Clerical celibacy is the discipline by which some or all members of the clergy in certain religions are required to be unmarried. Since these religions consider deliberate sexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of marriage to be sinful, clerical celibacy also requires abstension from these.[1] In the Latin Catholic Church, clerical celibacy is mandated for bishops and, as a general rule, for priests and for deacons who intend to become priests. In Eastern Christianity, celibacy is mandatory for all bishops and for any priest who has been ordained while unmarried or who has lost his wife.
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The word "celibacy" can mean either the state of being unmarried or abstinence, especially because of religious vows, from sexual intercourse.[2][3] In the canon law of the Latin Church, the word "celibacy" is used specifically in the sense of being unmarried. However, for its clergy this state of being unmarried is considered to be a consequence of the obligation to be completely and perpetually continent:
Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity.[4]
Permanent deacons, namely those deacons who are not intended to become priests, are, in general, exempted from this rule.[5] But married permanent deacons are not allowed to remarry after the death of their spouse.[6]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to "the affairs of the Lord", they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church's minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God. In the Eastern Churches a different discipline has been in force for many centuries: while bishops are chosen solely from among celibates, married men can be ordained as deacons and priests. This practice has long been considered legitimate; these priests exercise a fruitful ministry within their communities. Moreover, priestly celibacy is held in great honor in the Eastern Churches and many priests have freely chosen it for the sake of the Kingdom of God. In the East as in the West a man who has already received the sacrament of Holy Orders can no longer marry.[7]
On the granting of permission, by exception, for the priestly ordination of married men in the Latin Church, see Rules, below.
In some Christian churches, such as the Latin Rite Catholic Church and some Eastern Catholic Churches, priests and bishops must as a rule remain unmarried, while in others, such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the churches of Oriental Orthodoxy and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, married men may be ordained as deacons or priests, but may not remarry if their wife dies. Since celibacy is seen as a consequence of the obligation of continence, it implies abstinence from sexual relationships. The Code of Canon Law prescribes:
In some Christian churches, a vow of chastity is made by members of religious orders or monastic communities, along with vows of poverty and obedience, in order to imitate the life of Jesus of Nazareth, see also Evangelical counsels. This vow of chastity, made by people not all of whom are clergy, is different from what is the obligation, not a vow, of clerical continence and celibacy
Celibacy for religious and monastics (monks and sisters/nuns) and for bishops is upheld by both the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Christian traditions. Bishops must be unmarried men or widowers; a married man cannot become a bishop. In Latin Rite Catholicism and in some Eastern Catholic Churches, most priests are celibate men. Exceptions are admitted and there are over 200 married Catholic priests who converted from the Anglican Communion and Protestant faiths. In most Orthodox traditions and in some Eastern Catholic Churches men who are already married may be ordained priests, but priests may not marry after ordination.
Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox tradition considers the rule of clerical celibacy to be an unchangeable dogma, but instead as a rule that could be adjusted if the Church thought it appropriate and to which exceptions are admitted.
Christian churches forbid castration, and the alleged self-castration of the theologian Origen was used to discredit him.
The earliest Christian leaders were largely married men. The mention in Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38, and Matthew 8:14-15 of Saint Peter's mother-in-law indicates that he had married (Matthew 8:14-15: "when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.") According to Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, III, vi, ed. Dindorf, II, 276), Peter was married and had children and his wife suffered martyrdom. Pope Clement I wrote: "For Peter and Philip begat children".[9]
On the other hand, in Luke 18:28-30 Jesus responds to Peter's statement that he and the other disciples had left all and followed him by promising a great reward to anyone who has left wife (etc.) for the sake of the kingdom of God.[10][11][12][13]
In 1 Corinthians 7:8 Paul the Apostle indicates that he was unmarried: either single or a widower.[14] In 1 Corinthians 9:5 he contrasts his situation with that of the other apostles, including Peter, who were accompanied by believing wives. Martin Luther held that the "loyal yokefellow" of Philippians 4:3 was Paul's wife, a view that is not without difficulties.[15] an idea already found in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History Book III, Chapter 30, which says Paul did not take his wife about with him "that he might not be inconvenienced in his ministry".
