Ping
The first written mandate requiring priests to be chaste came in AD 304. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all”bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics” were to”abstain completely from their wives and not to have children.” A short time later, in 325, the Council of Nicea, convened by Constantine, rejected a ban on priests marrying requested by Spanish clerics.
The practice of priestly celibacy began to spread in the Western Church in the early Middle Ages. In the early 11th century Pope Benedict VIII responded to the decline in priestly morality by issuing a rule prohibiting the children of priests from inheriting property. A few decades later Pope Gregory VII issued a decree against clerical marriages.
I’m not sure how celibacy could be an apostolic tradition when Peter was a married man.
Lets check in with Peter, ‘the first Pope’.
“When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him.” Mt. 8:14,15
Also, what about 1 Tim. 4:3, foretelling prohibition of marriage?
Maybe we ought to require priest to be married. It may give them a whole new perspective to preach on Hell.
Isn’t tradition short hand for
“because we’ll always done it”?
I don’t know Catholic doctrine, but do they thing the method God ordained to perpetuate the human race is sinful?
Orthodox priests can marry, so I assume that was the rule before the Split between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in 1054.
But despite the fact that Christ,Himself,led an earthy life of celibacy I have serious trouble understanding why He would expect his vicars to be without the companionship of a wife for their *entire* lives.
And to those inclined to do so I say: go ahead...flame away...call me a CINO...I'm accustomed to it.
Is the requirement to be unmarried or to be celibate? Seems like there’s an awful lot of homo priests that are not married but not celibate either. Are these (fake) priests going to hell?