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Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood: The “Chaste” Caste By Marco Marzano (Routledge, 2025). In the words of one Father Dario (pseudonyms are of course used throughout), “I love Christ deeply, I really love being a priest, looking after people's problems, helping them to improve their lives and I adore theological debate. But like all human beings I want to be loved” (p. 79). I am reminded of Robert K. Merton's (1976) Sociological Ambivalence, which “in its most restricted core sense [is] conflicting normative expectations socially defined for a particular social role associated with a single social status … since these norms cannot be expressed in behavior, they come to be expressed in an oscillation of behaviors: of detachment and compassion, of discipline and permissiveness, of personal and impersonal treatment” (p. 8, emphasis in original). This is a brief but challenging book, best grappled with in small segments over time. Its contents may mean shock or disillusionment for any who have felt some closeness to the Catholic Church or who have considered a pastoral calling, revealing as it does the “underlife” of the institution, to draw on Goffman via Marzano (p. 28); and chronicling the painful struggles of the very-human priests and ex-priests centered in this work. If one is looking for cool objectivity, Marzano's work does not provide. As is the case with a lot of good sociology, the challenging, years-long research chronicled in Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood is informed and motivated by autobiography; anchored to difficult personal experience with courage and refreshing honesty. Opening with his experiences at a Catholic-run middle school in Northern Italy, Marzano brings the reader face-to-face with the sadistic, misanthropic Father Carlo and the lurid Father Mauro, rumored to be a pedophile—as well as Father Carmine, who apparently ran the gamut between extremes (pp. 2–3). Later, Marzano recalls discovering a trove of pornography in the possession of a priest with another boy his age, “once again, an encounter with a priest was associated with eros. And concealment, prohibition, and repression” (p. 5); being groped by a religious education teacher at the age of 15 (p. 5); and being aggressively propositioned by a priest as an adult (pp. 6–7). Bookending this study is a conclusion titled “Clerical Lies and Public Welfare,” which anticipates objections: orthodox Catholics may see this work as biased and reject it, whereas it may galvanize liberal Catholics seeking to end the vow of celibacy in the priesthood (p. 104). In fairness to the orthodox objections, qualitative work of this kind is not generalizable to a population or institution, but Marzano triangulates his findings with statistical data and archival evidence, suggesting the findings presented in this book (however shocking) are not an anomaly. As for the liberal objections, Marzano is keen to avoid making policy recommendations, focusing instead on following the evidence wherever it leads. In his words: “My own opinion is that there is at least one positive outcome of this approach: acceptance of the fact that priests are, in the last analysis, entirely normal people with the same needs and reactions as everyone else” (p. 105). Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood brings self and society, structure and agency, into dialogue by first examining the institutional context in which training for the priesthood via the seminaries takes place. Institutionally, the Catholic Church is the Weberian “ideal-type” bureaucracy—closed, rigidly hierarchical, demanding complete loyalty and surrender within its ranks (pp. 15–18). The warrant for maintaining celibacy is twofold: it builds and reinforces this “total” relationship between the institution and those who function within it, and (more importantly for Marzano) elevates the priest above the mortal, human plane; celibacy becomes a kind of martyrdom and direct emulation of Christ (pp. 21–23). It is implied by this analysis that the Church is totalitarian in its structure, and with former priest and psychoanalyst Eugen Drewermann, love poses the greatest threat to the totalitarian system (p. 21). The organizational analysis foregrounds the social-psychological characteristics of those who are drawn to a pastoral calling. Chapter 7 is particularly illuminating. Many seminarians come from the lower social strata (p. 38), have domineering mother figures (pp. 39–43) and weak, absent, or despotic father figures (p. 43); young people, in short, who believe themselves (rightly or wrongly) to have few prospects for social success (p. 44), “lost boys desperately seeking existential security” (p. 45). These young people make good and capable servants for an organization that demands so much, and that provides transcendent rewards in terms of status. It becomes gradually evident that a large subset of those attracted to the priesthood are deeply ambivalent toward