Roman Catholic Priests and Celebacy?

Question

As a Roman Catholic, I know all the church's & religious reasons given why a priest is supposed to be celebate, i.e. to be married to God & the faith etc. but I find it incredible that this still remains the rule. My opinion is that is unnatural and cruel to expect a man to sacrafice companionship, love and physical relationships with another human being in order to serve God. Loving another human being surely does not restrict a man's capability to love and serve God? What kind of person then does the church appeal to? Someone who does not need a healthy loving relationship in their life? Is this why there is so much peadophilia discovered within priests? If God is all loving, why would he be so selfish as to demand that a man willing to serve him, be exclusive to Him only? Why would God not want his loyal servant to be rewarded with the joy of having a family and experiencing the love of a partner or children.Surely there is no greater thing in this life than to love and be loved.

Answer 1

you are a slow learner , arent you?

Answer 2

The Eastern Orthodox allows a man to marry if he does so before he is ordained. If his wife dies he can not remarry. The Episcopal Church allows marriage and even divorce. The Roman church use to have married priest but stop many centuries ago. You have a valid point. Did you know that because of the shortage of priest that the RC Church has married priest that came from other churches such as the Episcopalian? In defense of the Church, it is very difficult for a married priest to have a family life when the needs of his parishioners come first and this puts quite a stain on the marriage. Just like the Doctor who is never home. Also some people prefer to be celebate. But I do understand the deep loneness that not even God can fill, which is why Adam was not alone.

Answer 3

First of all let me say that I am a Catholic and have been all my life. My parish priest is married... one of 200 married priests in the USA. He used to be an Episcopal Priest and received Papal permission to join the Catholic priesthood as a married priest. All throughout Catholic history, there have always been some married priests. There hasn't been many, but always some.

When a person decides to become a priest he does no knowing that he will never be allowed to marry. Who does this appeal to? Someone who really loves God, someone who sees this sacrifice as having value in itself. Someone who wants his career to be devoted to one thing alone.

You make it sound like everyone NEEDS to get married. However, do you realize that a large percentage of our population never gets married at all....

Pedophilia is not due to celibacy in the Catholic Church.. Pedophilia is due to homosexuality in the Catholic Church. That's where the focus of your anger should rest. However, the Church is trying to address the issue of homosexuals in the seminaries.

Regarding married priests, this issue is being asked time after time. The Church realizes that celibacy is only a self-imposed discipline it requires of its priests. At some point in the future the Church may decide to relax its rules and allow for more married priests.

Answer 4

Pastor Billy says: have you ever thought how difficult it is to be a priest in the extended family of parish life already without raising a family of his own? The fact is this asker with the exception of policeman, Protestant preachers have the highest rate of divorce today. Now if it works it should work for them don't you think but it doesn't.

Remember no one is forced to be a priest it is extremely difficult raising one family never mind two.
Final word, someone may answer your question it has never been normal and the Jewish people didn't agree also but....... the Essenians were a sect of Judaism made of celebate men also.

Answer 5

I'm not sure that the pedophilia is a product of celibacy.. I was told years ago.. and I might be wrong,but the church stopped allowing priest to marry because it had something to do with the priests belongings etc.. Say the priest divorced or died.. The church was concerned the spouse would get some of the churches belongings.. I've heard of married Episcopalian priests who converted to Catholicism and were allowed to be Catholic priests.

Answer 6

$$$ might be the answer. I think God stablished well that men needed to have a partner to share his life with. I do believe in sacrifices in the name of God, and if celibacy is someone's choice that I think is ok. The Catholic Church do not force people to chose that way, there's people who can give mass and be "civilians" too (can't remember the name in English) There's not an easy answer to this I think, it is true they can concentrate better on the people if they do not have other compromises but it's true that this may have something to do with all the pedophiles found among the priests.

Answer 7

All people are born with different gifts given to them by God. Some can sing (I can't), others are great organizers, others good with public relations or teaching. For others its the religious life devoted to prayer and the ministry of the faithful.

