Really thrilled to have the Ashes for my Valentine EP finished in time to release today. It was a crunch to get all the recording and editing done in just two weeks, but with the time and resources that we had, I'm really happy with the sound. It's just really cool to actually have music that we recorded and released. It's starting to feel like we're a real band.

You can check out the album here: https://adamunbound.com/album/2766565/ashes-for-my-valentine-ep

It brings up a question I've thought a lot about, though: can I, as a celibate priest, write and perform love songs? A bunch of the songs we cover when we play live are about love and romance, and a number of the songs I've written with the band include references to girls and love and stuff. Isn't that scandalous or weird or something?

Obviously, if I'm writing this post and singing those songs with my band, I think the answer is yes. But it's important to think through.

The first point is to address the question of what scandal is. St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as “an action done imperfectly that leads to the spiritual downfall of another.” Let's start with the second half of that definition: “that leads to the spiritual downfall of another.” Scandal isn't something surprising or shocking that makes someone feel bad. It's a sin on the part of the person scandalized, that upon seeing someone else's sin, they choose to sin on their own. Being scandalized is to choose to commit a sin because of something someone else has done. With that in mind, the first part of the definition can make more sense. The person giving scandal does something imperfectly - either something sinful in itself, or even a good action done in an indiscreet or imprudent way - that creates the occasion where some other person is led to choose to sin. In this way, scandal is a sin against charity. It's a failure to be conscientious about the salvation of others.

So, what specifically would be the scandal of a priest singing a love song? If it led some otherwise good-natured Catholic to think that I wasn't observing my vow of celibacy, it could lead to that person doubting the Church's authority or the goodness God gives through the Church. That's a bad thing, and I do want to avoid that. But is that a reasonable concern? I don't think so. It is absolutely normal to write poetry and music about stuff outside one's own experience. Poets do this all the time. For example, David Bowie did not have the personal experience of being an astronaut with malfunctioning equipment, but he wrote Space Oddity anyway, and it didn't bother anyone. In the same sort of way, I can draw from my own observation of other people's romantic relationships, from my knowledge of love in general, and from the normal tropes surrounding love songs to write about stuff that's outside my own experience. It's actually not even hard to write a love song - they're formulaic, because human love follows a pattern. Because of this, it doesn't seem to me to be reasonable to conclude that, because a priest wrote a love song, he must be in some kind of romantic relationship. And, so, it doesn't seem like a reasonable cause of scandal.

And, more importantly, I think that consecrated celibacy has a particular witness to God's love that married people and folks trying to date need to hear. St. John Paul II talks about this in his Theology of the Body audiences. Celibacy is a witness that the love and joy and relationships that we experience in this world are not going to last, but that there's a deeper love from God Himself in the next life that we should already be looking forward to. Consecrated virginity is a sign that Jesus' love is enough to satisfy the longing of my heart, even when earthly loves fail. This witness is necessary to live Christian marriage and romance well. There are a million pitfalls waiting to sabotage the love of young men and women today, and so the witness that God's love has answers for the problems and pains of their human love is so crucial in our culture.

And this, ultimately, is why we decided to record Ashes for my Valentine. The love married couples have in this life, if both spouses are baptized, is a sacrament. It's a temporary sign in this world of God's love for us that will be fulfilled in the world to come. Valentine's Day being Ash Wednesday drives home the same reality - a man can only be a woman's Valentine “for a moment.” The delight in seeing your beloved smile is fleeting, because “that sparkling smile will fade when the sweet sleep of death will embrace us.” The message about love in this EP is important, and I'm called to be a witness to God's love truly alive and active in the world. And so I'm not worried about scandal.