why can't a catholic priest get married?

Answer 1

Because they have to take a vow of celibacy. It all stems from a verse in the New Testament that the Roman Catholic Church took a little too seriously (in my opinion) and made a mandate.

1 Corinthians 7:32
7:32 I want you to be free from anxious care. An unmarried man is concerned with the Lord's business : his aim is to please the Lord. But a married man is concerned with worldly affairs ; his aim to please his wife and he is pulled in two directions . The unmarried woman or girl is concerned with the Lord's business ; her aim is to be dedicated to him in body as in spirit. But the married woman is concerned with worldly affairs; her aim is to please her husband

Answer 2

Firstly, there is no restriction on Catholics to get married. Every Catholic can get married.

There are married Catholic Priest in the Eastern churches, as well as some ex-Anglican Catholic Priest.

For Latin rite Catholics, the gift of celibacy is required for the priesthood. Therefore, it is not that Catholic Priests cannot get married, the gift of celibacy that is required if one is to become a Catholic priest in the Latin rite.

Christ himself was voluntarily celibate and unmarried, so was John the Baptist, and the Apostle Paul and many others.

Read Matthew 19:29, and 1 Cor 7

Answer 3

Priests, religious brothers and religious sisters (nuns) as part of their vocation choose not to marry following:
+ The practice recommended in the Bible
+ The example of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, and the Apostle Paul.

+++ Scripture +++

In Matthew 19:12, Jesus says, "Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it."

In Matthew 19:29, Jesus says, "And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life."

Matthew 22:30 - Jesus explains, "At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven."

In 1 Corinthians 7:1, Paul writes, "It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman."

Then in 1 Corinthians 7:7, Paul says, "Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am."

In 1 Corinthians 7:27, Paul writes, "Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife."

In 1 Corinthians 7:32-33, Paul teaches, "I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife." And in verse 38, "So then, the one who marries his virgin does well; the one who does not marry her will do better."

Paul recommends celibacy for full time ministers in the Church so that they are able to focus entirely upon God and building up His kingdom. He “who refrains from marriage will do better.”

See also 1 Timothy 5:9-12, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, Revevation 14:4, Isaiah 56:3-7, and Jeremiah 16:1-4.

+++ Scriptural Examples +++

Biblical role models of a celibate clergy came from John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul.

John the Baptist and Jesus are both believed to have been celibate for their entire lives. Some scholars believe that the example of the Essenes influenced either or both Jesus and John the Baptist in their celibacy.

WWJD? What would Jesus do? Jesus did not marry.

The Apostle Paul is explicit about his celibacy (see 1 Cor. 7). There is also evidence in the gospel of Matthew for the practice of celibacy among at least some early Christians, in the famous passage about becoming “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).

The concept took many twists and turns over the years and will probably take a few more before Christ returns in glory.

A priest is "married" to the Church. Some people think that a priest who takes his duties seriously cannot take proper care of a wife and family. "A man cannot serve two masters."

With love in Christ.

Answer 4

Like Catholic nuns, a Catholic priest is in a sense "married to God". They devote all their time to serving God, and their church, leaving cares of this world behind when they say their vows. Or that's the way it's supposed to work.
Some Catholic priests are married though, due to the fact that they married before their calling to become a preist. But it is a rare thing to see a married Catholic preist.
Once they get the calling to be a priest, they cannot be distracted by women, which leads to temptations, and can lead them away from God. Or so it goes...

Answer 5

This comes from misinterpretating the Bible, surprise surprise.

What the Bible talks about is those who have the GIFT of celebacy. meaning like there are some people born who have no interest in sex. This is considered a gift from God, because think of how much more interested you would be in things it it wasnt for that.

Now, here is the mistake. They misunderstood this gift, and deceided it should be forced on the priest. Now, you can see all the problems that happened becauase of this in the Church. (I am sure you know about the children)

Anyway, even though this has cost them BILLIONS, and almost all of the followers do not like it. and want the priest to get married.

So what is the Problem? If everyone wants them to get married, where is the rub?

Ok, I will let you in on it. The reason is something called "Infalability", no matter how much bad things happened, the leaders of the church can not change their stubborn ways. Now, supposably, once they make a rule, it should never be changed. This would make the church not-infalible. However, they have flip-flopped on many other things, and people know for a fact the Church and priest are in fact anything BUT infallable.

