How to Refute Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy

CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter | 6/14/02 | Deal Hudson

[.45MAN]

Thanks for posting this article. Something that should be read by all. Married priests are not common, I have been a Catholic all my life and have lived in many places over the years I have met only 2 married priests, one in Germany in the sixties and our present parish priest here in Georgia.

[BlackElk]

You are an Episcopalian according to your profile page. I am a Catholic. Is it any of my business that you belong to a church whose very existence is rooted in the frustrated, illicit and adulterous desires of a mere king, Henry VIII, who could not obtain papal approval to abandon his legitimate wife after more than twenty years of marriage for another woman whom he later beheaded at an early stage in his career as a regal male Liz Taylor?

Why is it any of your business whether the Roman Catholic Church to which you do NOT belong maintains a celibate priesthood? Should either of us be pushing rabbis to eat pork or lobster? Do you have any suggestions as to how Muslims ought to pray? Any advice for atheists or agnostics on how to best practice their atheism or agnosticism?

I would point out that Roman Catholicism, even in its gravely afflicted AmChurch form, has yet to consecrate lesbian bishops. Clean up your own tiny backyard before sticking your nose into the vast estate next door which your theological ancestor Henry VIII abandoned NOT for doctrinal reasons but to facilitate his serial adulteries.

[BlackElk]

If you really believe that "Peter, and many of the rest of the original 12 apostles were married," here is your chance to instruct us poor Biblically ignorant Catholics who preserved the Bible (all of it and not the truncated form which left out the books of the OT inconvenient to the reformation) and passed copies to you guys.

Answer me this:

Name each of the 12 apostles and, for each one, NAME the wife and give a Scriptural reference demonstrating that each specific couple lived together as man and wife after each apostle was called by Christ to follow him.

Next, although God is the actual author of all of Scripture, St. Paul was the penman of much of the New Testament. He is often referenced as an Apostle and was certainly a successor of them. Give us the same information and Scriptural references on St. Paul.

Remember no forbidden "traditions of men", no Scriptural "interpretations", no forbidden adding or detracting from the words of Scripture. Show me and the other Catholics how the Bible speaks for itself in this regard. If you cannot, then concede that your argument is "unScriptural" or explain why it is not unScriptural.

God certainly created marriage. God also created beasts with cloven hooves and ordered Jews not to eat them. Priests, if we are talking about normative priests of the Roman rite of the Roman Catholic Church cannot legitimately marry because each and every one (other than Lutheran and Episcopalian married clergy admitted to the Church and to the Catholic priesthood) have taken solemn vows of chastity and obedience, both of which prohibit their marriage after ordination as does Canon Law. What Peter (and his successors) have bound on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and what he or they have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. The vows may be loosed by the pope, individually or collectively. Priestly celibacy is disciplinary and not doctrinal, like the old mandatory meatless Friday rule and, like that rule may be abolished at any time. Of course, even the pope has no authority to require priests TO marry or to marry some specific woman or her to marry a priest.

[BlackElk]

You do not begin to agree with Roman Catholics on the meaning of the word "clergy." You would be a rather rare Protestant if you believe, as we Catholics do, that clergy include only priests with sacramental powers, a member of a sacrificial priesthood, etc. There is no point in arguing over whether or not "clergy" "may", "might" or "must" marry when there is no agreement in the first place as to the definition of clergy.

Furthermore the reformation gave rise to the curious idea (at least in the history of Christianity) that all is included in the Bible (or at least in the books that reformed churches recognize) and that there is nothing beyond Scripture or in addition to it that has authority. We are to accept that Jesus Christ was incarnated, lived, engaged in His ministry, suffered, was crucified, died in atonement for our sins, rose on Easter and ascended into heaven leaving behind the Paraclete, all so that a disobedient priest of eccentric views and a yen to marry a nun would be able to come along 1485 years or so later to found Jesus Christ's Church or the first of 10,000 of them, each utterly necessary to its adherents because of nuances of difference over understandings of Scripture (which is, of course, perfectly clear in its meaning despite the existence of 10,000 differing groups of Sola Scriptura believers, each his or her own authority on Scripture because most are literate and can read someone else's translation of Scripture whichever one of many differing versions or translations) authoritatively.

If you actually believe something substantially along the lines of the history outlined above, please keep it to yourself or among yourselves or go teach it to anyone who will believe it. Define your clergy as you please. I am afraid that you will find little agreement from Catholics adequately grounded in the Faith and for good reason.

