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The Serpent and the Dove Celibacy in Literature and Life
A. W. Richard Sipe
Book Code: C34725
ISBN: 0-313-34725-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-34725-2
288 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 10/30/2007
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £27.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • The modern Catholic church has no more careful observer than Sipe....This book continues to deepen Sipe's thoughtful and at times angry engagement with the Catholic church's policy on clerical celibacy....His work as a kind of prophet for a revised, renovated understanding of celibacy is important.
    —Library Journal     January 2008
  • Endorsement From Marianne McDonald, Ph.D., MRIA: An entertaining and vital book. What is particularly gratifying about this work is that it is even-handed, letting readers evaluate their own opinions and attitudes. Many religions have embraced celibacy, in addition to individuals who make personal choices.The issues surrounding celibacy are complex and Richard Sipe is never reductive. He poses problems in a fascinating way, and it is possible to read his book as avidly as the popular novels he describes. He writes engagingly in a prose that speaks to real people. This book is a must read for any person fascinated by what a religious commitment entails.
Description: Richard Sipe, himself a former monk and priest, has made a lifelong venture of determining the reality and meaning of religious celibacy. Even an adequate operational definition of religious celibacy, he says, has been avoided and denied by Catholic hierarchy and scholars to preserve "the celibate myth." Having spent 25 years conducting a study of celibacy and sexual behavior among Roman Catholic priests, Sipe concluded that at any one time no more than 50 percent of priests were practicing celibacy. To more fully understand what celibacy is, how it is practiced, the effect it has on the humanness--the psychology and spirituality--of men and women, and the social effects it presents, Sipe says we can use the approach presented in this book. Specifically, we can analyze historic men who presented themselves or were perceived as living examples of celibacy--Gandhi, Coughlin, Sheen, and Greely--and also focus on the "most profound" truths of celibacy found in literary accounts, from Joyce and Hawthorne to Farrell and Powers. Psychology, religion, and literary criticism interface and are woven together in this book with minimal jargon. The Serpent and the Dove was written in the hope of exciting honest analysis of the essence of religious celibacy and to foster a recrudescence of authentic sexual vigor with all of its evolutionary potential.
"Human sexuality is not going away; nor is it irrelevant to the wellbeing, progress and happiness of the human community," says Sipe. "And the practice of genuine celibacy is not going to disappear either. No question, the Catholic Church needs profound reformation. But in all my work I have chosen not to throw any babies out with the horrendously dirty 'holy water' the church continues to treasure and disseminate. Here, as in all my work, I try to foster dialogue between religion and science, such as literary criticism. The Catholic Church (and religion) is at a Copernican Moment when it has to cede to science the nature of sexuality." The Serpent and the Dove is one more work among Sipe's many books and articles making the need for that clear.
LC Card Number: 2007026995
LCC Class: BV4390
Dewey Class: 253
PDF Catalogs:
Praeger Public Library Spring 2008.pdf
Academic Library Fall 2008.pdf
Praeger Religion Catalog 2008.pdf
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