1) “For the first 1200 years of the Church’s existence, priests, bishops and 39 popes were married.” - Source: Kelly, J. N. D. Oxford Dictionary of Popes. New York, Oxford Press. 1986.
Your posting is missing some significant facts - I posted from Church councils and from Patristic sources about celibacy - and those excerpts quite clearly mention the fact that many priests and bishops were married, but living a continent lifestyle. The Church certainly did not disdain unmarried priests, but wanted the married ones to be concentrating on God, not on temporal lifestyles. At any rate, why does a misreading of my post supported by the Oxford Dictionary of Popes (an Anglican undertaking) trump my original post supported by quotes from the Vatican paper which is liberally sprinkled with quotes from Patristic and Church sources from the fourth and fifth centuries in support of that post?
2) “Celibacy is not essential to the Priesthood.” - quote Pope John Paul II - Source: Time Magazine. July 1993.
Nobody said that it was.
3) “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” St. Peter, the pope who was closest to Jesus, was married.
Yes? And? Many of the Apostles were unmarried and Jesus and Paul both had good things to say about celibacy in the service of God.
Paul was unmarried (and so was Jesus, obviously). Barnabas was unmarried. Scripture is silent on the married status of any of the rest - excepting Peter. The Church from the beginning believed in continency of its clergy and over the centuries, strengthened that belief.
Your implication was that celibacy was the norm for priests from the beginning of the Church, was it not?
That’s is not a misreading of your post, but a deception on your part not wholly supported by Vatican historical accounts (e.g Council of Pisa in 1135).
1074-Pope Gregory VII said anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy: ‘priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives.’
1095-Pope Urban II had priests’ wives sold into slavery, children were abandoned. (The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II in 1089 imposed slavery on the wives of priests.)
(Interesting side note on Vatican history:
The legitimacy of slavery is incorporated in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX which remained official law of the Church until 1913. Canon lawyers worked out four “just titles” for holding slaves: slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime; persons selling themselves into slavery, including a father selling his child; children of a mother who is a slave. )
You wrote: “Thus has it been almost from the beginning of Church history. Your statement is wrong. “
This was not the case. Celibacy did not become a requirement until 12 centuries later.
I for one believe priests should be celibate as you can not serve God in that vocation and a wife/family at the same time.