[Salvation]

God bless you for posting this. It will be very valuable to me.

[Salvation]

When a priest is ordained, doesn't he take the Church as his bride?

[BlackElk]

If the source you are using claims that the Council of Trent took place between 1521 and 1545, that source is flat out wrong at least on that point. The Encyclopedia Brittanica is a reasonably neutral and authoritative source as to historical facts of that sort. The Brittanica reports that the Council of Trent encompassed three periods: 1545-1547; 1551-1552; and 1562-1563. I will leave to others more scholarly than I the balance of your post.

[Salvation]

the husband of one wife

My Bible reads differently.

[IrishRainy]

"lifelong Protestant with an awareness of history and the scriptures. You would do well to familiarize yourself with them, too."

And what makes you think I haven't? Just because I don't bore everyone to tears posting long biblical quotes doesn't mean I am not familiar with the Bible and/or biblical history. Your assumption is rather arrogant, and so is your attitude, in my opinion.

[IrishRainy]

"you know there is no room for freedom of conscience in the Catholic Church."

And how would YOU know?

[IrishRainy]

I LOVE your posts...thanks for helping out!

[Mark17]

Somehow I really don't think you want to know the truth, so why should I take the time?

[DallasMike]

Your assumption is rather arrogant, and so is your attitude, in my opinion.

You were the one who first dismissed me as an obvious "ex-catholic with an axe to grind." Your attitude didn't impress me too much either.

[DallasMike]

My Bible reads differently.

Yes, the verse is translated various ways. The literal Greek says that a bishop is to be a "one-woman man."

[Pylot]

As you all know, the original words of all writings were laboriously copied and handed down over the generations.

And in the process of copying these documents, occasionally errors were introduced.

It turns out that in the phrase that the catholics took to mean "celibate manhood" the original phrase was "celebrate manhood".

There is probably an especially hot place in Hell reserved for these fellows.

They can always correct their mistake and revert to the original meaning but the perverts and deviates have such control of the situation now that they are unlikely to give up their palace of sodomy now known as the catholic church.

[BlackElk]

As a Roman Catholic, I believe that I do know the Truth. You are refusing to back up your claim, as a sola Scriptura Christian that the apostles were married. I have given you the opportunity to provide those who believe as I do with what you regard as the truth, from an unimpeachable source, Holy Scripture. You can be as clever as you like or not, but the fact remains that you cannot back up your claim. Admit that or back up your claim on the terms presented or withdraw from the argument on this issue which is, after all, none of your business in any event since you do not belong to the Roman Catholic Church.

However, if you want to dip in and out of Catholic issues discussions without belonging to the Church, doing the equivalent of opportunistic drive-by shootings, you are going to have to expect that Catholics will defend themselves since we have no particular duty to be instructed by those in error especially when they cannot back up their claims from the Scriptures they claim to rely on exclusively. If you think I am being somehow unfair to you in holding you accountable for your statements on your own sola Scriptura terms, that speaks volumes.

[Mark17]

OK, look at Mark 1:30 and Luke 4:38. This was about Peter. The rest of the Apostles? I am not sure of. Many were problaby married, maybe some were not. The Apostle Paul was at one time a member of the Sanhedrin, was he not? What was one of the requirements for being in the Sanhedrin? When you get down to brass tacks, all this really doesn't matter a hill of beans. I am only interested in one thing. What is your plan of salvation? After all, when all is said and done, that is the only thing that matters, because eternity is an extremely long time, and no one wants to screw it up do they? Also, you have to keep in mind, the Bible is not intended to be a blow by blow description of history, but was written to point people to Jesus of Nazerath. BTW, down with Blackhawks management, those worthless bums.

[spetznaz]

I have read all of your posts (DallasMike) and i believe they are very well conceived and well written, and backed with Biblical evidence (as opposed to just some Catholic Canons and church bulls written by some Papal decree in the past claiming to be 'infallible').

