[Texas_shutterbug]

Why would they live without sex?

Sex really isn't the issue. It's all the stuff that comes with sex - wife, kids, mortgage, teenagers, etc.

Once married, it would be ridiculous to live as brother and sister, imo, if they have all the other trappings of marriage. I really don't think that God intends for any man in his situation to throw his wife under the bus. :( The church let him enter as a married man - he needs to stay married.

[Mrs. Don-o]

There is certainly precedent in the Faith of a husband and wife renouncing sexual relations by mutual consent. It's nothing I could recommend as a routine practice. And how that plays out depends on whether you;'re in your 30's, 40's, 60's, or 80's --- and also whether you're living with your spouse, or have separated by mutual consent to live a conventual or monastic life.

Having looked up his bio, I see that Fr. Ryland was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1950. I assume that means he was born before 1930, which would make him 80-ish now. Maybe neither sex, kids, mortgage, teenagers, etc. are relevant complications at this point... ;o)

[bornacatholic]

In the Old Testaament times, priests had to live apart from their wives while they served once a year in the Tmeple offering Sacrifice. THat was temporary continence.

As the New Testament Priest daily offers the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, it was a natural that Apostolic tradition would embrace permanent continency