[BikerNYC]

This is a myth as is the myth...

Fourth Century
306-Council of Elvira, Spain, decree #43: a priest who sleeps with his wife the night before Mass will lose his job.
325-Council of Nicea: decreed that after ordination a priest could not marry. Proclaimed the Nicene Creed.
385-Pope Siricius left his wife in order to become pope. Decreed that priests may no longer sleep with their wives.

Sixth Century
567-2nd Council of Tours: any cleric found in bed with his wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state.
580-Pope Pelagius II: his policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.

[vox_freedom]

306-Council of Elvira, Spain, decree #43: a priest who sleeps with his wife the night before Mass will lose his job.

The council of Elvira went further:
Already in 305 A.D. (that’s very early), before the Church’s liberation under Constantine, the Council of Elvira in Spain passed the following decree: “That bishops, priests and deacons, and in general all the clergy, who are specially employed in the service of the altar, abstain from conjugal intercourse. Let those who persist be degraded from the ranks of the clergy” (Can. 33). And by the end of the fourth century, the Second Council of Carthage in Africa declared, “What the apostles taught in the early Church preserved, let us too observe.”

For further background on celibacy check out: Link to Fr. Hardon archive on celibacy