Priests are expected to remain celibate, but having libido is a normal human experience — it doesn’t go away because of a vow. Most deal with it through prayer, self-discipline, spiritual focus, and sometimes by seeking guidance from a mentor or confessor. Some may struggle more than others, and that’s why personal support systems and counseling are important within the Church
Priests still experience libido, but those who take vows of celibacy manage it through prayer, discipline, and spiritual practices in line with their faith.
Well, despite the vocation, not all priests are celibate. With roman Catholic priests, celibacy is called for buuuut…. here are plenty of men and women who have consensual relationships with priests. Some might prefer to masturbate for relief. Some pray through it or exercise. Anglican priests are allowed to marry, so I guess they plan netflix and chill sessions. Overall, different strokes for different priests. ..literally
Depends on their branch of Christianity. Some allow for marriage. But a serious answer, without snarking about all the altar boys and nuns that get assaulted, they likely go to confession, pray and seek advice through various churchy ways.
Jokes aside: This is what is a called a ‘passion’ in particular Eastern Orthodoxy but afaik also in western catholicism.
Passion quite literally mean suffering and it denotes all those things we want and feel a strong attraction to doing. We suffer our passions as it were.
For clergy there is a lot that they do not do. Religous restrictions on things people want to do. That is tempering your passions and overcoming them. The theological basis is that you should serve the lord and not your base pleasures.
Your run of the mill self help spiel about “controlling your emotions” is basically the same thing.
If you get a strong hunkering for a cheeseburger on a fasting day the idea is you focus on the religious rules and overcome that and dont eat a cheeseburger.
Some are fine with not eating a cheeseburger, others struggle more.
Libido is the same. Some have an easier time overcoming that urge than others. Or to phrase it in Christian parlance: Some have an easier time suffering that passion than others.
What are clergy supposed to do (according to the church) if they have a strong libido?
Same as a clergyman with a strong urge to break the fast: overcome it.
Edit: Before another one writes: “Oh no, if they cant handle it they rape kids”. Consider what that notion is saying: It is saying that when a person gets no sexual release, it is understandable they will gravitate towards sexual assaults.
That is beyond stupid and a messed up reasoning.
The widespread sexual misconduct amd subsequent cover up by churches has many underlying reasons: suppressings ones libido is not one of them. Unless your libido was already messed up from the start.
Normal human beings don’t start to get rapey or become pedophiles if they dont get any.
All jokes aside, they actually expect them to have a libido, they are humans after all, they just expect them to not act on it. It’s the sacrifice they have to make and their way to fully dedicate them self to the church.
Historically, though, the entire no sex thing was purely invented for political reasons. The church owned a lot of land and they ran in to the issue that every time a high ranking member of the church had kids, the land got split between them, which, over time, let the church loose land and land, back then, was equivalent with wealth and power.
The solution was that officially priests were not allowed to have sex. The church actually didn’t cared if the priests actually had sex or not, but since it was forbidden, no priest could have legal children even though everyone knew that they had children and who they were.
But a child that is not legally acknowledged is not entitled to the anything their father owned. Problem solved!
Nowadays this has no actual function anymore, because the entire system of ownership does not work that way anymore. Thats why there are more and more people who want to get rid of that tradition, so far the Catholic Church holds on to it for various reasons.
Girl, they’re human too — so yeah, they do get libido. But if they’ve taken a vow of celibacy, they’re supposed to take care of it by praying, staying busy, and basically just not acting on it
Hard? Absolutely. But that’s the promise they made.
When I was a teenager, the priest in our church was giving a sermon in which he talked about sin.
He said things like, “We aren’t supposed to curse, but we curse. We aren’t suppose to lie, but we lie.” All very mundane stuff and then he said “We aren’t supposed to masturbate, but we masturbate.”
As a teenage boy I said pheww thank goodness he understands. lol. But I remember my Aunt walking down to our house that afternoon and just having a near heart attack talking about him saying that.
So at that time I was thinking so that is how he deals with celibacy. That is until a couple of years later when he was moved to another parish because he was having sex with his female housekeeper.
He got moved and then she went to the next parish too. lol.
Didn’t the Catholic Church and other denominations cover this up and then fought it in the courts then lost? Some denominations are still denying and hiding what their priests, ministers and leaders of faith do when they have “libido”. But all they gotta do is ask for forgiveness and they’ll send you to a different church/parish where it happens all over again.
