Lederer, 1992, cont.
Thomas [Aquinas] contended that the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests was merely Church law that could be reversed at any time by papal or conciliar authority. (MacGregor pages 108-109).
When the Reformation indirectly brought forth the Council of Trent in the mid 1500's [Italy, 1545-63], the Roman Catholic Church reformed itself and remodelled the priesthood to its present form. Not only did the Council reiterate the Church's prohibition of a married clergy but also instituted reforms to try to insure the implementation of the decrees of the Church on this subject.
Since the Council of Trent, celibacy has remained Church law, specifically upheld by Pope Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. Despite opposition from half of the bishops attending the Synod of 1971, requests from bishops in the United States, France, and Latin America in 1988, Pope John Paul II has not budged from his opposition to a married priesthood.
– From "Celibacy is the issue," Thomas G. Lederer, M.A, 1992,
www.arthur street.com/ celibacy 1993.html
Christ’s and apostles’ practices
By John C. Massam – The Christian Scriptures
Peter, a married man with a house:
"And going into Peter's house Jesus found Peter's mother-in-law in bed and feverish. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him."
(Matthew 8:14-15; and see Luke 4:38-39)
In 1st Peter it could be interpreted that his son was with him in a missionary city: "Your sister in Babylon, who is with you among the chosen, sends you greetings; so does my son, Mark." (1 Peter 5:13) *
Appoint mature married fathers as clergy:
"The overseer therefore must be blameless, a husband of one wife, moderate in habits, sound in mind, orderly, hospitable, qualified to teach, not given to wine, not a smiter, but reasonable, not belligerent, not a lover of money, a man presiding over his own household in a fine manner, having his children in subjection with all seriousness. (For, if a man does not know how to preside over his own household, how can he take care of God's community?) Not a newly-converted man, for fear that he might get puffed up and fall into the judgement passed upon the Devil. Moreover, he should also have a fine
testimony from people on the outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the Devil." (1 Timothy 3:2-7)
"… appoint elders in every town, in the way that I told you, that is, each of them must be a man of
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irreproachable character, husband of one wife, and
his children must be believers and not liable to be charged with disorderly conduct or insubordination. The presiding elder has to be irreproachable since he is God's representative; never arrogant or hot-tempered, nor a heavy drinker or violent, nor avaricious; but hospitable and a lover of goodness; sensible, upright, devout and self-controlled, and he must have a firm grasp of the unchanging message of the tradition, so that he can be counted on both for giving encouragement in sound doctrine and for refuting those who argue against it." (Titus 1: 5 - 9)
"… to avoid fornication, every man ought to have his own wife and every woman her own husband." (1 Corinthians 7:2)
"The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife." (1 Corinthians 7:3-4)
"Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
(1 Corinthians 7:5)
"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say …
if they do not contain themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn." (1 Cor 7:8-9) Now, isn't that guidance to clergy etc. who find the R.C. puritanism no good for their mammal bodies, nor the bodies and minds of the altar boys and girls, and the choir girls and boys?
"What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none
…" (1 Corinthians 7:29) **
Wives accompanied missioners on their journeys, says Paul:
"Don't we have every right to be accompanied by a sister, a wife, like the other apostles, like the Lord's brothers, and like Cephas?"
(1 Corinthians 9:5) Denying this, the RCC adopted the "no-sex" mindset by insisting that Mary was always a virgin, therefore had no other children after her "first-born son," thus denying the four named brothers and the unnamed sisters were Mary's children! Expulsion from the Holy Family!
It was foretold that false teachers would forbid marriage: "The inspired spirit says definitely that in later appointed times some will fall away from the faith, leaning toward errant spirits and teachings of demons, in hypocrisy of liars, marked with a hot iron in their conscience; forbidding to marry …" (1 Timothy 4:1-3)
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