Actually it takes dizzying contortions and distortions to deny Scripture.
Titus 1:6 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believersContort away.
I asked you to spare me.
Unkindly, you refused.
Now I am left, agog, jaw hanging open, gob-smacked at the proposition that there exists an English-speaking person who thinks that passage says anything at all about the Catholic discipline of celibacy.
Oh, unkind.
I must now read from a book written by someone much more intelligent than I, in the hope of achieving a normal level of tranqulity once again.
"Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. 8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Clearly, celibacy is preferred for those who can bear it.
Exactly. It’s clear from that passage that an elder was permitted to have a wife.