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To: Antoninus

The Catholic did to protect their assets from claims of children that were fathered by priests. It’s not based on some standard of holiness.

Every Apostle was married. The only Apostle not married was Paul, but it is presumed he was a widow.

https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/when-did-the-catholic-church-decide-priests-should


38 posted on 06/18/2024 10:50:00 AM PDT by Jonty30 (He hunted a mammoth for me, just because I said I was hungry. He is such a good friend. )
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To: Jonty30
The Catholic did to protect their assets from claims of children that were fathered by priests.

This is a silly and groundless canard. If your father works for IBM, do you have some sort of claim against IBM's assets? Of course not, and it's never been that way.

The people who make this claim never provide a bit of evidence for it.

Every Apostle was married. The only Apostle not married was Paul, but it is presumed he was a widow.

There's not a shred of evidence that St. John the Evangelist was married, neither in Scripture nor in tradition.

50 posted on 06/18/2024 1:46:25 PM PDT by Campion (Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - Little Flower)
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To: Jonty30; Antoninus
The Catholic did to protect their assets from claims of children that were fathered by priests. It’s not based on some standard of holiness.

That is false

The reason for the celibacy rule coming in the late Middle ages was that people contrasted the parish priests (who were allowed to be married men) with the monks and wanted more monks

Children that were fathered by priests, just like the children of Anglican vicars, have no claim to the "assets" of the Church

The link you posted - did you actually even read it?

It says

Jesus lived a chaste life and never married and at one point in the Bible is referred to as a eunuch (Matthew 19:12), though most scholars believe that this was intended metaphorically. The implication was that Jesus lived a celibate life like a eunuch. Many of his disciples were also chaste and celibate. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, recommends celibacy for women: "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." (1 Cor. 7:8-9)
and
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 one part where it talks about children of married priests (which was allowed at that time) is about "children of priests from inheriting property." --> not church property

You should have read it really rather than skimming - as it has

Several explanations have been offered for the decision of the Church to adopt celibacy.

66 posted on 06/19/2024 5:05:06 AM PDT by Cronos (I identify as an ambulance, my pronounces are wee/woo)
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