there is a well-reasoned and carefully nuanced explanation behind it. (After all, they’ve been thinking about this stuff for hundreds of years!) Even if you are not interested in Catholic theology and practice, Cantalamessa does have something to say on a subject we Evangelicals do not always do too well on. Because we see marriage as normal and desirable, we do not always know how to regard those who are single. We also tend to trip over those passages of scripture which seem to encourage a way of life that does not involve marriage.

Cantalamessa focuses on two of these passages – Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 19:10-12 (“There are some who choose not to marry for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”) and Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians (“The unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord’s affairs” 1 Cor 7:31-35). And he makes some very good points, following very much in the tradition of St Augustine. Some of his points are just too Catholic for me to take seriously, but the good points include these:

• To be a virgin is not something to be ashamed of, and the Church should seek to recover the use of the word in its positive sense, rather than in the negative way it is so often portrayed by the world.
• To choose celibacy is not to deny the goodness of marriage but in fact to recognize its goodness – if something is not good there is no cost in choosing not to take hold of it.
• Choosing celibacy is in some way a choosing in this life of what will be the pattern of life in the new creation, for then we will not marry (Luke 20:34-36). As Cantalamessa puts it, “I believe that it is not ontologically (that is, in itself) a more perfect state, but it is an eschatologically more advanced state, in the sense that it is more like the definitive state towards which we are journeying.”
• Christians are called not to an eternal relationship in a couple, but to an eternal relationship with God.

If you can cope with the Catholic-isms, this is a thought provoking book for both the single and married to read. Cantalamessa flags up the dangers facing Catholic clergy who are celibate and who also live singly, rather than in community (and this was written before all the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church broke). While the notion of a class of clergy who as part of their call to ministry must remain celibate is a strange one for me (thank God for Martin Luther!), this does highlight a challenge we all face in our churches – How do we build genuine community, in which both the married and single take a full part? Married people need single people, and single people need the married and families – we are meant to be mixed up together, serve one another, and learn from the different joys and sorrows we experience.

We are re-launching small groups at Gateway this month – I am not naïve enough to think this will offer a full solution, but I do sincerely pray that our Life Groups will help us form genuine community. Missional communities where young and old, male and female, single and married can together pursue their calling in Christ.