Married Priests

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TaraLouise

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Can somebody explain to me the official reason why Roman Catholic Priests cannot marry? I have heard that at one time Priests were allowed to marry. Also Why is that Former Anglican Clergy that have come over the the Catholic Church and are married, are allowed to become Roman Catholic Priests? These questions partially arose after locating a web site on married Priests: marriedpriests.org/ . I would also be interested to see what opinions people hold on these issues.

Thank you!! 🙂
 
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TaraLouise:
Can somebody explain to me the official reason why Roman Catholic Priests cannot marry? I have heard that at one time Priests were allowed to marry. Also Why is that Former Anglican Clergy that have come over the the Catholic Church and are married, are allowed to become Roman Catholic Priests? These questions partially arose after locating a web site on married Priests: marriedpriests.org/ . I would also be interested to see what opinions people hold on these issues.

Thank you!! 🙂
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OFFICIALLY…because Rome said so… 👍
 
This officially began as a dicipline, and has since become tradition, but a tradition that can trace it’s root all the way to St Paul… 👍
 
Something here has to be clarified…an ordained priest **cannot **marry, but a married man **can **be ordained. However once he is ordained he cannot remarry if his wife dies. I believe this is how it works in the eastern churches and the Orthodox churches (correct me if I’m wrong). There is a difference; the former is impossible while the latter is possible and is done in other rites of the Catholic church.
 
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TaraLouise:
Can somebody explain to me the official reason why Roman Catholic Priests cannot marry? I have heard that at one time Priests were allowed to marry. Also Why is that Former Anglican Clergy that have come over the the Catholic Church and are married, are allowed to become Roman Catholic Priests? These questions partially arose after locating a web site on married Priests: marriedpriests.org/ . I would also be interested to see what opinions people hold on these issues.

Thank you!! 🙂
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The real reason is that married priests were passing the property of the parishes to their survivors upon their death and the church was losing $$$$ big time. To stop this, priests were forbidden to marry.

As for Paul regarding not being married and celibacy, he thought that procreation was unneccesary because the world was about to end.

Peace
 
I heard this explained recently by a priest himself. Basically, our priests and religious are celibate so that they can devote their entire selves to God. Of course, there’s more to that explanation but that’s the basic reason.

He also explained that some of our eastern rite priests are married (as well as the former Anglican/Episcopalian married men that were ordained by special permission from the Pope) this way: married men can become priests, but priests cannot marry. The eastern rite priests were married before they were ordained, & the same was true of the Anglicans; however, like the western or Roman rite priests, they cannot be married *after *they are ordained. Furthermore, none of the hierarchy in the eastern rites are married - as in the Orthodox churches, the bishops come from the ranks of the celibate. My Orthodox friends tell me that their bishops come from the monasteries, which do require celibacy.

I’m no expert & I’m just passing on information, but I hope this clears up a few things. :tiphat:
 
I had also heard that, in effect, the priest is married to the Church. So, saying priest should be able to marry is like saying a man should be able to have more than one wife.
 
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ricatholic:
The real reason is that married priests were passing the property of the parishes to their survivors upon their death and the church was losing $$$$ big time. To stop this, priests were forbidden to marry.

As for Paul regarding not being married and celibacy, he thought that procreation was unneccesary because the world was about to end.

Peace
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This is completely false. I just heard a tape and did a little study on this and the practice of celibacy goes all the way back to the apostles themselves. You see it in the bible and the early church writings. Peter himself told Jesus, we have left everything to follow you. Paul commends those who are celibate because they can follow God with no distractions. In the early church, the priest/bishops were married but still practiced celibacy. It is very clear in the writings. A little study and you can find the truth and not just take whatever you hear at face value.
 
If I remember correctly, Fr. Ryland (former Anglican priest, now Catholic priest) and his wife are now living celibately so perhaps that is something that is required for priests coming in from outside Catholicism.
 
The real reason is that married priests were passing the property of the parishes to their survivors upon their death and the church was losing $$$$ big time. To stop this, priests were forbidden to marry.
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This is Modernist propoganda that has absolutely no basis in reality.

Clerical celibacy/continency has been obligatory for clergy of the Latin Church since the 4th century, when such concerns about church property didn’t even exist. This law was very difficult to enforce, due to several geopolitical factors, but it did exist, and had to be renewed by saintly reformers from time to time.
 