Some hold that married men who became clergy were expected to live in complete continence, refraining permanently from sexual relations with their wives.[16][17][18] They also conclude that, because of the exclusion of sexual relations, the members of the clergy were even then not entitled to marry.
George T. Dennis SJ of Catholic University of America insists "There is simply no clear evidence of a general tradition or practice, much less of an obligation, of priestly celibacy-continence before the beginning of the fourth century"[19] Peter Fink SJ agrees saying that underlying premises used in book, Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, "would not stand up so comfortably to historical scrutiny".[20] Dennis says this book provides no evidence that celibacy had apostolic origins.[21]
In the New Testament, while 1 Corinthians 7:32–33 ("The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife") is a locus classicus used in favour of sacerdotal celibacy, the statement in 1 Timothy 3:2–4 that a bishop should be "the husband of one wife" and "one who ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection" indicates that at that time married men could indeed become clergy. One interpretation of "the husband of one wife" is that the man to be ordained could not have been married more than once.[22]
The 4th-century Church Fathers Ambrose and Jerome pointed out that the passage in 1 Timothy 3:2–4 did not conflict with the discipline they knew, whereby a married man who became a bishop was to abstain from sexual relations and not marry again: "He speaks of having children, not of begetting them, or marrying again";[23] "He does not say: Let a bishop be chosen who marries one wife and begets children; but who marries one wife, and has his children in subjection and well disciplined. You surely admit that he is no bishop who during his episcopate begets children. The reverse is the case—if he be discovered, he will not be bound by the ordinary obligations of a husband, but will be condemned as an adulterer."[24]
According to Epiphanius of Salamis, also of the 4th century, Nicholas, one of the Seven Deacons of Acts 6:1–6, noticed others being admired for their celibacy. To avoid seeming immoderately devoted to his beautiful wife and therefore inferior in his ministry, he renounced conjugal intercourse forever. While he was able to remain continent for a while, eventually his burning desire overpowered him. However, he did not want to be regarded as inconsistent or seen as taking his oath lightly. Instead of returning to his wife, he engaged in promiscuous sex and what Epiphanius termed "sex practices against nature". In this way, he started Nicolaism, an antinomian heresy which believed that as long as they abstained from marriage, it was not a sin to exercise their sexual desires as they pleased. Revelation 2:6 and 15 expresses hatred for the "works of the Nicolaitans".[25]
For popes who had been married and had children before becoming popes or priests, see List of sexually active popes.
The North African Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225), writing of the apostles, indicated that he was obliged to believe that apart from Peter, who was certainly married, the apostles were continent.[26] In his De praescriptione contra haereticos, Tertullian mentioned continence as one of the customs in Mithraism that he claimed were imitated from Christianity, but does not associate it specifically with the clergy.[27]
The Didascalia Apostolorum, written in Greek in the first half of the 3rd century,[28] mentions the requirements of chastity on the part of both the bishop and his wife, and of the children being already brought up, when it quotes 1 Timothy 3:2–4 as requiring that, before someone is ordained a bishop, enquiry be made "whether he be chaste, and whether his wife also be a believer and chaste; and whether he has brought up his children in the fear of God".[29]
There is record of a number of 3rd-century married bishops in good standing, even in the West. They included: Passivus, bishop of Fermo; Cassius, bishop of Narni; Aetherius, bishop of Vienne; Aquilinus, bishop of Évreux; Faron, bishop of Meaux; Magnus, bishop of Avignon. Filibaud, bishop of Aire-sur-l'Adour, was the father of St. Philibert de Jumièges, and Sigilaicus, bishop of Tours, was the father of St. Cyran of Brenne.[30] No statement is made about whether they had children after becoming bishops or only before.
The 4th century saw instances in the West of canonical enactment of penalties for members of the clergy who did not observe continence.
