Why should priests be celibate?

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Some obvious (but now rarely mentioned -I wonder why? ) reasons:

Celibacy reaffirms marriage.
In a society that is completely saturated with sex, celibate priests are living proof that sexual urges can be controlled and channeled in a positive way. Far from denigrating the sexual act, celibacy acknowledges the goodness of sex within marriage by offering it up as a sacrifice to God.

Celibacy emphasizes the unique role of the priest.
The priest is a representative of Christ, an alter Christus . In this respect, the priest understands his identity by following the example of Jesus, a man who lived His life in perfect chastity and dedication to God. As Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe of Grado explains, “[A priest’s] being and his acting must be like Christ’s: undivided” (The Relevance of Priestly Celibacy Today, 1993). As such, the sacramental priesthood is holy, something set apart from the rest of the world. Just as Christ sacrificed His life for His bride, the Church, so too must a priest offer up his life for the good of Christ’s people.

Celibacy allows the priest’s first priority to be the Church.
The image used to describe the role of the priest is one of marriage to the Church. Just as marriage is the total gift of self to another, the priesthood requires the total gift of self to the Church. A priest’s first duty is to his flock, while a husband’s first duty is to his wife. Obviously, these two roles will often conflict, as St. Paul noted and as many married clergy will tell you. A celibate priest is able to give his undivided attention to his parishioners without the added responsibility of caring for his own family. They are able to pick up and go whenever necessary, whether this involves moving to a new parish or responding to a late-night crisis. Celibate priests are better able to respond to these frequent changes and demands on their time and attention.
 
This is one of the reasons I long for a truly Catholic translation of the Bible.

Wife is a secondary meaning of the Greek. It doesn’t prove that Peter was married at that time. Also, sister is connected to it. So, it is unlikely that Paul intended to say that the Apostles were married.
 
AlNg said:
1 Corinthians 9:5, in which Paul says, “Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?”

Further, it appears that many of the disciples of Jesus were married:
1 Timothy 3: 1-13
Titus 1: 5-9
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The Jews cherished marriage, children, and family life. I would be surprised if Jesus only picked single men.

I come from the Eastern rite that has married men as priests. Although women are amazing and adaptable, it is a challenge to raise a family and live off what a parish family can provide, who are also challenged with providing for their families.

Celibate unmarried men are much more flexible and movable, and available to their parish families. If, let’s say, in the Amazon, when people are widely spread out, a married man with children and maybe a wife that’s holding down a job, are the least likely to fill in the gap of a widely spread out parish.
 
AlNg said:
Whether he had a wife or was a widower that would most likely mean that he had not been celibate?
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Celibate means not married and a widow can be unmarried if they don’t remarry.
 
You are correct, however the priest should resemble Christ Himself as close as humanly possible (not Peter) and He was celibate.

It serves to unmistakably show the primal importance of Christ for the priest. It also helps to fight against a sadly sexually immoral and lustful world in which we live in, which due to its condition will never fully understand why someone would give up getting married for a greater good.
 
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Kindnessmatters said:
Celibacy as a requirement certainly contributed to the disproportionate percentage of homosexual in the priesthood, and sexually disordered priests attracted to teens and children, as the priesthood became a place where they could hide in plain site.
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I worked as a sex abuse investigator. There is no evidence that having access to sex with adult women prevents child sex abuse.

The priesthood is not a place you can hide. The parishioners know all too well, and gossip, about details of his private life, comings and goings - far more than for a bachelor.

There are homosexuals in the priesthood, but celibacy is not a reason these men become priests. Much safer and easier to be bachelors.
 
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The local Episcopal bishop has publicly mentioned that the divorce rate among his priests has risen steadily.
The argument for married RC priests appeared much stronger 50 years ago than today. Since then both t he priesthood, and, especially, marriage, have gotten much tougher.

Although there are far, FAR, more articles and threads on problems in the priesthood than problems in Catholic marriage, the marriage problems are hurting us far more.
 