They have different approaches in dealing with it. One priest I know spends his time in the convent kneeling in prayer and another one goes on a night out picking up women using his “I’m a priest” pick up line.
The other priests I know of, well I don’t know how they address such thing. Only the aforementioned priests were the ones who answered this very question, in which I witnessed them do those exact things they said.
Not all groups have a prohibition on marriage. It used to be allowed even for Catholic priests, Greek Orthodox church also allows married priests (but you need to be married prior to ordination).
for a responsible priest, the answer is the same thing you do when you’re hungry while fasting. you just, dont act on it.
a good friend of mine’s words about this were (paraphrased of course) that someone is not pious for acting celibate if they’re asexual (he obviously didnt use the word asexual but the concept of “guy who doesnt feel sexual attraction” is exactly new), because it’d be like calling someone without fear brave. An ascetic who doesnt want what they’re abstaining from in the first place isnt an ascetic at all, but just a guy living their normal life. Celibacy requires desire in the first place, for the same reason you would not call an 8 year old a celibate you would not call an asexual person a celibate.
for an irresponsible priest, the answer is to touch a child usually, but those are not priests but pricks with money larping as good people.
My brother is a Christian and regularly attends a celibacy group that supports each other in resisting lust. He says half those in attendance to those meetings are pastors.
So I’d guess that priests probably talk to each other through the tough times, at least the good ones. Like anyone dealing with a struggle, they lean on their support system to get through it. Or they break, and hurt someone.
Met a franciscan monk once (knew people in theology college), wore the full cassock and knotted rope in public, everything, and I asked the question in a tactful way. He straight up said that he masturbated a lot.
They have sex like any other man & often times with minors. I’m not even trying to be snide or funny. Catholic men, including priests, can do pretty much whatever they want & as long as they do proper confession & all the absurd semantics they still go to heaven as it’s believed. Catholic women however don’t have the same luxuries or allowances. Religion is a joke.
According to a couple a documentaries I have seen….. they do some pretty awful shit to children, get caught, then get moved to a new Location with a fresh batch of children.
I used to work for a Catholic diocese. The bishop’s secretary once told me about an unnamed priest who had a “lapse in his vow of celibacy.” There was another man who left the priesthood for a year or so, got a girlfriend, broke up with her, and then rejoined the priesthood lol.
I’m pretty sure that we all know the answer to this… Even though stereotypes are often based on limited or inaccurate information, you can find an excess of child abuse throughout the church and almost just as many cover ups
They sleep around. They have girlfriends, they have boyfriends, they have plenty of kids. The only thing that they don’t have is wives. In my country, priests don’t let me a small thing like their vows keep them from a good time. They are all whoring, alcoholics who spend church funds on a life of luxury while preaching about how noble poverty is.
The real answer is that some of them see denial of their needs and desires as a means of proving their devotion to god, and their spiritual “journey” involves overcoming their needs as part of their faith. (I used brackets not to be sarcastic, but because I’m not sure I’m using the right term.) However, some of them masturbate, some of them secretly take lovers or see prostitutes, and a depressing number of them abuse their position of authority and social power within their congregation to sexually coerce people, too often including raping children.
For the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s own investigations in the late 90’s revealed that up to 5% of priests had credible allegations of raping one or more children, and to this day, when the church discovers a priest is a rapist or abuser, they’ll move them to another diocese, usually in another country, and protect them from prosecution from civil authorities. There have been several scandals, mostly in Southern Europe but also other places, where it was revealed that priests were using convents of nuns as their own private brothels, and that they had secured thousands of abortions over the decades.
So basically, priests do what most people do when they’re horny – the jerk off or fuck. But because their whole deal is pretending they don’t do that stuff, it makes it hypocritical, illicit and often predatory, since it has to be kept secret.
At some point, if male and their reproductive system still functional, things will need emptying to make room for a newer batch and that’s when they have a nocturnal emission in conjunction with an erotic dream their brains will manifest with no control on their part.
Kinda also hints at how stupid the religion is to implement unnatural curbs that their bodies will overcome one way or another in an involuntary manner.
Come now; you don’t live under a rock… They rape the children that they have access to and are then moved around to different areas so they don’t face any punishment for their horrifying crimes against humanity.