The earliest known is that of the Council of Elvira (c. 306):
In 387 or 390, or according to others in 400, a Council of Carthage decreed that bishops, priests and deacons abstain from conjugal relations, in accordance with a tradition dating from the Apostles:
Clerical continence is said to be of apostolic origin also in the Directa Decretal of Pope Siricius (10 February 385):
Saint Hilary of Poitiers (315–68), a Doctor of the Church, was a married bishop and had a daughter named Apra, who was baptized together with her father, when he and his wife became Christians. Among Popes of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, the father of Pope Damasus I (366–84) was a bishop. Pope Felix III (483–92), whose father was almost certainly a priest, was the great-great-grandfather of Pope Gregory I the Great (590–604). Pope Hormisdas (514–23) was the father of Pope Silverius (536–37).[30] No statement is given on whether, among these, the children in question were born when their fathers were still laymen.
Thus, in the West, during the patristic era and into the early Middle Ages, clerical celibacy (i.e. being unmarried) was not in force; but a cleric was obliged by canon law and, it was claimed, by a custom dating from the Apostles, to be continent and have no sexual relations even with his wife.
As for the East, the Greek ecclesiastical historians Socrates and Sozomen, who wrote a century after the event, reported that the First Council of Nicaea (325) considered ordering all married clergy to refrain from conjugal relations, but the Council was dissuaded by Paphnutius of Thebes.[34]
According to Sozomen's history:
The Council of Nicaea, AD 325, decides in Canon 3:
The term "subintroducta" refers to an unmarried woman living in association with a man in a merely spiritual marriage, a practice that seems to have existed already in the time of Hermas; in the 4th century such a woman was also referred to as an "agapeta".[37][38] Stefan Heid has argued that the pre-Nicaean acceptance of that arrangement for clerics was an indication that the clergy were expected to live in continence even with their wives.[39]
A leading participant in the Council, Eusebius of Caesarea, wrote: "It is fitting that |those in the priesthood and occupied in the service of God, should abstain after ordination from the intercourse of marriage."[40]
Epiphanius of Salamis (died 403) accused the heretics whom he called "Purists" of "mixing up everyone's duty":
Similar evidence of the existence in the 4th-century East, as in the West, of a rule or at least an ideal of clerical continence that was considered to be canonical is found in Epiphanius's Panarion, 48, 9 and Expositio Fidei, 21. Synesius (died c. 414), who refused to be bound by the obligation, knew that, if made a bishop, he was expected to live in continence with his wife.[42] One of the accusations against Antoninus, Bishop of Ephesus, in his trial before John Chrysostom was that "after separating from his married wife, he had taken her again".[43] In his note on this phrase, the translator Herbert Moore says: "According to the 'Apostolic Canons', only the lower orders of clergy were allowed to marry after their appointment to office; the Council in Trullo ordered that a bishop's wife should retire to a convent, or become a deaconess; that of Caesarea, that if a priest marries after ordination he must be degraded. For Antoninus to resume relations with his wife was equivalent to marriage after ordination. It was proposed at the Council of Nicaea that married clergy should be compelled to separate from their wives, but the proposal was rejected; though it was generally held that the relations of bishops with their wives should be those of brother and sister."
In saying that "in certain provinces it is permitted to the readers and singers to marry",[44] of the Council of Chalcedon (451) suggests that, in other provinces, not only bishops, priests, deacons and subdeacons, but even those in the lower orders of readers and singers were at that time not permitted to marry.
