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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 obliged to celibacy and therefore abstinence. However, many priests have an active sex life and have heterosexual or homosexual love relationships. For this special of Reporters the Documentary, some French priests and their partners agreed to talk about this double life.
Our reporters Alexandra Renard and Georges Yazbeck went to meet some priests in love, who would like the Church to allow them to fully experience their relationship in public and continue to retain their priesthood.
We speak to young priests in formation, as well as priests in clandestine relationships with a woman or a man.
The priests who have broken with the vow of celibacy commented on their struggle to live in “sin” and the happiness they discovered when they were in a couple or even in a family, since some have children. Their partners also spoke about the secret and forbidden life that they have been leading for years with a man of habit.
A terrible culture of secrecy
In France, most priests are sexually active. It is estimated that half of them are homosexual, which constitutes something of a double sentence for many clergymen.
Unlike the Orthodox Church or the Anglicans, the Roman Catholic Church has imposed celibacy on priests since the 12th century. This doctrine leaves a lot of room for the unspoken, for isolated thought, and for a terrible culture of secrecy.
This same century-old culture is increasingly under discussion as it has helped protect those responsible for sexual abuse of both minors and adults within the Church.
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