In his write-up on ‘The hardships of a celibate life’ (August 14), Fr Colin Apap was honest and courageous enough to admit, regarding a priest’s celibate life, that “those who think it’s always easy don’t know what they’re talking about”.

The reason why a celibate life is so hard is because a man’s natural sexual impulse cannot be denied forever, as author Frank McCourt wrote in Time (April 1, 2002) at the time when the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church were first exposed to a shocked and scandalised public.

McCourt wrote: “Celibacy is a sick rule. It’s not even a rule so much as an unneeded tradition. They have to suspend it. Just let priests be normal and natural. Celibacy is unnatural.”

In his historical sketch of sacerdotal celibacy, H.C. Lea observed that, in medieval Europe, violations of the sacerdotal vows of chastity were frequent. Thousands of priests had concubines; in Germany, nearly all.

Sacerdotal concubinage was a rejection of the rule of celibacy that had been imposed upon an unwilling clergy by Pope Gregory VII in 1074.

In his history of the Reformation, Will Durant wrote: “Just as the Greek and Russian Orthodox Church, after the schism of 1054, had continued to permit marriage to its priests, so the clergy of the Roman Church demanded the same right. Since the canon law of their Church refused this, they took concubines.

“Sacerdotal concubinage was a forgivable revolt against an arduous rule unknown to the Apostles.”