Needless to say, the rule or ideal of clerical continence was not always observed either in the West or in the East, and it was because of violations that it was from time to time affirmed. Emperor Justinian I (died 565) ordered that the children of priests, deacons and subdeacons who, "in disregard of the sacred canons, have children by women with whom, according to sacerdotal regulation, they may not cohabit" be considered illegitimate on the same level as those "procreated in incest and in nefarious nuptials".[45] As for bishops, he forbade "any one to be ordained bishop who has children or grandchildren".[46]
Canon 13 of the Quinisext Council (Constantinople, 692) shows that by that time there was a direct contradiction between the ideas of East and West about the legitimacy of conjugal relations on the part of clergy lower than the rank of bishop who had married before being ordained:
The canon mistakenly claims that the canon of the late-4th-century Council of Carthage quoted above excluded conjugal intercourse by clergy lower than bishops only in connection with their liturgical service or in times of fasting. The Council of Carthage excluded such intercourse perpetually and made no distinction between bishops, priests and deacons.[48]
There have been no changes since then in the discipline of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which for bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons excludes marriage after ordination, but allows, except for periods before celebrating the Divine Liturgy, conjugal relations by priests and deacons married before ordination, and requires celibacy and perpetual continence only of bishops.
In 888, two local councils, that of Metz and that of Mainz, prohibited cohabitation even with wives living in continence. This tendency was taken up by the 11th century Gregorian Reform, which aimed at eliminating what it called "Nicolaitism",[49] that is clerical marriage, which in spite of being theoretically excluded was in fact practised,[50] and concubinage.
The First Lateran Council (1123), a General Council, adopted the following canons:
The phrase "contract marriage" in the first part of canon 21 excludes clerical marriages, and the marriages that the second part says must be dissolved may possibly be such marriages, contracted after ordination, not before. Canon 3 makes reference to a rule made at the First Council of Nicaea (see above), which is understood as not forbidding a cleric to live in the same house with a wife whom he married before being ordained.
Sixteen years later, the Second Lateran Council (1139), in which some five hundred bishops took part, enacted the following canons:
This Council thus declared clerical marriages not only illicit though valid, as before, but invalid ("we do not regard as matrimony"). The marriages in question are, again, those contracted by men who already are "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, canons regular, monks and professed clerics". And later legislation, found especially in the Quinque Compilationes Antiquae and the Decretals of Gregory IX, continued to deal with questions concerning married men who were ordained legally. In 1322 Pope John XXII insisted that no one bound in marriage—even if unconsummated—could be ordained unless there was full knowledge of the requirements of Church law. If the free consent of the wife had not been obtained, the husband, even if already ordained, was to be reunited with his wife, exercise of his ministry being barred. Accordingly, the assumption that a wife might not want to give up her marital rights may have been one of the factors contributing to the eventual universal practice in the Latin Church of ordaining only unmarried men.[53]
However, although the decrees of the Second Council of the Lateran might still be interpreted in the older sense of prohibiting marriage only after ordination, they came to be understood as absolute prohibitions, and, while the fact of being married was formally made a canonical impediment to ordination only with the 1917 Code of Canon Law,[54] the prohibition of marriage for all clerics in major orders began to be taken simply for granted.[30] The Second Lateran Council is thus often cited as having for the first time introduced a general law of celibacy, requiring ordination only of unmarried men. The New Catholic Encyclopedia states: "The Second Lateran Council (1139) seems to have enacted the first written law making sacred orders a diriment impediment to marriage for the universal Church."[55].
While the 11th century Gregorian Reform's campaign against clerical marriage and concubinage met strong opposition,[56] by the time of the Second Lateran Council it had won widespread support from lay and ecclesiastical leaders.
New opposition appeared in connection with the Protestant Reformation, not only on the part of the Reformers, but also among churchmen and others who remained in union with the see of Rome. Figures such as Panormitanus, Erasmus, Thomas Cajetan, and the Holy Roman Emperors Charles V, Ferdinand I and Maximilian II argued against it.
In practice, the discipline of clerical continence meant by then that only unmarried men were ordained. Thus, in the discussions that took place, no distinction was made between clerical continence and clerical celibacy.
The Reformers made abolition of clerical continence and celibacy a key element in their reform. They denounced it as opposed to the New Testament recommendation that a cleric should be "the husband of one wife" (see on 1 Timothy 3:2–4 above), the declared right of the apostles to take around with them a believing Christian as a wife (1 Corinthians 9:5) and the admonition, "Marriage should be honoured by all" (Hebrews 13:4). They blamed it for widespread sexual misconduct among the clergy.[57]
Against the long-standing tradition of the Church in the East as well as in the West, which excluded marriage after ordination, Zwingli married in 1522, Luther in 1525, and Calvin in 1539. And against what had also become, though seemingly at a later date, a tradition in both East and West, the married Thomas Cranmer was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533.
