That's your first mistake. Using an abridged, edited, corrupted version of a Catholic document, the Bible, as a reference. St.Paul wrote woman, not wife, in First Corinthians
"Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister as well as the rest of the apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?" 1 Corinthians 9:5
We know this because St. Paul himself was celibate.
"But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I." 1 Corinthians 7:8
You also need to read the following:
"Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting. And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first."Matthew 19:27-30
"Then Peter said: Behold, we have left all things and have followed thee. Who said to them: Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left home or parents or brethren or wife or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, Who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." Luke 18:28-30
The discipline of celibacy and the priesthood in the Catholic Church has its origin with the Apostles and finds its genesis with Melchisedech in the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament.
While I understand the desire to have an unmarried clergy,
I'm curious as to just exactly what it is that you "understand".
I wonder what you think of the Anglican dispensation? Or the permanent diaconate?
What do you mean by that? I say "I understand the desire to have an unmarried clergy" because the unmarried person can focus on serving God (as Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 7.) However I don't see how forced celibacy of clergy can be reconciled with 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1, where God, via Paul, explicitly permits several levels of church leadership to be married. Both passages discuss the office of an elder or bishop, who are "the husband of one wife" as the Douay-Rheims expresses it, and who may have children. Sexual purity is clearly an important qualification, but it would seem that it can be purity through celibacy or through right conduct in a married relationship (since the holder of this office may have children). Per 1 Cor. 7:5 it could be said that sexual intercourse within the marital relationship would be permitted to holders of this high office within the church.
"Then Peter said: Behold, we have left all things and have followed thee. Who said to them: Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left home or parents or brethren or wife or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, Who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." Luke 18:28-30
We know Peter was married at some point. Jesus healed his wife's mother in Matt 8:14. Clement of Alexandria, who died in 215 AD or thereabouts, seems to interpret 1 Cor. 9:5 as I do in his Stromata (see sections 52, 53). He even takes it farther than I (I think it's pretty clear scripturally that Paul was, in fact, celibate.) Clement also teaches that Peter's wife was martyred. Also in 1 Cor. 7:10,11 Paul teaches as a command from the Lord that marriages were not to be broken. To dissolve one's marriage to serve Christ would be wrong, wouldn't it?
The discipline of celibacy and the priesthood in the Catholic Church has its origin with the Apostles and finds its genesis with Melchisedech in the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament.
Were not the priests, even the high priest, permitted to marry (Leviticus 21)?