“Ah yes. Let’s completely deny a normal part of our humanity that was given to us without our choice. Instead of channeling that love and attraction into someone special in marriage, let’s just completely abstain from it and claim that it makes God happy even though we will never know the mind of God.” Wow Catholicism is so ridiculous lol
Calling all priest rapist or child molesters is like saying Taco Bell gives everyone the shits. Sure it happens often but not all the time. The news, surprise, exaggerates.
But it does give me a complex. Was I not good enough? I never got a second glance from a priest.
Comments
Seek guidance, pray, or break their vows
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They take a vow of celibacy which means no marriage and no intercourse but I guess they can still whack off as needed?
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Ask for forgiveness.
Used to work at a Catholic hospital. The priests there would hit the gym or pool when they needed to work off excess energy.
Priests are expected to remain celibate, but having libido is a normal human experience — it doesn’t go away because of a vow. Most deal with it through prayer, self-discipline, spiritual focus, and sometimes by seeking guidance from a mentor or confessor. Some may struggle more than others, and that’s why personal support systems and counseling are important within the Church
Priests still experience libido, but those who take vows of celibacy manage it through prayer, discipline, and spiritual practices in line with their faith.
Well, despite the vocation, not all priests are celibate. With roman Catholic priests, celibacy is called for buuuut…. here are plenty of men and women who have consensual relationships with priests. Some might prefer to masturbate for relief. Some pray through it or exercise. Anglican priests are allowed to marry, so I guess they plan netflix and chill sessions. Overall, different strokes for different priests. ..literally
Depends on their branch of Christianity. Some allow for marriage. But a serious answer, without snarking about all the altar boys and nuns that get assaulted, they likely go to confession, pray and seek advice through various churchy ways.
Fuckin hose down a kitchen sink like the rest of us?
Jokes aside: This is what is a called a ‘passion’ in particular Eastern Orthodoxy but afaik also in western catholicism.
Passion quite literally mean suffering and it denotes all those things we want and feel a strong attraction to doing. We suffer our passions as it were.
For clergy there is a lot that they do not do. Religous restrictions on things people want to do. That is tempering your passions and overcoming them. The theological basis is that you should serve the lord and not your base pleasures.
Your run of the mill self help spiel about “controlling your emotions” is basically the same thing.
If you get a strong hunkering for a cheeseburger on a fasting day the idea is you focus on the religious rules and overcome that and dont eat a cheeseburger.
Some are fine with not eating a cheeseburger, others struggle more.
Libido is the same. Some have an easier time overcoming that urge than others. Or to phrase it in Christian parlance: Some have an easier time suffering that passion than others.
What are clergy supposed to do (according to the church) if they have a strong libido?
Same as a clergyman with a strong urge to break the fast: overcome it.
Edit: Before another one writes: “Oh no, if they cant handle it they rape kids”. Consider what that notion is saying: It is saying that when a person gets no sexual release, it is understandable they will gravitate towards sexual assaults.
That is beyond stupid and a messed up reasoning.
The widespread sexual misconduct amd subsequent cover up by churches has many underlying reasons: suppressings ones libido is not one of them. Unless your libido was already messed up from the start.
Normal human beings don’t start to get rapey or become pedophiles if they dont get any.
All jokes aside, they actually expect them to have a libido, they are humans after all, they just expect them to not act on it. It’s the sacrifice they have to make and their way to fully dedicate them self to the church.
Historically, though, the entire no sex thing was purely invented for political reasons. The church owned a lot of land and they ran in to the issue that every time a high ranking member of the church had kids, the land got split between them, which, over time, let the church loose land and land, back then, was equivalent with wealth and power.
The solution was that officially priests were not allowed to have sex. The church actually didn’t cared if the priests actually had sex or not, but since it was forbidden, no priest could have legal children even though everyone knew that they had children and who they were.
But a child that is not legally acknowledged is not entitled to the anything their father owned. Problem solved!
Nowadays this has no actual function anymore, because the entire system of ownership does not work that way anymore. Thats why there are more and more people who want to get rid of that tradition, so far the Catholic Church holds on to it for various reasons.
