Between celibacy and god’s call

Men of the cloth are, by the very nature of their calling, presumed to have foregone some worldly affairs. Chief among them, perhaps, being an avoidance of certain carnal pleasures the rest of mankind so woefully, and naturally, suffers from. Indeed, much of the respect and reverence the clergy, of all faiths, receive from people often rests on this renunciation.

But the devil, as is said, often tests the best of us, and there do happen to be some black sheep popping up every now and then where least expected. Take the case of the series of sex scandals that shook the Roman Catholic church. Now, in an apparent reaction, the Vatican has just re-written the guidelines. Future priests, it is learnt, must pass psychological tests to prove they don���t have the requisite sex drive. In other words, they should not have any.

And it must be established that the person is clear about celibacy and have, to quote the Vatican, a ���positive and stable sense of one���s masculine identity���. There will, surely, be reactions ranging from the satirical to the outraged. But at least the Church is pretty upfront about the fact that it doesn���t approve of homosexuality.
On the contrary, there are umpteen examples of decidedly shifty religious figures. In fact, they���ve existed for quite some time.

Chaucer, for example, makes appropriate satirical use of them in his 13th century Canterbury Tales. And they exist among all faiths. In India, we are hardly unused to various scandalous escapades of assorted godmen. Not to mention a healthy, and continuing, tradition of downright charlatans.

In some cases, it can even become a political issue. Witness the case of the piously named Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, in neighbouring Pakistan, a man of the religious right, who after being caught in a compromising position with two ladies of the night, was gleefully called ���Sammy the sandwich��� by the press.

Such transgressions simply can���t be forgiven of the clergy. And that���s why, perhaps, the Vatican decided to put down on paper what would earlier have been taken as a matter of course. It is after all, kalyug.