Start page / Objections / The Priesthood
Verses cited for this objection: 1 Cor. 7:1-9, 1 Cor. 9:5, 1 Tim. 3:2, 1 Tim. 3:4-5, Titus 1:5-6, Heb. 13:4
Short answer
Priestly celibacy in the Latin Church is a discipline, not a dogma. The Second Vatican Council says it is not demanded by the nature of the priesthood, and the Eastern Catholic Churches ordain married men. The Church does not teach that marriage is unholy. She asks celibacy of her Latin priests because Christ and St. Paul praise it when it is chosen for the sake of the kingdom.
Drafted from primary sources. Every quotation is checked against the page it links to.
Where this teaching appears on the Offshoots timelines: August 1520, Clergy free to marry.
“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”
“And Peter said, "Lo, we have left our homes and followed you." And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life."”
“I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. … The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. … So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.”
“Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?”
“If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema.”
“If any one shall maintain, concerning a married presbyter, that is not lawful to partake of the oblation when he offers it, let him be anathema.”
“A Bishop then, he says, must be blameless, the husband of one wife. This he does not lay down as a rule, as if he must not be without one, but as prohibiting his having more than one. For even the Jews were allowed to contract second marriages, and even to have two wives at one time. For marriage is honorable”
“What are the Churches of the East to do? What is to become of the Egyptian Churches and those belonging to the Apostolic Seat, which accept for the ministry only men who are virgins, or those who practice continency, or, if married, abandon their conjugal rights?”
“…those three grades, which by a sort of bond are joined to chastity by their consecration, to wit bishops, presbyters, and deacons, so it seemed that it was becoming that the sacred rulers and priests of God as well as the Levites, or those who served at the divine sacraments, should be continent altogether, by which they would be able with singleness of heart to ask what they sought from the Lord: so that what the apostles taught and antiquity kept, that we might also keep.”
“The law of continence is the same for the ministers of the altar as for bishops and priests, who when they were laymen or readers, could lawfully marry and have offspring. But when they reached to the said ranks, what was before lawful ceased to be so. And hence, in order that their wedlock may become spiritual instead of carnal, it behooves them not to put away their wives but to have them as though they had them not”
“…we decree that where bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, canons regular, monks and professed lay brothers have presumed to take wives and so transgress this holy precept, they are to be separated from their partners. For we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law.”
“Now the obligation of observing continency is connected with Holy Orders, not essentially but by the institution of the Church; wherefore it seems that the Church can grant a dispensation from the vow of continency solemnized by the reception of Holy Orders.”
“If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage … let him be anathema”
“Indeed, it [perfect and perpetual continence] is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches. where, besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of highest merit. … celibacy, which first was recommended to priests, later in the Latin Church was imposed upon all who were to be promoted to sacred orders.”
“All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." … In the Eastern Churches a different discipline has been in force for many centuries: while bishops are chosen solely from among celibates, married men can be ordained as deacons and priests. This practice has long been considered legitimate”
“Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself. … Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other”