Abstract
The expectation in any society of the world is that when a child is of age, he or she is expected to get married to a wife or husband of choice as the case may be. However, the practice of celibacy in the Catholic Church negates this universal societal expectation and
assumption. The possibility of a young man or woman remaining perpetually unmarried has been a subject of debate for centuries. This has necessitated the call from within and outside the Catholic Church for the abolition of celibacy for her ministers. The recent sex-scandals have further fuelled this debate. The scandals bordering on sexual abuse and paedophilia are social issues which has generated intense debate in the recent times. This study examined the perceptions, values and challenges of celibacy as well as the sex scandals generally in the society with a view to ascertain whether the call for the abolition of celibacy is justifiable. The study was conducted on a sample size of 100 celibate respondents consisting of 70 male and 30 female. The respondents were randomly selected from the Catholic Dioceses of Osogbo and lbadan. Questionnaire and In-depth Interview (IDI) were used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data from the respondents and the results were presented in tables and percentages. The theoretical framework used in this study is Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Max Weber's Social Action Theories.