If I remember correctly, Fr. Ryland (former Anglican priest, now Catholic priest) and his wife are now living celibately so perhaps that is something that is required for priests coming in from outside Catholicism.
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No, it isn’t.

And technically a married couple cannot live “celibately,” since to be celibate is to be unmarried.

When married couples abstain from sexual relations, we say that are “continent.”

In the 4th century, it was declared that, although married men of the Latin Church could be ordained, they had to live continent with their wives from the time they were ordained to the diaconate. But they were still to live with their wives, in order to support them financially.

This was eventually found to be impractical, and a source of temptation to break sacred promises, so it was eventually decided that only single men would be ordained, except in limited circumstances; and even then, priests were no longer to live with their wives. She was to retire to a convent, or live under some other man’s support (i.e. a family member).
 
I think that thing about some corrupt priests passing on the churches property is true and also that at one time priests could marry but no relations. In fact, other priests would come and live with them to make sure no hanky-panky. I think then, in order to preserve the integrity of the priesthood.( Giving all ) that celibacy became the norm. It is also a gift ( singleness). A priest friend told me there is no way he could be married and do all that he does. If you look at protestant ministers, many of their families suffer because of their ministries. It is not God’s plan that your family be neglected.
 
I didn’t read the above links provided, but I will.

But offhand, how could a priest possibly divide his loyalties between a wife and his duties to God? Their hearts are supposed to be totally devoted, wholly, 100% to God…all their love is for God and love for others in Christ. They can’t share their hearts and lives with a wife.

JELane
 
But offhand, how could a priest possibly divide his loyalties between a wife and his duties to God? Their hearts are supposed to be totally devoted, wholly, 100% to God…all their love is for God and love for others in Christ. They can’t share their hearts and lives with a wife.
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While the Church, East and West, teaches that consecrated virginity is objectively a preferred state of life, this teaching actually applies to Christians in general, not just priests. All Christians should, ideally, devote their lives 100% to God, and marriage does tend to get in the way of this, priest or not.

However, since this applies to all Christians, it also applies, even more, to priests, and to bishops still more (which is why even the Eastern Churches require bishops to be single, usually monks).

And so the Church, East and West, holds the celibate priest up as an ideal, but it’s an exagerration to say “how could a priest possibly divide his loyalties between a wife and his duties to God?” since hundreds of priests, Catholic and Orthodox, do it every day, and do it well, and they’re not necessarily inferior.

While consecrated celibacy is objectively, in and of itself, a holier state of life than marriage, this is not ncessarily the case subjectively for each individual person. Not everyone has what it takes; that’s all there is to it.Which is why, for most people, marriage is the better path to sanctification than consecrated virginity.

However, all things being equal, the celibate priest (indeed, the celibate Christian) is better off, even holier, than the noncelibate.
 
“think that thing about some corrupt priests passing on the churches property is true and also that at one time priests could marry but no relations. In fact, other priests would come and live with them to make sure no hanky-panky. I think then, in order to preserve the integrity of the priesthood.( Giving all ) that celibacy became the norm. It is also a gift ( singleness). A priest friend told me there is no way he could be married and do all that he does. If you look at protestant ministers, many of their families suffer because of their ministries. It is not God’s plan that your family be neglected.”

Then how do you explain that St. Hilary of Poitiers’ daughter is honored as a saint if there was no "hanky-panky.

One of the priests in my parish is married and has 2 sons. They serve as the altar servers at his Liturgy. Must be some hanky-panky going on there, don’t you think?
 
Then how do you explain that St. Hilary of Poitiers’ daughter is honored as a saint if there was no "hanky-panky.
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I would have to verify this with research, but it’s probable that Hilary was married and had his daughter before he was ordained. Either he was widowed before he was made deacon, or he and his wife lived “as brother and sister” after the ordination. Otherwise, he would have been living in contradiction to Church law at the time, which I sincerely doubt.
 
It’s interesting to note that the Church Fathers tell us that the married Apostles lived continently with their wives after they were called by Christ.
 
Ah, here we go!

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints:
[Saint Hilary of Poitiers] was married before his conversion to the faith; and his wife, by whom he had a daughter named Apra, or Abram, was yet living, when he was chosen bishop of Poictiers, about the year 353; but from the time of his ordination he lived in perpetual continency.
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