On celibacy…
Matt. 19:11-12 - Jesus says celibacy is a gift from God and whoever can bear it should bear it. Jesus praises and recommends celibacy for full-time ministers in the Church. Because celibacy is a gift from God, those who criticize the Church’s practice of celibacy are criticizing God and this wonderful gift He bestows on His chosen ones.
Matt. 19:29 - Jesus says that whoever gives up children for the sake of His name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life. Jesus praises celibacy when it is done for the sake of His kingdom.
Matt. 22:30 - Jesus explains that in heaven there are no marriages. To bring about Jesus’ kingdom on earth, priests live the heavenly consecration to God by not taking a wife in marriage. This way, priests are able to focus exclusively on the spiritual family, and not have any additional pressures of the biological family (which is for the vocation of marriage). This also makes it easier for priests to be transferred to different parishes where they are most needed without having to worry about the impact of their transfer on wife and children.
1 Cor 7:1 Paul teaches that it is well for a man not to touch a woman. This is the choice that the Catholic priests of the Roman rite freely make.
1 Cor. 7:7 - Paul also acknowledges that celibacy is a gift from God and wishes that all were celibate like he is.
1 Cor. 7:27 Paul teaches men that they should not seek marriage. In Pauls opinion, marriage introduces worldly temptations that can interfere with ones relationship with God, specifically regarding those who will become full-time ministers in the Church.
1 Cor. 7:32-33, 38 - Paul recommends celibacy for full-time ministers in the Church so that they are able to focus entirely upon God and building up His kingdom. He who refrains from marriage will do better.
1 Tim. 3:2 - Paul instructs that bishops must be married only once. Many Protestants use this verse to prove that the Church’s celibacy law is in error. But they are mistaken because this verse refers to bishops that were widowers. Paul is instructing that these widowers could not remarry. The verse also refers to those bishops who were currently married. They also could not remarry (in the Catholic Church’s Eastern rite, priests are allowed to marry; celibacy is only a disciplinary rule for the clergy of the Roman rite). Therefore, this text has nothing to do with imposing a marriage requirement on becoming a bishop.
 
continued…
1 Tim. 4:3 - in this verse, Paul refers to deceitful doctrines that forbid marriage. Many non-Catholics also use this verse to impugn the Church’s practice of celibacy. This is entirely misguided because the Catholic Church (unlike many Protestant churches) exalts marriage to a sacrament. In fact, marriage is elevated to a sacrament, but consecrated virginity is not. The Church declares marriage sacred, covenantal and lifegiving. Paul is referring to doctrines that forbid marriage and other goods when done outside the teaching of Christ and for a lessor good. Celibacy is an act of giving up one good (marriage and children) for a greater good (complete spiritual union with God).
1 Tim. 5:9-12 - Paul recommends that older widows take a pledge of celibacy. This was the beginning of women religious orders.
2 Tim. 2:3-4 - Paul instructs his bishop Timothy that no soldier on service gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim his to satisfy the One who enlisted him. Paul is using an analogy to describe the role of the celibate priesthood in the Church.
Rev. 14:4 - unlike our sinful world of the flesh, in heaven, those consecrated to virginity are honored.
Isaiah 56:3-7 - the eunuchs who keep God’s covenant will have a special place in the kingdom of heaven.
Jer. 16:1-4 - Jeremiah is told by God not to take a wife or have children.
 
My personal view, with which I am sure that many people will disagree vehemently, is that clerical celibacy should be optional. My reasons would be as follows:
  • During much of the history of the Latin Church, clerical celibacy was either not required or not enforced.
  • Explanations for the requirement of clerical celibacy appear to be rationalizations made after the fact.
  • A not insignificant number of Latin Rite priests (chiefly former Protestant clergy) have received ordination despite being married.
  • Celibacy is not a requirement for Eastern Catholic priests.
  • Celibacy is also not required for priests of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Church of the East, Old Catholic Churches, and for clergy of Protestant Churches, including the Anglican Communion. In these Churches married clergy are not considered detrimental. On the contrary, there are likely to be advantages to having the spouse of a cleric in the community. People raise objections such as how a priest would be able to support a wife and children and how he would balance parish work with family life, but the evidence is that this works just fine for married Latin Rite priests and for married clergy in the Eastern Catholic Churches and other Churches and denominations.
  • Nobody is suggesting that clerical celibacy should be prohibited. It would always be available as an option for men who felt called to make a commitment to celibacy. The Anglican Communion, for example, has monastic communities as well as clergy who have simply chosen to remain single for life.
  • Undoubtedly there are men who are called both to marriage and to ordination. Currently the Church is losing out on these vocations by imposing a discipline of celibacy that is not actually based in Church doctrine. It is not possible to be called both to marriage and to the religious life, but it is possible to be called to marriage and ordination (there are married priests in the Catholic Church, so this must be the case). Currently, most men have to choose between marriage and ordination, but this is a requirement imposed by the Church. The calling cannot normally be acted upon, but there is no reason why the calling to both marriage and ordination cannot be real.
 
Well, the courts have been full of proof that you are incorrect, as is my personal life experience.

I do not believe being celibate causes a person to act badly, of course. I do not think being a priest causes anomolous and inappropriate sexual behaviour or attraction…of course not.

However, certain conditions and circumstances can be attractive to abusive people. The church has certainly been used in this way for decades. One such condition is that homosexual priests have been able to live with other homosexual priests, just as priests attracted to teens or children were enabled to form institutionally protected, cooperative networks. It went on for decades unchecked. Seminarians, nuns, subordinate priests, parishioners, children…there are credible stories in the hundreds of all of these populations bring subjected to sbuse, with guilty priests in the thousands.