The Council of Trent considered the matter and at its twenty-fourth session decreed that marriage after ordination was invalid: "If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage; and, that all who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have made a vow thereof, may contract marriage; let him be anathema: seeing that God refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does He suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able" (canon 9).
It also decreed, concerning the relative dignity of marriage and celibacy: "If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema."[58]
Rules on celibacy differ between different religious traditions and churches:
Celibacy is represented in the Roman Catholic Church as having apostolic authority. Theologically, the Church desires to imitate the life of Jesus with regard to chastity and the sacrifice of married life for the "sake of the Kingdom" (Luke 18:28–30, Matthew 19:27–30; Mark 10:20–21), and to follow the example of Jesus Christ in being "married" to the Church, viewed by Catholicism and many Christian traditions as the "Bride of Christ". Also of importance are the teachings of St. Paul that chastity is the superior state of life, and his desire expressed in I Corinthians 7:7–8, "I would that all men were even as myself [celibate]—but every one has his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried and the widows. It is good for them if they so continue, even as I."
Practically speaking, the reasons for celibacy are given by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 7:7–8; 32–35: "But I would have you to be without solicitude. He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of this world how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your profit, not to cast a snare upon you, but for that which is decent and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord without impediment."
I Corinthians 9:5 is sometimes cited by those opposed to celibacy, as the verse is often rendered as referring to the Apostles carrying "wives" with them. However, the Greek word for "wife" is the same word for "woman". Some Early Church Fathers including Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine state the Greek word is ambiguous and the women in I Corinthians 9:5 were women ministering to the Apostles as women ministered to Christ (cf. Luke 8:1–3), and were not wives.[60] They even went as far as to assert they left their "offices of marriage" to follow Christ and to preach.[61]
Celibacy for priests is a discipline in the Latin Catholic Church, not a doctrine: in other words, a church regulation, but not an integral part of Church teaching. St. Peter, seen as the first pope, as well as many subsequent popes, bishops, and priests during the church's first 270 years were in fact married men, and often fathers. The practice of clerical continence, along with a prohibition of marriage after ordination as a deacon, priest or bishop, is traceable from the time of the Council of Elvira. This law was reinforced in the Directa Decretal (385) and at the Council of Carthage in 390. The tradition of clerical continence developed into a practice of clerical celibacy (ordaining only unmarried men) from the 11th century onward among Latin Rite Catholics and became a formal part of canon law in 1917. This law of clerical celibacy does not apply to Eastern Catholics. Until recently, the Eastern Catholic bishops of North America would generally ordain only unmarried men, for fear that married priests would create scandal. Since Vatican II's call for the restoration of Eastern Catholic traditions, a number of bishops have returned to the traditional practice of ordaining married men to the presbyterate. Bishops are still celibate and normally chosen from the ranks of monks.
In the Latin Rite exceptions are sometimes made. After the Second Vatican Council a general exception was made for the ordination as deacons of men of at least thirty-five years of age who are not intended to be ordained later as priests and whose wives consent to their ordination.[62] Since the time of Pope Pius XII individual exceptions are sometimes made for former non-Catholic clergymen. Under the rules proposed for personal ordinariates for former Anglicans, the ordinary may request the Pope to grant authorization, on a case-by-case basis, for admission to ordination in the Catholic Church of married former Anglican clergy (see Personal ordinariate#Married former Anglican clergy and rules on celibacy).
Because the rule of clerical celibacy is a law and not a doctrine, exceptions can be made, and it can, in principle, be changed at any time by the Pope. Nonetheless, both the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and his predecessor, spoke clearly of their understanding that the traditional practice is unlikely to change.