"But because they still gave reverence to Mary, the basic structure of the living authority in the bishop remained intact. A humility toward human authority in Mary helped maintain the same toward the bishop. This also safeguarded the glory of femininity for their women, who could still ascend to the “truly regal throne” as well as become consecrated virgins. "Meaning that the “truly regal throne” was to not marry and engage in defiling relations, but to be a vestal virgin, which flowed from men no less then Jerome, etc..
While Catholicism does not consider itself bound to believe all that those she deems to be church fathers taught, here I will briefly document the views of a primary church "father, Jerome on virginity versus marriage, and statements of Augustine and Tertullian that relate to this which influenced the unscriptural Catholic position on required clerical celibacy (see last section on this page, by the grace of God.).
Jerome saw marriage as so inferior (at the least) to virginity, celibacy and continence, that he engaged in specious reasoning and abused Scripture to support his imbalanced views, teaching,
If ‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman,’ then it is bad for him to touch one, for bad, and bad only, is the opposite of good. (''Letter'' 22).
“It is good,” he says, “for a man not to touch a woman.” If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil. But surely a thing which is only allowed because there may be something worse has only a slight degree of goodness...
Just as though one were to lay it down: “It is good to feed on wheaten bread, and to eat the finest wheat flour,” and yet to prevent a person pressed by hunger from devouring cow-dung, I may allow him to eat barley. Does it follow that the wheat will not have its peculiar purity, because such an one prefers barley to excrement?..
If we abstain from intercourse, we give honour to our wives: if we do not abstain, it is clear that insult is the opposite of honour.
Then we have another false dilemma:
"If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in the bondage of wedlock, for as often as I render my wife her due, I cannot pray.
And then there is this wresting of Scripture to serve his purpose:
This too we must observe, at least if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew, that while Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days relates that, having finished the works of each, “God saw that it was good,” on the second day it omitted this altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it destroys unity, and prefigures the marriage compact. Hence it was that all the animals which Noah took into the ark by pairs were unclean. Odd numbers denote cleanness. And yet by the double number is represented another mystery: that not even in beasts and unclean birds is second marriage approved.
So much for 2 x 2 evangelism, while "if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew" we see that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." (Genesis 1:31)
Jerome further vainly attempts to make Genesis support him in asserting:
The command to increase and multiply first finds fulfilment after the expulsion from paradise, after the nakedness and the fig-leaves which speak of sexual passion. (St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus Book 1 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vi.vi.I.html)
Yet besides the fact that nowhere are the fig-leaves shown to speak of sexual passion, the command to increase and multiply came before the Fall and its later fulfillment:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27-28)
Then we have Augustine who taught that one cannot engage in marital relations without sinful lust:
the very embrace which is lawful and honourable cannot be effected without the ardour of lust, so as to be able to accomplish that which appertains to the use of reason and not of lust....This is the carnal concupiscence, which, while it is no longer accounted sin in the regenerate, yet in no case happens to nature except from sin. — On Marriage and Concupiscence (Book I, cp. 27); http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15071.htm
For the belief was, as Harding (below) holds, "before they sinned, Adam and Eve had perfect command of their passions (reproductive actions]." But having lost that due to the Fall, then men as Augustine held that martial relations must involve carnal sinful lust, and even interprets Heb. 13:4 which states that the marriage bed is undefiled (unlike under the Law) to simply mean if it is free from adultery!
However, the idea that martial relations must be that of lust (though it often can be) due to it providing pleasure is not correct, else all that provides pleasure must be consider iniquitous. And as per the logic that a function which at the last is uncontrollable is sinful, perhaps another daily bodily function of relief which can uncontrollable (if you cannot find a bathroom) is also sin.
Then we have Tertullian who argued that second marriage, having been freed from the first by death, "will have to be termed no other than a species of fornication," partly based on the reasoning that such involves desiring to marry a women out of sexual ardor. An Exhortation to Chastity,'' Chapter IX.—Second Marriage a Species of Adultery, Marriage Itself Impugned, as Akin to Adultery, ANF, v. 4, p. 84.]
Also regarding some strange views on the issue of Adam and Eve and sexual relations, RC priest John A. Hardon, S.J stated,
"some of the Fathers [as Athanasius and John Damascene] were so firmly persuaded of the natural integrity of our first parents that they derived marriage from original sin." (Harding: http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/God/God_013.htm)
For as "John of Damascus" wrote,
In Paradise virginity held sway. Indeed, Divine Scripture tells that both Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed416 . But after their transgression they knew that they were naked, and in their shame they sewed aprons for themselves417 . And when, after the transgression, Adam heard, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return418 , when death entered into the world by reason of the transgression, then Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare seed419 . So that to prevent the wearing out and destruction of the race by death, marriage was devised that the race of men may be preserved through the procreation of children420.
...God, Who knoweth all things before they have existence, knowing in His foreknowledge that they would fall into transgression in the future and be condemned to death, anticipated this and made “male and female,” and bade them “be fruitful and multiply.” — John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter XXIV; http://www.trueorthodoxy.info/cat_stjohndamascus_exact_exposition_Orthodox_Faith_bk04.s
html
However, as shown before, the command to be"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28) was given in paradise before the Fall. And nowhere is it even inferred that the sin of Adam and Eve was that of having sexual relations.
And while abstaining from any pleasure out of faith and love for God and service to Him will be rewarded, including continent celibacy, and which indeed has its advantages in focused spiritual endeavor as 1 Co. 7 teaches, yet the ancients cited above go beyond what Scripture teaches in promoting celibacy.
1 Co. 7 teaches that in general the solution to fornication is to marry, and in which the bodies of the man and wife belong to each other, and commands marital relations in the context of avoiding sin. (1 Corinthians 7:1-5)
However, the apostle counsels a man not to seek a wife and to choose celibacy if he has that gift (v. 7, which I think has much to do with self-control) and a father to choose that for his daughter in his home, unless burning with desire for a man feeling likewise. (vs. 8,9)
And the apostle moreover urges Christians to be temperate in business with this world and (using hyperbole) that "they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not." (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
And while this focus is to apply thru all time, yet as Paul prefaces this exhortation with"the time is short" (1 Corinthians 7:29) then I think he was prophetically, even if unknowingly, preparing the people for the dramatic stresses and changes resulting from the destruction of the temple that would occur in 70AD.
However, Scripture simply does not support the manner of denigration of martial relations and the married as second-class citizens they way men as Jerome did beginning with Genesis.
And besides the reality that nowhere in the New Testament are there any Catholic priests, required clerical celibacy is not what Scripture teaches. The norm for both apostles and pastors was to be married. All but Paul and Barabas were married, and they had freedom to take a wife, versus being under a vow of celibacy. 1 Corinthians 9:1-5)
And the requirements for pastors shows that the norm was such were married, with being a father providing positive credentials for being a pastor, being "the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)" (1 Timothy 3:2-5) Likewise it was expected that deacons be married. (v. 11)
And as referenced before, celibacy is a gift that not all have, and to require almost all (Rome makes exceptions for some married ordained converts) clergy to have that gift is a unscriptural and foolish presumption.