Zzyzx Road #27
Also as noted above, there was a time through the first millenia or so of the Latin Church’s existence that married priests were allowed. Of course this led to the issues they had at that time that drove the reform toward celibacy.
False.
It is vital to know the history and the meaning of the celibate priesthood. Not only is the celibate priesthood from Christ, it is most scriptural, and the reality is that certainly from the beginning most candidates were married, and as Catholic priests they were required to be continent.
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).
Among the Apostles, only Saint Peter is known to have been married because his mother-in-law is mentioned in the Gospels, but no mention is made of his wife or children. Tradition tells us that he was a widower who was caring for his wife’s aged mother. Some of the others might have been married, but there is no indication of this and it is a clear that they left everything, including their families, to follow Christ.
Speculation and feelings can only cloud an issue. The mind of the Church is the reality – these are the facts.
“32. This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was, as We have already said, revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent,[57] and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Finally, We and Our Predecessors have often expounded it and earnestly advocated it whenever occasion offered. But recent attacks on this traditional doctrine of the Church, the danger they constitute, and the harm they do to the souls of the faithful lead Us, in fulfillment of the duties of Our charge, to take up the matter once again in this Encyclical Letter, and to reprove these errors which are so often propounded under a specious appearance of truth."
(
Sacra Virginitas, Encyclical Of Pope Pius XII, 1954)
The superiority of the state of virginity or celibacy for the love of God is taught infallibly (Council of Trent, D.S. 1810), and Vatican II affirms this. “The crucial factor is the leading of a celibate life for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 19:12). One can be unmarried for any number of reasons, good, bad or indifferent.”
Catholic Thinking, John Young, Cardinal Newman Catechist Centre, 1990].
“From the beginnings of the Church, and throughout the Greco-Latin world, a single rule prevailed: Priests were celibate; or else, if they had married before ordination, they and their wives promised to live together thereafter without the use of the marriage. This rule was an Apostolic norm; it was proclaimed and practiced by the Apostles; and that norm in turn was founded upon the example of our Lord Himself.”
[George Sims Johnston,* Our Sunday Visitor, 1998]
While the fact of priestly celibacy is a discipline, it is also more than a discipline because it is an Apostolic norm from the choices made by Jesus, and Sacred Scripture attests to its roots. The celibacy required for priests from the apostles was mandatory, and obligatory.
“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]