The guilty protected each other. This happened in my home parish. Four priests there were credibly implicated in the scandals, with admission by their diocese that there was knowledge of the wrongdoing contemporaneous with those abuses. I was abused by a fifth who was never implicated…he died before the scandal broke.

Second, celibacy is a shield preventing family or friends questioning or noticing a priest’s sexuality, allowing them to fly under the radar. This certainly was a motivation for some gay men to enter vocations.

It is my understanding that perhaps half or more of priests do not honor their vow of celibacy, which victimizes all of those with whom they are intimate. We cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths here…leading others into feelings that cannot be returned; involving others in sin; engaging in affairs and creating unacknowledged children…it is devastating to those directly involved and the community. Legal or not, all of these behaviors separate the individual from the Church and God.

I am not by any stretch a priest basher. I have been in the company of priests who have been unjustly harassed. Their church and vocation were chronically and globally subjected to evil, and they are now not only the victims of this evil but are also blamed for it.

I do believe a lot of this nonsense would have been stopped short if a priest’s wife were at the rectory. I believe leadership would have much sooner dealt with abusers, and not because their faces were in the Boston papers, if more of them were dads. Denying the obvious with twisted statistics only further abuses the church.
 
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Priestly celibacy is a discipline in the Latin rite.

Priests stand in persona Christi and they are married to the Church. This is the reason why only men can be ordained.

That’s what I learned.
 
po18guy said:
For a fact, one need not be a priest to practice a chaste life.
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All Catholics are required to lead a chaste life.

Single people by observing abstinence or continence and married people by being faithful to their spouse.

A married person who is faithful to their spouse is being chaste.
 
rf9661 said:
When we look at it, marriage is a HUGE commitment. It requires lots of time, work, and dedication to have a fruitful marriage. Marriages also lead to children. Even MORE time commitment. Can someone who has also taken on the commitments of the priesthood take all that extra commitments? I’m not certain they can. It could act as a distraction. A priest dedicates their life to serving Christ, and the public. Very often, a priest will need to run out in the wee-hours of the morning to administer a sacrament. Would this be fair to their wife? Having a husband who is constantly away serving others? I think not.
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All good arguments.

But you could also argue, no celibacy → more people become priests → workload of priests spread over more shoulders → less pressure on individual priests → priests have more time off and are thus able to filfill matrimonial and family duties.

Many protestant pastors who are married may also be called upon to administer rites or attend to an emergency. Their wives deal with it. It’s no different to being married to a rural doctor, or a shift worker, or freelancer or many other types of job.
 
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My heart goes out to you, and to all victims of predator priests, and negligent bishops.
 
Cirdan_XII said:
Many protestant pastors who are married may also be called upon to administer rites or attend to an emergency. Their wives deal with it. It’s no different to being married to a rural doctor, or a shift worker, or freelancer
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Of course, sometimes wives “deal with it” by divorce, drinking, or many other ways of marital burnout. Marriages are much more fragile now than a generation or two ago.
 
As a Protestant who attends Mass and has studied Catholicism for many years, I don’t feel celibacy is necessary for the vocation of a priest. The Eastern church has married clergy, as did all the Protestant churches I’ve attended. At the same time I have tremendous admiration for those who choose such a life and are faithful to their vows. I feel very comfortable and at ease knowing the priest I listen to is just such a person. And there is something within my psyche, despite my opening remark, that makes me glad that RC priests are to be celibate.
 
1 Serving humanity is not a distraction from marriage, it is a fruit of it. Marriage partners sanctify one another. Sanctity is not sitting around the fire together with our halos in place (although that’s a good thing also). Marriage sanctifies the partners and is a sign to the rest of the world. The goods of marriage also help sanctify the rest of the world. The goods of marriage flow out to the rest of the world, as love always does.

The argument boils down to “not enough time and energy”. That ignores the multiplication of grace that might result from more servants stepping forth and saying “yes”. You can’t look at the Church’s mission from the eyes of deprivation. You have to look from the eyes of graceful trust.

2 Celibacy has a unique place of honor and grace in the Church, and opening the priesthood should not detract from that. Again, we shouldn’t look at the issue through the eyes of deprivation and competition, one state against the other.
 
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neophyte said:
Nonsense. Normal guys don’t engage in homosexual behavior just because they haven’t been with a woman for a very long time.
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This is correct, but as I think was discussed above, there may be some truth to the idea that in past decades, gays may have been drawn to the priesthood because it was a socially acceptable place to “hide”. If you were a priest, no one was going to be asking or wondering why you didn’t have a wife or why you didn’t show more interest in dating women.

As someone said above, gay people are now accepted in Western society, and there is much less reason for them to try to “hide” in the priesthood. Furthermore, I would think in the wake of all the scandals, the seminaries have become more adept at weeding out candidates who are not suitable for the priesthood because of their motivations or lifestyle.
 
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