However it is my experience that when it comes to visceral subjects like faith and religion it is virtually impossible to convince a person otherwise! For example i remember a post you sent to PolyCarp, where you quoted certain verses in the bible that supported your view...and yet PolyCarp said he would rather adhere to church teaching than the bible because, and i quote, I'll take the guidance of Christ's Church over your fallible doctrines of man any day, thank you, when in fact what PolyCarp calls the 'fallible doctrines of man' are lifted straight from the bible, and if he looked at his bible he would see the same posts (assuming it is a 'normal' bible...who knows?). And what he calls the 'guidance of christ's church' is actually Catholic Canon enacted through what is known as Papal Bulls in century's past. Thus to him Papal bulls are greater in importance than the Bible!

However i am not here to discredit a church...nope, that is not my intention. I just wanted to say it s my experience that when it comes to matters of the spirit and faith it is hard to convince someone of something it is not parallel to what he believes in. no matter what evidence you may have on the contrary.

And on the subject of celibacy these are my thoughts (this is for you PolyCarp). I think Celibacy is a nice idea since it allows the priest or pastor or whatever to dedicate all of his energy to the service of God and man! However if you study ALL of the writings of the apostle Paul you will notice that he says that although it is nice for someone to be celibate it should not be forced because it can cause someone to 'burn up with desire' and end up commiting sin! Thus in the whole celibacy thing priests who think they can handle it should go ahead and be celibate...but the church should not make it OBLIGATORY to be celibate in order to be a priest. And thing of it, such statements make certain verses like 1 Timothy 4:1-3 get added significance inr espect to the Catholic church (read it for yourself PolyCarp and come to your own conclusions based on what the biblical verses say). Also have a look for yourself at 1 Corinthians chapter 7:6-9.

Well, i somewhat feel i have not done even changed your views PolyCarp even an iota, and i did not meant o actually. I onyl wanted to re-emphasize the points of Dallas Mike with the hope that some Freeper with a more open mind (and willing to look at the biblical and historical facts with an objective eye) will see them and make their own decisions on the pertinent material.

Thanks.

[DallasMike]

Name each of the 12 apostles and, for each one, NAME the wife and give a Scriptural reference demonstrating that each specific couple lived together as man and wife after each apostle was called by Christ to follow him.

There's no reason for Mark17 to do that as he wrote that "many" of the rest of the apostles were married. That's a fact. Do some research and you'll find that, according to Catholic tradition, 11 of the apostles were married.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:5 that "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?" Peter and at least several other apostles were bringing their wives with them on their travels! Pope Clement I wrote that Peter's wife was named Perpetua.

Regarding the notion that the apostles somehow became celibate after attaining their apostleship, that's a rather bizarre idea for you to prove, not for us to disprove. There's no indication that they did turn to a celibate life and the scriptures make clear that the sexual relationship is an integral part of marriage. As I noted in the last paragraphs, Peter and other apostles -- and the physical half-brothers of Jesus -- took their wives with them on their journeys.

Check your books about St. Petronilla, who until fairly recently in the scheme of things was universally considered to be one of the physical daughters of Peter (Augustine described her as such). Recently, the trend is to consider her just a "spiritual daughter" of Peter because it's inconvenient to acknowledge that the first pope was married. Anyway, tradition has it that she was martyred somewhere near the end of the first century. When you consider how close her name is to Petros, and if you acknowledge the early church tradition that she was Peter's daughter, you have to at least consider the possibility of her being born to Peter after he became an apostle.

Below is a common subject of 16th and 17th century art, a painting of the burial of Petronilla. Early church history says that she was martyred as a young woman about the same time that her parents were martyred -- around AD 66. Given that timeline, it's apparent that the early church was comfortable with the idea that she was born after Peter became an apostle. The painting is by the Italian painter Guercino and is titled "Seppellimento di Santa Petronilla." It hangs in the Vatican.

[DallasMike]

There is no point in arguing over whether or not "clergy" "may", "might" or "must" marry when there is no agreement in the first place as to the definition of clergy.

Well, Peter himself wrote (I'm quoting the Catholic Bible) to "let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Hence, all believers are priests.

However, it really doesn't matter whether we agree on the definition of clergy. The Bible clearly states that deacons and bishops can be married, plus we know that more than one apostle and many, if not most, early priests and popes were married. Whether you look at scriptures or tradition, that's an inescapable fact.

Do your own research. You'll find that we know positively that Peter was married, as was Pope Felix III (483-492), Pope Hormidas (514-523), Pope Silverius (536-537), Pope Hadrian II (867-872), and others. Many others are thought to have been married as well. In fact, the Catholic Encylcopedia admits that Pope Silverius was the son of Pope Hormidas!