Priestly Celibacy, Belief or Discipline?

[SJacob7]

On the question of property selling and giving to the Church the following looks at the facts.
In A Catholic Commentary On Holy Scripture, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953: “We see in Acts 4:34-35 that property was sold, from time to time, by the owners of it, according as the Church’s need dictated. The sharing of goods was always voluntary. The story of Ananias and Saphira, cf. 5:4, makes it clear that they were not bound to sell, and that after they had, the price was still theirs. When Barnabas gave all his property, such exceptional generosity was chronicled. There are examples of houses held privately in Jerusalem, !2:12; 21:16. St James, in his Epistle, reveals the existence of rich and poor there. The community of goods does not seem to have been very successful, 6:1, and other churches had continually to send alms, voluntarily, ‘each man according to his ability’, to Jerusalem, 11:29. ”

In Acts 2:44-47, where the faithful lived together and owned everything in common, these so-called “Apostolics” were condemned by St Thomas and the Late Scholastics, who quote St Augustine. Why?
In his Summa, II-II, Q. 66, art. 2, resp., St Thomas quotes St Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘The people styled apostolic are those who arrogantly claimed this title for themselves because they refused to admit married folk or property owners to their fellowship, arguing from the model of the many monks and clerics in the Catholic Church (*De Haeresibus *40).’ But such people are heretics because they cut themselves off from the Church by alleging that those who, unlike themselves, marry and own property have no hope of salvation.”

Thank you!

 

[Jaaanosik]

You’re very welcome – and if any more confirmation is needed in the future, just ask.

Best wishes for Easter.

So much for the God’s Revealed law “… be fruitful and multiply…”

If we were to follow the Bible then priests should have families first and become priests later in their lives.

*St. Peter asked Our Lord, “What about us? We left all we had to follow you.” The Divine Master answered: “I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life” (Lk 18:28-30, cf. Mt 19:27-30; Mk 10:20-21). *

Many married people leave brothers and parents as well the same way as priests.
To build and support a good family is building the kingdom of God on the Earth.

Priests do not leave wife and children. They do not have any!

 

[Tom_Baum]

You’re very welcome – and if any more confirmation is needed in the future, just ask.

Best wishes for Easter.

For about the first thousand years of the Church, priests were allowed to be married and there were children from these married couples.

Might not be many but there are priests, in this day and age, that are being ordained in the Roman Catholic Church that are married.

 

[Abu]

Tom Baum #23
For about the first thousand years of the Church, priests were allowed to be married and there were children from these married couples.

See the facts from post #15, as explained by Fr. George William Rutler, in an article entitled *A Consistent theology of clerical celibacy *(Homiletic & Pastoral Review, Feb. 1989):
“Those clerics whose marriages were recognized by the Church, and they were many, were expected to abstain from conjugal union after ordination. The new archeology shows that this was the case for all the Eastern Churches in the earliest centuries, and in a mitigated form later. In the Latin Church this was the clear rule throughout the first millenium, culminating in the laws of the Gregorian reform, especially as found in the First Lateran Council of 1123, and the Second Lateran Council of 1139…The discipline of the Second Lateran Council explicitly forbidding marriage after ordination was not an innovation in the observance of continence. Its prohibition of clerical marriage was only a regulation ensuring that the apostolic norm of abstinence would be better observed."

From the beginning, continence was required for priest and bishop – priestly celibacy is an Apostolic norm.

You can get the facts for Early Church Tradition in the most important studies: Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, by Fr. Christian Cochini, S.J.(Ignatius, San Francisco, 1990); The Case for Clerical Celibacy, by Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler (Ignatius, San Francisco, 1995); Celibacy in the Early Church, by Fr. Stefan Heid, (Ignatius, San Francisco, 2000).

there are priests, in this day and age, that are being ordained in the Roman Catholic Church that are married.

The purpose of the ordinariate is to help Anglicans enter into full communion with the Catholic Church – which entails leaving the Anglican communion, even while maintaining Anglo-Catholic traditions. Such former (married) Anglican priests may be ordained Catholic priests after training, but cannot be bishops.

