By Edgar Davie
Salem-News.com
February 11, 2010
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february122010/catholic_pt2.php
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Mandatory celibacy for Catholic priests is a foreign Practice that entered Christianity in the fourth century
(NEW YORK) - For nearly 2000 years the Catholic Church has proclaimed Church laws and doctrines intended to more clearly explain the teachings of Christ. But remarkably, while history reveals that Jesus selected only married men to serve as His apostles, the Church today forbids priestly marriage.
Also, today the Catholic Church is the only Christian denomination experiencing world wide condemnation from “scandalous” allegations of sex abuse committed against women and children by priests and bishops. Historically, scandals similar to these are known to have appeared only after mandatory celibacy laws were first instituted, centuries after Christ. Why were these changes made?
As children Catholics are taught that Jesus’ apostles ceased sexual contact with their wives in order to “Act in the person of Jesus”, by adopting His celibate lifestyle and devoting their lives to spreading the Gospel unencumbered by family responsibilities. But history reveals a different story, a story unknown by faithful Catholics.
Today the law of mandatory celibacy for priests has exposed a telling historical problem. If priests freely accepted celibacy in the beginning why did marriage later begin, and what authority today permits the Church to deny priestly marriage that Jesus permitted?
The answer can be found in historical events beginning around 366AD when a new and different explanation of our first priestly traditions began to appear. This event changed Catholic history.
So historically, how and why did mandatory celibacy come into the Church? In order to answer this question we must return to the time of Jesus, and our first Catholic traditions.
In The Beginning
Jesus made few changes in existing Jewish law for His followers. But among the most important changes He instituted were those concerning marriage for Christians. Jewish men of the time were allowed to have more than one wife as well as concubines; Jesus forbade polygamy. They were allowed to divorce; Jesus prohibited divorce (Matthew 19:9). And most importantly, Jewish law required all Jews, including priests, to marry by age 20 (Genesis 1:28), but Jesus allowed Christians to remain unmarried if they freely chose to do so (Matthew 19:12). And, contrary to current myth, Jesus did not require His apostles to take a vow of celibacy or to abstain from marital sex in order to imitate His lifestyle; Christ allowed His apostles to freely choose either marriage or celibacy.
For these reasons the question of Jesus’ celibacy is pointless as justification for modern celibacy laws that entered the Church centuries later. As Jesus left the Church, an individual’s free choice to marry and propagate or to remain unmarried was permitted, and no restriction against future marriage by unmarried priests existed. Today many Catholic traditionalists have begun anew to examine these teachings of Jesus and to compare them to the modern law of mandatory celibacy, a law that did not exist in the beginning.
Pseudo-Scripture
In order to understand the origins of mandatory celibacy modern Catholics must first come to understand the origin and misleading influence that apocryphal non-Biblical writings had on Jesus’ teaching before the New Testament was first identified as the only legitimate source of Christian Scripture, c.350AD, and their continuing influence on the Church today.
Catholics do not tend to turn to the Bible as a historical document in order to understand the foundational teachings of our faith.
Those who cite New Testament scripture in support of beliefs that may question Church teaching are immediately accused of Protestant sympathies, and of denying Catholic tradition. Such accusations are ad hominem, because scripture and Catholic tradition cannot be separated.
Catholics are taught about the Bible’s importance but are instructed to consult the Catechism for explanations of our first traditions (history), or to consult our priests for answers that will lead to the complete truth. They alone, we are taught, are divinely ordained by God to teach the infallible Gospel of Christ without error. Catholics are not permitted to challenge Church teaching.
Today, Church explanations of mandatory celibacy pose a great problem because it is acknowledged by all that apostles and priests during the earliest generations were married. More to the point, in the New Testament St. Paul specifically required bishops and deacons be married fathers, “capable of managing their families” (1Timothy 3).
Even more damaging to the idea of a required vow of celibacy, St. Paul specifically preached against newly converted Christian-Gnostics who brought with them a belief that all priests must reject desires of the flesh in order to successfully mediate between God and man. This ascetic and dualistic belief of conflict between flesh and soul was first taught by Plato c.428BC and spread across the western world with Alexander the Great before 300BC.
By Christ’s time it had made its way into all religions’ beliefs other than Orthodox Judaism and Christianity, who were unique among all beliefs.
In defense of married priests St. Paul confronted this new Christian-Gnostic belief. He strongly condemned mandatory celibacy and his teaching was continually supported by later popes who excommunicated Christian-Gnostic converts for their persistent support of mandatory celibacy.
“The Spirit has explicitly said that during the last times there will be some who will desert the faith and choose to listed to deceitful spirits and doctrines that come from devils; and the cause of this will be lies told by hypocrites…they will say marriage is forbidden, and lay down rules about abstaining from food which God has created to be accepted with thanksgiving by all who believe and who know the truth.” (1Timothy 4:1).
It is important here for Catholics to understand that all New Testament scripture such as this, from either Jesus or His Apostles, are declared by the Church to be the “Deposit of Faith”, which ended c.98AD. These teachings are unchangeable, immutable, and any “new doctrine” that would change the Deposit of Faith after that time is forbidden. In theological speak the Deposit of Faith is the original Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.
Absence of Mandatory Celibacy
Evidence is abundant that mandatory celibacy was a late entry into Christianity, and did not exist in the second or third centuries. As a matter of fact, the Church today acknowledges that “no law of celibacy as we know it today existed in the beginning”.
More enlightening, we have witness in ancient Church literature from Apostolic Fathers such as Bishops St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna, they were ‘hearers’ of St. John the apostle. As married bishops and disciples of St. John, they realized that Jesus permitted men to remain celibate if they freely chose to do so, but viewed them with caution.
Priests of the time were married men who also worked to support their families when celibate pagan converts began to appear in large cities, often resulting in conflict. Many celibate priests believed their ascetic chastity elevated them spiritually in the eyes of God to a superior spiritual plane, even superior to married bishops.
In his letter, 110AD, Ignatius asks Polycarp to instruct priests and their wives thusly: “Speak to my sisters [wives] that they love the Lord and be content with their husbands [priests] both in the flesh and in soul. In like manner exhort my brothers [priests] in the name of Jesus Christ to love their wives as the Lord loved the Church. If anyone is able to remain celibate…let him remain so without boasting. If he boasts about it he is undone, and if he seeks to be more esteemed than the bishop he is corrupted.”
This was an important event in the second century. From such ancient records we find that after the Deposit of Faith, as it was left by Jesus and His apostles, priests continued to choose either marriage or celibacy and that mandatory celibacy did not exist. So, when and how did things change?
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