Harmful or Benign? Transnational Medical Networks and the Celibacy of Priests

Abstract

This article investigates the nineteenth‐century debate within transnational medical networks about the physiological effects of celibacy for priests. Many doctors, motivated in part by their animosity towards the Catholic Church, argued that the vow of celibacy was not only futile, but responsible for sexual immorality in the church. However, medical opinion was never uniform, and other doctors rallied to the church, defending the celibate vow as largely benign. Both sides shared a willingness to look abroad for support and inspiration. This article investigates this debate as a transnational phenomenon, as key texts were translated and published across Europe and North America, and as several notorious case‐studies emerged to form the focus of international controversy.

A Comparative Historical Categorisation of Anti‐Catholicism

“…47 Indeed, as Tim Verhoeven shows, this kind of polemic was linked to contemporary medical views that long-term male celibacy was unrealistic, and liable to lead either to adverse physiological consequences or to a sex drive that became uncontrollable resulting in predatory behaviour. 48 The confessional was a particular focus of antagonism as it was seen both as a means for priests to exercise control over intimate details of the lives of their parishioners, and also for them actually to seduce suggestible women. The writer of an anonymous polemic, published in 1833, listed the "evils which society suffers from Popery," including such suggestive subheadings as "Ignorance," "Hostility of Popery to Modern Science," "Institution of Nunneries for the gratification of Priestly Love," and "Adulterous system of the Priesthood, by means of Confession."…”