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An Undivided Heart: Making Sense of Celibate Chastity

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Every once in a while a book comes along that meets our need for a straightforward, informed and challenging analysis of a delicate and controversial topic. Sean Sammon's An Undivided Heart: Making Sense of Celibate Chastity is just such a book. Written in a clear and readable style, it will be of interest not only to Catholic priests and men and women religious but also to married persons, and those who are single, or single-again.

Sammon sets his subject within the context of growth and development over the course of the adult years. At the outset, he makes a crucial point: our experience of our human sexuality changes with the passage of time; it is different at age twenty than at age forty, and so forth. So also, for those called to a life of celibate chastity, their experience and understanding of this gospel value changes as life unfolds. The author argues that promising celibate chastity is not an end point, but, rather, the beginning of a journey.

The book starts with a helpful explanation of sexual growth and development over the course of life. Sammon, however, spares us detailed and familiar explanations of infantile and adolescent sexuality, preferring instead to concentrate his discussion on sexual development during the adult years. His treatment of sexuality and celibate chastity at mid-life is particularly helpful.

Sammon addresses the following topics in his text: personal identity and intimacy, relationships between men and women, friendship, sexual orientation, our masculine and feminine sides, celibate chastity and the spiritual life, and those unfolding phases of growth that mark anyone's journey into celibate chastity. The author argues, for example, that the word intimacy has far too long been associated with genital sexuality. He redefines it so as to emphasize our need to draw close to others in relationships that help us to change and grow.

Sammon's exploration of relationships between men and women is helpful from a dynamic point of view as well as looking a! t some of the more perplexing issues that sometimes mark heterosexual relationships. The author's discussion about homosexuality reflects current research findings in this area and will help the reader achieve greater understanding and appreciation not only of this orientation, but also the variety of sexual feelings and impulses that so many men and women experience.

The author is at his best when he addresses the topic of celibate chastity directly. He makes this point clearly: celibate chastity is a particular way of being a sexual person. It should not be equated with asexuality. Sammon also reminds us, time and again, that the spiritual life must be at the heart of genuine celibate chaste living.

With that said, however, he admits that there are some men and women for whom celibate chastity is the law or a discipline. Believing that they are called to certain ministries within the Catholic Church, they know full well that they are not also called to celibate chastity. They may live heroic lives in this regard but had they the choice of living out their sexuality in another way they most certainly would do so. This reviewer would have welcomed further exploration of the dilemma faced by those in Catholic religious orders and priesthood who are in love with these ways of life while also in love romantically with another person.

Sammon explodes some of the myths that surround celibate chastity and outlines clearly just what those called to this way of life need to do to live it fully. He also offers a helpful summary of A.W. Richard Sipe's ground-breaking research into the stages of growth into celibate chastity. The author's listing of the qualities that are found most often in the lives of those who achieve a certain integration in their life of celibate chastity is attractive and hopeful. In his mind, there is no doubt: those called to live this way of life, who live it fully, are attractive men and women. You will come away from this book convinced that a life of celibate chastity is, for some, the best way to grow to be an integrated and loving person, alive about the mission of the Church.

Helpful questions are included at the end of each chapter; they are suitable for individual or group reflection. An informative appendix on child sexual abuse also follows at the end of the book. It will help readers understand this painful phenomenon better and offers some practical guidelines for recovery to both survivors of abuse and those who perpetrate it. A list of suggested readings, appearing at the end of the book, will also be of interest and help to the reader.

Sammon has done us an enormous favor in bringing together in 160 pages much of the current thinking about celibate chastity. I recommend this book not only to those in formation work in Catholic dioceses and religious orders but also to all those with years of experience in living a life of celibate chastity, and to all who are looking for a better understanding of this particular way of being a sexual person.