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To: Morgana

It is quite clear that compulsory clerical celibacy is a Church discipline, not a Biblical requirement.

And if you study the history of this policy, you also see quite clearly that it was implemented many centuries after the founding of the Church and for reasons which have nothing to do with anything that can be found in the Bible.

While I am not a fan of the current Pope, he has recently stated that:

1) That clerical celibacy is a discipline, not a dogma or a doctrine.

2) That compulsory clerical celibacy was put into place many centuries after the Church was founded.

3) That the policy of clerical celibacy is subject to change.

All true, of course.

The Lord commands us to be fruitful and to multiply. The Lord created Eve because He did not want Adam to be alone. Physical intimacy between a husband and a wife is a gift from God which should be denied to no one. Priests were married men in the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many popes were married as were most priests and bishops for at least the first ten centuries of Church history. Compulsory clerical celibacy was implemented in the Middle Ages largely to fight corruption among the clergy, primarily nepotism and simony. There is no Biblical basis for such a draconian policy. Surely it should at the very least be open to debate and discussion.


13 posted on 02/02/2015 7:41:54 AM PST by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
And if you study the history of this policy, you also see quite clearly that it was implemented many centuries after the founding of the Church and for reasons which have nothing to do with anything that can be found in the Bible.

Wrong.

Matthew 19:11-12
1 Corinthians 7

Celibacy is the Christian ideal.
15 posted on 02/02/2015 9:14:44 AM PST by DarkSavant
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