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The Catholic Church imposes drastic restrictions on those who serve it. Unlike monks, priests do not take a vow of chastity but are bound to celibacy and therefore total abstinence. Yet many priests have active sex lives and are in loving heterosexual or homosexual relationships. For this special full-length documentary, French priests and their partners agreed to speak out about their double lives.
Our reporters Alexandra Renard and Georges Yazbeck went to meet priests in love, who would like the Church to allow them to fully experience their romance in broad daylight, while retaining their priesthood.
We spoke to young priests in the making, as well as priests in clandestine relationships with a woman or a man.
No place for romantic love in the Church
Priests who have broken with the vow of celibacy discussed their struggle with living in “sin” and their joy at discovering the happiness of being in a couple or indeed a family, since some have children. Their partners, male or female, also spoke out about the forbidden and secret life they have led for years alongside a man of the cloth.
A terrible culture of secrecy
In France, most priests are sexually active. Half of them are said to be homosexual. Those clergymen face a double penalty.
Unlike the Orthodox Church or the Anglicans, the Roman Catholic Church has imposed celibacy for priests since the 12th century. This doctrine leaves plenty of room for the unspoken, for insular thinking and for a terrible culture of secrecy.
This same centuries-old culture is increasingly under fire, as it has helped to shield those responsible for the sexual abuse of both minors and adults within the Church.
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