See The Gift: A Married Priest Looks at Celibacy
by Fr. Ray Ryland
At holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/rayryland/thegift.asp

 

[Tom_Baum]

See the facts from post #15, as explained by Fr. George William Rutler, in an article entitled *A Consistent theology of clerical celibacy *(Homiletic & Pastoral Review, Feb. 1989):
“Those clerics whose marriages were recognized by the Church, and they were many, were expected to abstain from conjugal union after ordination. The new archeology shows that this was the case for all the Eastern Churches in the earliest centuries, and in a mitigated form later. In the Latin Church this was the clear rule throughout the first millenium, culminating in the laws of the Gregorian reform, especially as found in the First Lateran Council of 1123, and the Second Lateran Council of 1139…The discipline of the Second Lateran Council explicitly forbidding marriage after ordination was not an innovation in the observance of continence. Its prohibition of clerical marriage was only a regulation ensuring that the apostolic norm of abstinence would be better observed."

From the beginning, continence was required for priest and bishop – priestly celibacy is an Apostolic norm.

You can get the facts for Early Church Tradition in the most important studies: Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, by Fr. Christian Cochini, S.J.(Ignatius, San Francisco, 1990); The Case for Clerical Celibacy, by Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler (Ignatius, San Francisco, 1995); Celibacy in the Early Church, by Fr. Stefan Heid, (Ignatius, San Francisco, 2000).
The purpose of the ordinariate is to help Anglicans enter into full communion with the Catholic Church – which entails leaving the Anglican communion, even while maintaining Anglo-Catholic traditions. Such former (married) Anglican priests may be ordained Catholic priests after training, but cannot be bishops.

See The Gift: A Married Priest Looks at Celibacy
by Fr. Ray Ryland
At holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/rayryland/thegift.asp

“Early Church Tradition” and early Church reality might not have been one and the same thing.

And as far as the here and now, it is not just Anglicans.

So are you saying that a Catholic marriage in the first millennium was to be open to having children unless one member of this marriage was a priest?

 

[Abu]

Tom Baum #25
So are you saying that a Catholic marriage in the first millennium was to be open to having children unless one member of this marriage was a priest?

It is salutary to acknowledge the facts.

An excellent historical and theological overview of the question can be found in a little book published in 1993 by Austrian cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler, who died in Rome in 2007 at the age of 97, at the time prefect of the Apostolic Vatican Library:
Alfons Maria Stickler, “The Case for Clerical Celibacy. Its Historical Development and Theological Foundations”, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995.
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1343466?eng=y

“A wealth of information on the history of celibacy for the clergy of the Catholic Church-in the East and the West. Particularly impressive are his arguments showing that celibacy is necessarily connected to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. It is refreshing to find a book on celibacy that is rooted in Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and the Magisterium.”
-Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor, Homiletic & Pastoral Review

The disciplinary canons of the Council of Elvira in 305 are the Church’s earliest record regarding priestly celibacy. The council gave no explanation of its rulings, which were ancient and presumably well-known. Canon 33 forbade all married bishops, priests, and deacons from having sexual relations with their wives and begetting children. The council reminded the married clergy that they were bound by a vow of perpetual continence. Penalty for breaking that vow was deposition from the ministry. Commenting on this council, Pope Pius XI said that these canons, the “first written traces” of the “Law of Ecclesiastical Celibacy,” "presuppose a still earlier unwritten practice. " (*Ad Catholici Sacerdotii *, 43, 1935).

“Clerics were often chosen from among married older men. After ordination they were required to abstain from conjugal intercourse. In effect then, they were not married. Qui habent uxores, tamquam non habentes sint. “Let those who are married live as if they do not have wives”. Pope Leo the Great in 458 AD borrowed those words of Saint Paul in order to describe the celibacy of the clergy.” Letter from Pope Leo to Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne]. The Origin Of Priestly Celibacy, by Hugh Ballantyne, June 2003]

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, in The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements, explains the unity existing with and from the apostles, including priestly celibacy.
“That priestly celibacy is not a medieval invention, but goes back to the earliest period of the Church, is shown clearly and convincingly by Card. A.M. Stickler, The *Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and Theological Foundations *(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995). Cf.also I: Cochini, *Origines apostoliques du celibat sacerdotal *(Paris-Namur, 1981); S Heid, *Zolibat in der friihen Kirche *(Paderborn, 1997).” (p 483 n 2)
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, *The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements. *Communio *(Fall 1998), footnote 2, p. 483].