Ephesians 4: 11: "And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, 5 for building up the body of Christ..."

There are three vocations in life: married, single, and religious. Each must discern their calling. A married person may not have the gifts for a devoted, celibate pastoral life. Vice versa, a priest may not have the gifts for married life. Yet, each one goes to building up Christ's Church and bringing greater glory to God.

The celibacy of the priesthood has nothing to do with pedophilia. This is a sin that afflicts all kinds of people, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew or atheist.

Please pray for your priests. They sacrifice themselves for us and for God because of their love for the Church, for Him. They are our family and they need our support and love.

God bless.

Answer 8

I agree with you totally, god is not selfish and his rules are not made against the people, but for the people. These rules that you talk of amongst catholics are man made.

Anything which does not follow logic or reason is not correct, therefore to deny man the basic of his needs is wrong.

Answer 9

I believe that the issue of celibacy is close-coupled ( pun fully intended ) to the issue of the 'confession'. It is no coincidence that the final word on celibacy was just a little over one hundred years before the institution of confession as a requirement for practising Roman Catholics. The exact chronology was as follows :

Council of Elvira (300-306) (Canon 33):
It is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children; whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office.
Council of Carthage (390)
(Canon 3): It is fitting that the holy bishops and priests of God as well as the Levites, i.e. those who are in the service of the divine sacraments, observe perfect continence, so that they may obtain in all simplicity what they are asking from God; what the Apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let us also endeavour to keep... It pleases us all that bishop, priest and deacon, guardians of purity, abstain from conjugal intercourse with their wives, so that those who serve at the altar may keep a perfect chastity.

Celibacy of the priesthood, decreed by pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) . . . A.D. 1079

Auricular confession of sins to a priest instead of to God, instituted by Pope Innocent III, in the Lateran Council . . . A.D. 1215

I find celibacy a strange concept, as do many others above I note, however, the fact that it has resulted in the filthy mess of the last few decades, in which the Roman church in several countries has paid out millions of US dollars or equivalent to buy off the plaintiffs and avoid the embarrassment of full court proceedings in literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of individual cases.

However, how aware are we of the conduct of, not only the priesthood, but the 'Holy Office' itself ? How many people are aware that Cesare Borgia was the illegitamate son of Pope Alexander VI ? As with many factors, the heirarchy of the Roman Church has been beset with all the usual human frailties, but above all hypocrisy.

As I hinted above, I suspect that the celibacy rule was inv oked to keep the priesthood 'apart' from the people, the better to gather 'power' over them by not being open to sexual blackmail, or at least that was probably the idea. The later masterstroke of instituting 'Holy Confession' sealed the deal, in thousands of villages, towns and cities all over the Catholic world, for centuries, every man woman and pre-pubescent child was required to tell all of their dirty little secrets to the local priest.

What a hoot, now they had them by the proverbial, and literal, short and curlies ! And the band played on.

Actually, now I come to think of it, it was probably listening to all the dirty little secrets that caused the priests to turn into perverts themselves, so after all maybe it was a karmic, self-inflicted wound.

Answer 10

its SUCH a ridiculous rule..they cant marry and they cant even masturbate!! i think a priest can do just as good a job if he is married, with a family - than if he remains single and celibate.

my local priest wouldnt christen my children unless they came to church for a year...and then we found that he was sexually abusing the choir children in his congregation..and was sent to prison!! - disgusting! - its time priests were allowed to live normal lives...they are only human!

Answer 11

Jesus was celibate, and priests are called to give their lives for the church, just as Jesus did.

It's not easy, but many have done very well at it.

The world did not always place sexual activity in such high esteem as it does today.

Consider the additional problems we would have if married priests failed in other ways, such as adultery, divorce, etc.

Protestants have been dealing with scandals of those types for a long, long time, and they are no fun, either.