They are scared to death the change any of the rules, they area already losing members left and right, shutting down schools. the "Experts" who study this, thing that if they change too many rules in the Catholic church now, that they will lose members.

Remember, no matter what, the Catholic church is always thinking about how it can retain it's members.

Answer 6

celibacy is a discipline, not a Dogma. I hope you understand the difference.

The Catholic Priesthood in the Latin Rite is patterned after the One High Priest, Jesus Christ, who was Himself chaste and unmarried.

Answer 7

Christianity idealized non-family life in the epistles of Paul: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife… I say this by way of confession, not a command. I wish that all were (celibate) as I myself am” (1 Cor. 7:1-7). By contrast, the ancient Rabbis of the Talmud taught that one of the first things asked of a soul in judgment after its time on the earth is, “Did you fulfill your duty with regard to establishing a family?” A man could not become the Jewish High Priest unless he was married (Yoma 2a), and a man could not be a judge of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court, unless he had children, “since they teach him compassion.”
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Answer 8

Rudy P is either very ignorant, or unethical in his misrepresentations.

The first and most basic confusion is thinking of priestly celibacy as a dogma or doctrine—a central and irreformable part of the faith, believed by Catholics to come from Jesus and the apostles. Thus some Fundamentalists make a great deal of a biblical reference to Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:30), apparently supposing that, if Catholics only knew that Peter had been married, they would be unable to regard him as the first pope. Again, Fundamentalist time lines of "Catholic inventions" (a popular literary form) assign "mandatory priestly celibacy" to this or that year in Church history, as if prior to this requirement the Church could not have been Catholic.

These Fundamentalists are often surprised to learn that even today celibacy is not the rule for all Catholic priests. In fact, for Eastern Rite Catholics, married priests are the norm, just as they are for Orthodox and Oriental Christians.

Even in the Eastern churches, though, there have always been some restrictions on marriage and ordination. Although married men may become priests, unmarried priests may not marry, and married priests, if widowed, may not remarry. Moreover, there is an ancient Eastern discipline of choosing bishops from the ranks of the celibate monks, so their bishops are all unmarried.

The tradition in the Western or Latin-Rite Church has been for priests as well as bishops to take vows of celibacy, a rule that has been firmly in place since the early Middle Ages. Even today, though, exceptions are made. For example, there are married Latin-Rite priests who are converts from Lutheranism and Episcopalianism

In fact, the Catholic Church forbids no one to marry. No one is required to take a vow of celibacy; those who do, do so voluntarily. They "renounce marriage" (Matt. 19:12); no one forbids it to them. Any Catholic who doesn’t wish to take such a vow doesn’t have to, and is almost always free to marry with the Church’s blessing. The Church simply elects candidates for the priesthood (or, in the Eastern rites, for the episcopacy) from among those who voluntarily renounce marriage.

But is there scriptural precedent for this practice of restricting membership in a group to those who take a voluntary vow of celibacy? Yes. Paul, writing once again to Timothy, mentions an order of widows pledged not to remarry (1 Tim 5:9-16); in particular advising: "But refuse to enroll younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry, and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge" (5:11–12).

This "first pledge" broken by remarriage cannot refer to previous wedding vows, for Paul does not condemn widows for remarrying (cf. Rom. 7:2-3). It can only refer to a vow not to remarry taken by widows enrolled in this group. In effect, they were an early form of women religious—New Testament nuns. The New Testament Church did contain orders with mandatory celibacy, just as the Catholic Church does today.

Such orders are not, then, what Paul meant when he warned against "forbidding to marry." The real culprits here are the many Gnostic sects through the ages which denounced marriage, sex, and the body as intrinsically evil. Some early heretics fit this description, as did the medieval Albigensians and Catharists (whom, ironically, some anti-Catholic writers admire in ignorance, apparently purely because they happened to have insisted on using their own vernacular translation of the Bible;

I do hope this clarifies the situation for you.

Answer 9

Being a priest isnt a job, its a life dedication to God. They must give 110% of their life to God and helping others find Him. If they get married they must provide for their wives and children, and it would be impossible to give 110% to God.

Answer 10

It's all about money. Ancient priest were very rich. People give a lotta money to god. When you die you assets would normally go to your spouse. The church wanted to prevent this & have any money returned to the church. Ergo, no marriage permitted. You can quote any doctrine you want. But this is the main reason.