How to Grow Up

You never really learn something on first exposure. You have to see it twice…and the easiest way to learn it all the way down to the bone is to teach it to someone else. As the Anchoress points out, this applies to growing up just as much as it does to math and science: if you want to grow up, raise some children.

It’s this more than anything else that makes it clear to me that clerical and religious celibacy is a true calling. A celibate priest has no biological children (at least, not as the usual thing), which allows him to have spiritual children—in fact, it requires him to have spiritual children, if he is going to grow into the priest he is supposed to be, and if he is going to have a fulfilling life.

Everybody thinks priestly celibacy is not about getting any sex. Really, it’s about being able to nurture those outside your own immediate family. (Which is another reason why child sexual abuse by priests is so evil.)