Girl, they’re human too — so yeah, they do get libido. But if they’ve taken a vow of celibacy, they’re supposed to take care of it by praying, staying busy, and basically just not acting on it
Hard? Absolutely. But that’s the promise they made.
Bang Kids and tell them if they tell anyone they’ll go to hell.
When I was a teenager, the priest in our church was giving a sermon in which he talked about sin.
He said things like, “We aren’t supposed to curse, but we curse. We aren’t suppose to lie, but we lie.” All very mundane stuff and then he said “We aren’t supposed to masturbate, but we masturbate.”
As a teenage boy I said pheww thank goodness he understands. lol. But I remember my Aunt walking down to our house that afternoon and just having a near heart attack talking about him saying that.
So at that time I was thinking so that is how he deals with celibacy. That is until a couple of years later when he was moved to another parish because he was having sex with his female housekeeper.
He got moved and then she went to the next parish too. lol.
What is Altar Boys?
There are Protestant priests who really do call themselves priests who are not required to be celibate. My grandpa was one of them and he was married.
Nowadays there is no longer so much discipline to focus on other things. They break celibacy. I know several priests who have lovers.
Several indeed.
The poop hole loophole
Become a pharmacist.
If they are any religion other than Catholic, they fuck.
Didn’t the Catholic Church and other denominations cover this up and then fought it in the courts then lost? Some denominations are still denying and hiding what their priests, ministers and leaders of faith do when they have “libido”. But all they gotta do is ask for forgiveness and they’ll send you to a different church/parish where it happens all over again.
They have different approaches in dealing with it. One priest I know spends his time in the convent kneeling in prayer and another one goes on a night out picking up women using his “I’m a priest” pick up line.
The other priests I know of, well I don’t know how they address such thing. Only the aforementioned priests were the ones who answered this very question, in which I witnessed them do those exact things they said.
Probably prays and scrolls past thirst traps like it’s a test from God.
Priests in what religion/denomination?
Not all groups have a prohibition on marriage. It used to be allowed even for Catholic priests, Greek Orthodox church also allows married priests (but you need to be married prior to ordination).
They visit the altar boys
Self control? It’s not that hard.
fuck kids, usually
Fuck kids
They certainly dont duck’em in the pooh sea.
for a responsible priest, the answer is the same thing you do when you’re hungry while fasting. you just, dont act on it.
a good friend of mine’s words about this were (paraphrased of course) that someone is not pious for acting celibate if they’re asexual (he obviously didnt use the word asexual but the concept of “guy who doesnt feel sexual attraction” is exactly new), because it’d be like calling someone without fear brave. An ascetic who doesnt want what they’re abstaining from in the first place isnt an ascetic at all, but just a guy living their normal life. Celibacy requires desire in the first place, for the same reason you would not call an 8 year old a celibate you would not call an asexual person a celibate.
for an irresponsible priest, the answer is to touch a child usually, but those are not priests but pricks with money larping as good people.
Stop sugar coating. They touch lil kids and get away with it cuz church is corrupt.
My brother is a Christian and regularly attends a celibacy group that supports each other in resisting lust. He says half those in attendance to those meetings are pastors.
So I’d guess that priests probably talk to each other through the tough times, at least the good ones. Like anyone dealing with a struggle, they lean on their support system to get through it. Or they break, and hurt someone.
Met a franciscan monk once (knew people in theology college), wore the full cassock and knotted rope in public, everything, and I asked the question in a tactful way. He straight up said that he masturbated a lot.
Just look at the news
Go fuck themselves.
They fuck a kid
The amount of underwear changing during the night that priest do must be insane
They have sex like any other man & often times with minors. I’m not even trying to be snide or funny. Catholic men, including priests, can do pretty much whatever they want & as long as they do proper confession & all the absurd semantics they still go to heaven as it’s believed. Catholic women however don’t have the same luxuries or allowances. Religion is a joke.
No, too easy. Not going near this one lol.
💀💀they become pedos
All jokes aside, kids.
In Germany there is a “workaround” called Pfarrhaushälterin.
Fancy name for maid with benefits. /s
libidon’t
Why do choir boys part their hair in the middle…
Rape children.
altar boys?
Walk down to the nearest elementary school.
Beat the Bishop
They groom children of course
When I was a kid, the local priest met up with a married woman at my parents pool.
Pick a teen boy.
