Reply #54: Property ownership was only one part of the origins of celibacy

[MichiganVote]

You should check out author, David Rice, for a full explanation. Celibacy actually began as a way to assure purity during pagan rituals.

Author Rice presents a comprehensive historical look at celibacy in his book about resigned priests entitled, "Shattered Vows". Rice credits Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx in "The Church with a Human Face" with asserting that clerical celibacy originated in "a partly pagan notion of ritual purity,". At the Council of Nicaea in 325, a proposal to require celibacy for all priests was defeated and at the Council of Trullo in 692, marriage rights for priests were reasserted. (Rice page 161.)

Schillebeeckx says that, first in the fourth century came a law that forbade a married priest from having sexual intercourse the night before celebrating the Eucharist. However, when the Western Church began celebrating a daily mass, abstinence became a permanent factor for married priests.

"At the origin of the law of abstinence, and later the law of celibacy," said Schillebeeckx, "we find an antiquated anthropology and ancient view of sexuality." (ibid) Rice follows with a quotation from St. Jerome which expressed the views of both pagans and Christians at the time that, "All sexual intercourse is impure."

Because the resulting implication of a priest living with his wife like a brother led many priests into "deplorable situations," in 1139, the Second Lateran Council forbade the marriage of priests altogether and declared all existing marriages involving priests null and void.

"One does not approach the alter and consecrated vessels with soiled hands," had been the pagan view and then became the cornerstone for compulsory Christian celibacy. (ibid) Other not-necessarily concurrent or chronological developments also contributed to the establishment of the celibacy requirement for catholic priests. More bishops began to be chosen from the ranks of monks who had already taken monastic vows of chastity. Another factor was an economic development as the Church began acquiring his own property. According to Rice, there was a real danger that legitimate children of priests could inherit and deprive the Church of its land. At the time, common law prevented illegitimate children from inheriting property.

Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologia II-IIa, 88, 11)opposed the idea that celibacy rulings should be considered as a part of divine law. Aquinas contended that the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests was merely Church law that could be reversed by any time by papal or conciliar authority.

When the Reformation indirectly brought forth the Council of Trent in the mid 1500's, the Roman Catholic Church reformed itself and remodeled the priesthood to its present form.