Salvation:
You are indeed correct, Celibacy is only a discipline and has been taught, in different degrees since the 4th century, at various councils and was clearly taught as a normative discipline at the Council of Chalcedon
Here is an article from a Reformed cite ccel which is entirely consistent with the Catholic article.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.vi.ccxx.htm
In summary, celibacy has always been a discipline so no Council or Pope can make it dogma, it is not. What you find is the level of teaching on celibacy and to what degree did Pope’s stress it. It is a fact that one Pope as late as the 6th century was married and his son would succeed him as Pope. The last married Pope was Hadrian in the 9th century. So what the Pope Francis said is true in that it was in the 11th century that the Church finally made celibacy the norm for all clergy in the West, but even now, with Anglicans becoming Catholic and ordained as Married priest, we again have a lax in the discipline of celibacy.
Nothing new, northing controversial here except for a certain type of FR protestant here wanting to make something out it so they can entertain themselves, One would think on Sunday, most would be watching their preacher handle snakes and hold their hands in the air and grasp talking in tongues.
What's no big deal to you is sacrilege to another Catholic.
Seems to me that the non-Catholics are on the same page about a married priesthood, that is that they see no need for it, there is no Scriptural support for it, and that it's only hurting the Catholic church by drastically cutting into the pool of men who could be priests.
It's the Catholics who have the division over it. They simply can't agree with their take on how, when, where, why, and by whom, the whole priestly celibacy thing came into being.
We see it as a useless convention at best.
With Catholics bemoaning the dearth of priests, the easiest solution which has no moral issues attached to it is to allow a married priesthood.
But nooooooooooo.......
Can't go against *sacred tradition* or whatever they're using to justify it.
You're shooting yourselves in your own collective foot.
The whole idea won't be accepted until it comes from a Catholic source.
>One would think on Sunday, most would be watching their preacher handle snakes and hold their hands in the air and grasp talking in tongues.
Like the Apostles? Your jest seems to border on blasphemy.