 

[JohnR77]

Thanks Abu,
for all your research. You know your history.

dailycatholic.org/issue/textonly/13newt2.htm
**VATICAN (CWN) – **The official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano devoted two full pages of its January 15 edition to the question of priestly celibacy. … Heid finds, from his study of the earliest Church councils, that the Apostles clearly understood Jesus to call for celibacy among priests, and thus they believed that in order to follow Jesus’ example, they themselves must become celibate.

In the book
The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy,
by Christian Cochini, S.J., Ignatius Press 1990
Cochini quotes on page 77 Theodoret of Cyrus* (d.* 466), Some have stupidly deemed that the *σύζυγε *was the wife of the Apostle. They paid no attention to what was written in the epistle to the Corinthians, to wit, that he counted himself among the single men: " … for the sake of widows and those who are not married: it is a good thing for them to stay as they are, like me." And, to be sure, it is evident that he had no wife, either because he had never been married or because he had been widowed. It is more likely that he had never had a wife because he had been called [by the Lord] as an adolescent. He therefore calls her σύζυγε (i.e., yoke mate) because she wears with him the yoke of piety; and he exhorts her to assist the good women and to make concord rule among them. 56

• 56** Interpretatio epist. ad Philip., 4, 3. PG 82, 585a—b.]
  … Finally, the largest group rejects the idea of marriage for the apostle and affirms that Paul was single before believing in Christ and remained so (Ambrosiaster, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret of Cyrus). … Nevertheless, all—including Clement of Alexandria - agree in affirming that the apostle Paul led a life of perfect chastity (either in continence if he was a widower or still had a wife, or in celibacy in the strict meaning of the word).58 58. Clement of Alexandria, in the previously quoted passage, p. 66, stressed that the apostles "took everywhere with them women, not as wives, but with the title of sisters. … " *(Stromata, *III, 6. GCS 52, 220). See also below, pp. 79-80.
  Also see
  THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS ,
  by James Cardinal Gibbons
  

            CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY

defendingthebride.com/temp/celibacy1.html

.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I did mention the fabric thing and he just claimed that Jesus did away with the law, which turned into a circular argument he couldn’t defend.

But yeah, next time it comes up, I’ll establish a doctrine vs discipline instead of a belief vs discipline debate, since doctrine is less ambiguous than belief.

Also, would an unmarried state being better for those who can live it be a doctrine, then?

No, it is dogma as it was defined in the Council of Trent to be heresy to believe that celibacy is not greater than marriage. Note it is celibacy which is a deliberate single state that is greater, not simply being single.

Let’s not argue continence or bishops. Bishops have historically been celibate. Priests have not.

Married priests have been with the Church from the beginning, even if the continence requirement has varied over the centuries. In fact, the Latin church is the anomaly, not the norm. Reading into Scripture what we want to see regarding this question does not help either. Celibacy is exalted, but there were married priests. There is no problem with that fact and should make no one uncomfortable.

I like celibacy. I would like to see it kept even though I would not object to having the question re-examined for the Latin church. But that does not necessitate us to find anything to contradict the fact that married priests, for the first centuries of the Church were a normal thing, that does not need scandalize us.

The Church can and occasionally does ordain married men.

So much for the God’s Revealed law “… be fruitful and multiply…”

If we were to follow the Bible then priests should have families first and become priests later in their lives.

*St. Peter asked Our Lord, “What about us? We left all we had to follow you.” The Divine Master answered: “I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life” (Lk 18:28-30, cf. Mt 19:27-30; Mk 10:20-21). *

Many married people leave brothers and parents as well the same way as priests.
To build and support a good family is building the kingdom of God on the Earth.

Priests do not leave wife and children. They do not have any!

The major word is OR in the quoted passage and the passage refers to the fact that what one receives in Heaven shall greatly surpass that which one leaves behind on Earth.

 

[Abu]

JohnR77 #27
Thanks Abu,
for all your research. You know your history.

Your contributions are accurate and most appropriate, John R77. Thank you.

 

[Ignatius]

I am arguing with my brother, a protestant, who claims that the Catholic discipline of clerical celibacy is just a belief called a different word, and so since you didn’t have to be unmarried to be a priest in the apostolic church, the Catholic Church has changed its beliefs.

It is a discipline. BTW, you might inform him that there always were married priests and there still are, there is no change of beliefs.