It is assumed that if you are born a Catholic and have a vocation to the priesthood, this will coincide with a vocation to celibacy All the evidence suggests that this is not true. There is no necessary correlation between a call to the priesthood and a call to celibacy.Officially, the Catholic church admits this and allows married priests in the UK, in the United States, and in countries where it overlaps with the Orthodox married clergy, among the so-called Uniate churches But this admission is partial and half-hearted. One hesitates to draw the obvious moral.Short of castrating all priests on the night before their ordination, the Church is always going to have a problem with a system in which all its priests are expected to wrestle with and subdue one of their most fundamental urges These problems are more subtle than they may seem Some people are both highly religious and highly sexed. of the pain and danger; yet, since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous treasure.”
This is so funny and so unfair because we know that the Roman Catholic church would never dream of castrating its priests, though St Origen is supposed to have done it to himself, and Abelard had it done at the instigation of his wife’s uncle, Canon Fulbert Both men became theologians of the utmost distinction.

The philosopher David Hume recorded one in his history of England, played by Geoffrey Plantagenet, the father of Henry II, whose family had a notorious bad temper: “When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop: upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a platter.”

Hume’s friend, the historian and not wholly willing celibate Edward Gibbon, commented that the priests involved “might justly complain … Some rough jokes have been played on priests throughout the ages, based around their celibacy. What I’m arguing for is for Britain to sustain that growth on the back of satisfied employees. Human beings are like machines and they wear out if they are not looked after.”. While the Swiss, Dutch and Germans appeared relatively happy with their lot, the British were the most miserable, followed by the Italians.Roger Maitland, managing director of Survey Research International, which published the findings, said: “Britain has obviously become much more of a pressure-cooker.

Everyone has one and a half jobs or none at all, and at every level of the food chain there is significantly more pressure. .”In the short term we’ve become very efficient, and it’s made us more competitive and the growth rate higher. Research earlier this year revealed lawyers to be so overworked they were considering quitting in droves. They described work as the equivalent of a prison sentence, and nine out of 10 said they were suffering an overload.In a survey of 400 companies British workers emerged as having the lowest morale in Europe.

The first national 24-hour helpline for stressed doctors was set up earlier this year. The Police Convalescent Home continues to offer a sanctuary to overworked officers; and many low wage earners are holding down three jobs to make a proper living.The professional classes are suffering too. I could do nothing for the people below me and nobody above me wanted to know. I knew I was making mistakes, but I couldn’t do anything about it.”In Surrey, the Mother’s Union claims the county has the highest divorce rate in Europe, more than 40 per cent, and blames the strain of commuting and long working hours among its high-achieving residents for the marriage breakdowns.There are few areas of working life that have been unaffected. We also have the highest divorce rate in Europe.”The first worker to win compensation for work-related stress, a social services manager, was paid pounds 200,000 last year, after suffering a nervous breakdown following a fivefold increase in his caseload. John Walker described afterwards how overwhelmed he had become.

He said: “Tiers of management had been taken out and the others were left to cope. If you are to sustain economic development you have to understand it’s taking its toll, not only on the health of the workforce but its impact on family life. But in the long term people cannot cope.”You get your economy going, but all the surveys point to the fact that people are extremely overloaded. The average length of the British working week is calculated at 43.1 hours.
Since the recession, and the “downsizing” of industry, companies have fought for survival.