See hookers
children’s question
Little alter boys.
I hate to break it to you, but priests do have libido.
you should have heard it on the news
Get moved out of Boston apparently.
I asked a man who left the Catholic priesthood exactly that. He said ” You just go somewhere and jack off”……
Italian here. Most have sex like anyone else, but they are very discreet about it.
Children apparently.
They beat the hell out of the bishop.
According to a couple a documentaries I have seen….. they do some pretty awful shit to children, get caught, then get moved to a new Location with a fresh batch of children.
I used to work for a Catholic diocese. The bishop’s secretary once told me about an unnamed priest who had a “lapse in his vow of celibacy.” There was another man who left the priesthood for a year or so, got a girlfriend, broke up with her, and then rejoined the priesthood lol.
Fun fact: Only Roman Catholic priests can’t be married. Eastern Catholic priests can and do have wives.
I’m pretty sure that we all know the answer to this… Even though stereotypes are often based on limited or inaccurate information, you can find an excess of child abuse throughout the church and almost just as many cover ups
little boys?
You know what they do. Everything the have been accused of.
Sublimation is the key, suppression leads to problems.
You dont wanna know
That’s why there were so many alcoholic priests.
Children?
Mostly abuse children.
We call that “miništrant” in slovak. Google that
They sleep around. They have girlfriends, they have boyfriends, they have plenty of kids. The only thing that they don’t have is wives. In my country, priests don’t let me a small thing like their vows keep them from a good time. They are all whoring, alcoholics who spend church funds on a life of luxury while preaching about how noble poverty is.
From my understanding, they typically use an altar boy.
The real answer is that some of them see denial of their needs and desires as a means of proving their devotion to god, and their spiritual “journey” involves overcoming their needs as part of their faith. (I used brackets not to be sarcastic, but because I’m not sure I’m using the right term.) However, some of them masturbate, some of them secretly take lovers or see prostitutes, and a depressing number of them abuse their position of authority and social power within their congregation to sexually coerce people, too often including raping children.
For the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s own investigations in the late 90’s revealed that up to 5% of priests had credible allegations of raping one or more children, and to this day, when the church discovers a priest is a rapist or abuser, they’ll move them to another diocese, usually in another country, and protect them from prosecution from civil authorities. There have been several scandals, mostly in Southern Europe but also other places, where it was revealed that priests were using convents of nuns as their own private brothels, and that they had secured thousands of abortions over the decades.
So basically, priests do what most people do when they’re horny – the jerk off or fuck. But because their whole deal is pretending they don’t do that stuff, it makes it hypocritical, illicit and often predatory, since it has to be kept secret.
They just libidon’t!
They sneak on dating apps like everyone else. Officially though, the vows keep them chaste and holy 👼🏿
At some point, if male and their reproductive system still functional, things will need emptying to make room for a newer batch and that’s when they have a nocturnal emission in conjunction with an erotic dream their brains will manifest with no control on their part.
Kinda also hints at how stupid the religion is to implement unnatural curbs that their bodies will overcome one way or another in an involuntary manner.
🧠 -> 🚮
Come now; you don’t live under a rock… They rape the children that they have access to and are then moved around to different areas so they don’t face any punishment for their horrifying crimes against humanity.
not what, who. and who? kids
They usually find a kid
“Ah yes. Let’s completely deny a normal part of our humanity that was given to us without our choice. Instead of channeling that love and attraction into someone special in marriage, let’s just completely abstain from it and claim that it makes God happy even though we will never know the mind of God.” Wow Catholicism is so ridiculous lol
5-10 years for child molestation usually.
Children
diddle children obviously
Calling all priest rapist or child molesters is like saying Taco Bell gives everyone the shits. Sure it happens often but not all the time. The news, surprise, exaggerates.
But it does give me a complex. Was I not good enough? I never got a second glance from a priest.
What are these “jokes” all preface their post with? Priest do fuck kids. Thats no joke.
Catholic ones rape young boys.
Rape kids & get to travel for free.
Nuns, that’s what they’re for.
children usually
Young boys it would seem.
Fuck alterboys
Be fruitful and multiply…
Kids.
I think there’s been enough scandals for us to know the answer to that one. 🤮
little boys. I thought that was pretty common knowledge.
Find a children usually
A child
They rape children.
The altar boys.