ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the interconnection between the church's sexual teachings and its abusive power transactions which have provided the scaffolding for a hierarchical system that feminist theologian Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza has termed 'kyriarchy', or the rule of the emperor/master/lord/father/husband over the subordinates. The contemporary sexual abuse scandal in the Church exposes the failure of mandatory celibacy and throws into question the complex body of traditional Catholic teaching about sexuality and gender upon which mandatory celibacy is based and upon which misogyny is institutionalized. Genesis, the Gospels, and the Pauline texts are spuriously invoked to legitimatize a 'kyriarchical' church that controls sexuality, maintains women's inferior position, and insists on hetero-normativity. The earliest strains of the celibacy tradition reflect the Christian embrace of Stoic ideals, which appealed to the potential convert market of a Hellenistic middle class increasingly disillusioned with the libertine excesses of the Roman Empire.
