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Spok wrote:

Celibacy is not hereditary.

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And that right there is WHY the Church became celibate.
The early Church was NOT celibate. Priests had wives and families.
However, if the religeous are celibate, any property that they may own or inherit goes to the Church, NOT to surviving family.

The Church wanted the money and the land, (especially as many who went for the priest-hood came from the merchant or noble classes and were therefore endowed) so the Church instituted celibacy.

Tia

Celibacy was a discipline practiced in the Church almost from it's outset. The split on celibacy was NOT over who got to inherit property, but what the culture and politics of a region were.

In the East, where the Bishops were more closely attuned to the politics and culture of Constantinople (and where Arianism and Iconoclasm were far more common and hung on far longer), celibecy was never very popular, and the Eastern Orthodox churches today do not follow that discipline.

In the West, celibecy was tought (if not always required) and followed (if somewhat irregularly) from the early Church. It caught on at a time being a priest or a bishop was a good way to become impoverished and a martyr, so suggesting it was about who inherited money and property is really sort of silly.

The Roman Catholic Church did abandon the requirement of celibecy for about 100 years (10th or 11th century, I can't remember which off the top of my head), but reinstated it when it saw a substantial falling away of the piety and disipline of the priesthood. In a sense, the experiance with dropping that requirement has been similiar to what has happened in the Church since Vatican II, when an awful lot of bishops began turning a blind eye to the issue of homosexuality in the seminaries.

Ahhh--that's the Jack Chick version.

The FACTS are that in the early days, it was "celibate or continent." You could be married and be a priest--so long as you and your wife understood that marital relations would CEASE after Ordination.

More and more research points to this as the practice.

However, there were plenty of folks then, as now, who sin. That's not news. Whether against continence/celibacy, or whatever.

The Church wanted the money and the land, (especially as many who went for the priest-hood came from the merchant or noble classes and were therefore endowed) so the Church instituted celibacy.

Incorrect. The discipline of celibacy and the priesthood in the Church finds it's genesis with Melchisedech in the Old Testament and was practiced and taught by the Apostles. Suggest you study accurate history, as well as Matthew 19:27-30 and Luke 18:28-30 rather than simply regurgitating ignorant urban legends.

"ut quod apostoli docuerunt, et ipsa servavit antiquitas nos quoque custodiamus"

The Church wanted the money and the land, (especially as many who went for the priest-hood came from the merchant or noble classes and were therefore endowed) so the Church instituted celibacy

You may speculate as to the motivation of the Church for a celibate priesthood, but what do you mean by "the Church"? Do you mean that Church councils met and decided to adopt a celibate priesthood to enrich "the Church"?

Actually, I think an anti-Catholic statement like yours is based less upon history and more upon opinion. St. Paul himself inspired celibacy, advising those who wanted to dedicate themselves to God's service to remain celibate. He said that a celibate would not be distracted by the wants and needs of a spouse. That, truly, is the motivation of the Church for a celibate priesthood. Conversely, a married clergy opposes Apostolic advice!

What fascinates me most is the fact that married Protestant clergy have a rate of sexual abuse 5 times higher than that for celibate clergy (Jenkins, Pennsylvania University). A married clergy is not a solution for clerical sexual abuse.

To discover the real early Church, may I suggest a study of the writings of early Church fathers? That is better repeating old and familiar antiCatholic diatribes.

Regards.