Catholicism- An Introduction by Peter Stanford

Author:Peter Stanford
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 1235827720
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2010-06-25T04:00:00+00:00

Celibacy

The priesthood of the Catholic Church is reserved to celibate males. Catholicism is the only one of the Christian churches to insist upon this. Priests of the Orthodox tradition are permitted to marry, though only celibates fill the higher ranks of that Church. Martin Luther preached enthusiastically about the virtues of marriage for the clergy and followed his own advice with former nun, Katharina von Bora, who bore him six children.

For more than half of Catholicism’s history, its priests were allowed to marry. Married men of proven virtue – viri probati – were prominent among the priests of the early Church. It was only in 1139, at the Second Lateran Council, that celibacy became mandatory. Some bishops did not enforce this ruling as forcefully as others and some married priests therefore continued into the sixteenth century, when they were finally outlawed by the Council of Trent.

Today, then, those who feel a vocation to the priesthood are also required to have a second vocation – to celibacy. There were several reasons why the Church changed its position:

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