their sexuality (pp. 82–83); and that many, perhaps even a majority, of priests and seminarians are gay men with active sex lives (pp. 58, 60, 81, 94–100). Marzano speculates that the Church has long drawn gay men into its orbit as a safe space in a hostile world; and that the decline of the priesthood parallels a growing acceptance of same-sex expressions of love (p. 59). The deep ambivalence between the Church's public-facing condemnation of homosexuality, and evidence of routine gay sexual trysts within it, is brought into stark relief. A culture of secrecy in turn gives rise to cynicism, blackmail, and organized immorality among some of the elect (pp. 34–35; 62–63). The priesthood described here is a “homonormative” space—in which homophily and homosexuality coexist comfortably, at least in private; and heterosexuality, with its attendant risk of starting a family and leaving the fold, is the greater hazard (p. 75). This is not to suggest that there are no heterosexual priests, nor that they do not create significant complications. Marzano refers to an ex-priest who impregnated a much-younger parishioner and, after years of attempted cover-ups and “retraining,” left to marry the mother of his child (pp. 92–93); and a priest who by his own admission seduced all the female volunteers in a particular community (p. 91). Returning to the theme of totalitarianism and love being diametrically opposed, a gem which refracts its light across these tense and difficult narratives, human beings are inherently social, needing love, companionship, affection, and togetherness to flourish. The demand that human beings forego sexual love would seem to amplify rather than exorcizing these needs in many cases. Coupled with intense guilt and a culture of secrecy and mistrust, needs mutate into compulsion and obsession as adjustments to a totalizing milieu; these extend not only to many instances of seemingly perfunctory sex, but to masturbation (which, survey data suggests, priests engage in significantly more often than men in the general public, pp. 51–52) as well as other addictions—alcohol, food, gambling—which take root where healthy social connection has been stymied. This, in my view, is one of the broader implications of this work that holds validity far beyond the seminary and the priesthood. In the interest of reflexivity, I was raised Catholic and attended Mass weekly until I left the Church without being confirmed at age 16. My interest in Catholicism was renewed by Pope Francis (2015) and his Laudato si' “climate change” Encyclical letter; this inspired many years of research on religion and environment for me; I even questioned my secular worldview for a time. Though I never experienced misconduct or victimization at the hands of any priest or church member, and never personally knew of anyone who did, leaving the Church became easier for me in the eyes of my family when it seemed the Church might be providing cover for abusers within its own ranks. It is, in the end, concerns not about the consensual sex lives of priests that motivates the deeply humanistic concern emanating from this work, but the fact that the structure and culture of the institution, providing as it does cover for widespread sexual activity, may also insulate priests from worldly consequences who have sexually abused or victimized human beings in their care. “…there is one social group (by no means negligible in size) which cannot ignore the accounts in this book. This is made up of all those people who—whether they like it or not—have suffered violence and abuse by members of the clergy. I am not talking about children alone, but also nuns, lay women, and adult seminarians” (p. 105). In this, Marzano insists that his work is scientific and ethical, not political; he has no intention of attempting to suggest reforms for the Church—instead, “The point is that the lies revolving around the life of the Catholic clergy are no longer sustainable or cultural acceptable … [I] devote myself to intellectual honesty and to the task of revealing an uncomfortable truth to those with no intention of listening to it” (p. 13). In an era plagued by threats to academic freedom from vested interests, this broader mission is an admirable one to which Sexuality and the Catholic Priesthood is a very worthy contribution. Lukas Szrot is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bemidji State University. His earlier work focused sociology of scientific knowledge; and on the historical and statistical connection between society, nature, and the sacred through the lenses of sociology of religion and environmental sociology. More recently his attention has turned to the social and environmental consequences of emerging technologies, the Frankfurt School, totalitarianism, and the crisis of masculinity. His completed second book, tentatively titled Rethinking Technology, Nature, and Society through Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, is currently under review. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.