Page 72 of Saint
I give Elijah a rueful grin as we start walking again. “Of course, that’s the theory. In reality, so much of my mind—my heart—was still with you. It felt like you were inside me the whole time...not only my desire for you, but my love for you too. And while I felt sometimes that I’d managedsexualcelibacy well enough, I never felt like I’d managed true celibacy. Emotional celibacy.”
He doesn’t speak for a moment, and then we emerge from the rocks into a deep-set ravine made of white rock and dotted with bright turquoise pools. We find the sloping edge of one of these pools and set down our things on the bed of dried pine needles there—Elijah’s satchel and a blanket and a cooler of the beer Brother Luc had given on us when he learned we were heading out to the abbey’s deepest spring.
And it isn’t until we’re settled on the blanket and Elijah has handed us each a beer, that he says, “I shouldn’t like that so much.”
“Shouldn’t like what so much?
“Knowing I was the reason you struggled with celibacy.”
I smile.
“And I think I understand what you’re saying, but like—okay. Why does focus on God have to exclude sex? If we are called to love God with our entire bodies, then why can’t we love God sexually too?”
I smile even bigger. “That’s pretty kinky.”
He gives me an impatient look. “I’m serious, Aiden. And this can’t be spliced away from the reality that the Catholic Church is more concerned about celibacy from some people than it is from others. Queer people are only theologically justified if they are celibate. The Church literally canonizes women for being virgins, and only for that reason. It’s one thing for an allosexual person to choose celibacy, I guess, but it feels like you’re retconning reasons that are about personal choice rather than organizational control.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But does that make a choice less valid?”
“It depends on how informed the choice is. And I feel like you’re dodging the question.”
“Maybe a little.” I toss a clump of pine needles into the nearby pool. “But only because the answer is so messy, and because it’s the kind of answer that changes day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. Yes, the Church is obsessed with sexual control, and yes, it’s directed mainly at queer people and women. I think there are some queer Catholics and women Catholics who feel like your parents did about staying in the Church after Lizzy’s death—that it’s better to stay and to have your voice heard, and if you have to follow the rules in order to have your voice heard, then so be it.”
“You sound like you don’t agree with that.”
“Well, sometimes I do. But celibacy is different depending on the life you lead, isn’t it? Because for the priesthood or for a religious life as a brother or sister, celibacy is required ofeveryone. A vowed life is the only place in the Church where everyone is asked to give up the same thing—unlike in the laity, where only queer believers are asked to be celibate and where sexual policing is typically only directed at women. It felt like as a monastic, I wasn’t being asked to give anything more than my straight brothers and sisters were.”
“But it’s still not the same,” Elijah argues. “What looks functionally the same can be entirely different because of context, and the context of queer celibacy in Catholicism is always going to be about control.”
“I agree to a point,” I reply. “But only to a point, because the Church has to be bigger than Rome, has to be bigger than its dogmas and doctrines. The Church is mine. God is mine. And what if we all started believing that? What if we all started acting like it? Like the Church is ours? Not the priests’, not the bishops’, but ours.”
“That sounds amazing, but it also sounds like a way to manipulate yourself into staying in a broken system.”
“Elijah,” I say, setting my beer down and looking at him.
“Yes?”
“You’re not wrong. But also if we’re going to argue about what the Catholic Church does to control its faithful versus what is the choice of said faithful, we will be here arguing until we have gray pubes, and I have things I’d like to do to you before my pubes are gray.”
He shakes his head, but he laughs. “Things like what?”
I turn to face him completely. “What if we played a monk game again?”
The laughter turns to something else around his mouth. Something hungry.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “But different this time.”
His eyes are molten now. He licks his lips again.
“Different.”
“I’ve just found you out here,” I say. “I’m making sure you’re settling into the abbey okay.”
“And I tell you that I am,” he says quietly. “I ask you if it’s normal for a monk to check up on each guest like this.”
“It’s sort of normal,” I say. “Usually I would let you enjoy your afternoon in peace, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t lonely.”
