Were priests and bishops ever allowed to marry during the history of the Catholic church? If not, when did this (historically) begin to be official church doctrine. If so, was it official doctrine during the whole history of the Catholic Church?
-XT
Sure, priests were allowed to marry during the history of the Catholic church. Actually, priests are still allowed to marry in the Catholic Church, but in the Latin Rite, while priests were encouraged to be celibate from really early on, it really wasn’t required until the Gregorian reforms of the 11th century.
Early on, to be more specific, was the 4th century, where church doctrine began to officially encourage clerical celibacy and discourage marriage. Even before that, however, there were some strong unofficial sentiments against it.
Personally, I blame the gnostic influence.
Officially not gnostic but rather Pauline/Augustinian – specially I Corinthians Chapt. 7 has been used as the justification for a strong prefence for the celibate life, though the text makes sure to state that those already in marriages should maintain their marital life (“do not deny yourselves but for a time and by consent, during fasts and prayers, and then get back together, lest you be tempted”), and to go ahead and marry if you can’t hack celibacy (“better to marry than to burn”). As **Captain Amazing **says, it was not finally made a hard and fast rule for the Latin Rite until the 1000’s, and factors that played into it included an attempt to prevent individual priests and bishops (or their widows and in-laws) from viewing their offices and their assigned lands as inheritable assets of a family estate. But yes, for quite some time the Western Church had both celibate and non-celibate priesthood coexisting – as still happens in the Eastern Rite and the Orthodox churches.
and I don’t think it’s actually “doctrine” but rather a rule of discipline. It could be changed by the Pope if he thought there was sufficient grounds.
Actually, priests have been allowed to marry for the majority of Church history. Celibacy is a fairly recent rule, in church terms. It became universal only about the 1300’s.
This is correct. In fact, even today, there are a scattered few exceptions (converts to Roman Catholicism who were already ordained priests in closely-related sects). By contrast, the rule against female priests is much more set in stone.
Ther was a bishop in western Canada who was in the Ukrainian Rite back in the 80’s who got into a serious dispute with the Vatican heirarchy. In that rite, priests can be married. He had ordained a few priests. The Roman celibate church administration in Rome was not happy with this. Apparently they had come to an agreement with the Soviet Union over how many Ukrainian priests would be ordained each year and how they were to be selected.
Mainly, they did not want to have someone ordaining unlimited married priests.
I don’t recall what the final outcome was.
One the local Latin-rite parishs around here got assigned a married priest last here. He was fomerly an Episcopal priest. The local paper did an entire interview with his wife. Not surprisingly she gets all kinds of bizarre questions; especially when she’s in public with her husband (in clerical clothes) and kids.
Considering the current priest shortage, I suspect we’ll see it within our lifetimes.
My understanding (and this is a recollection from classes I took a decade ago) is that bishops were expected to be celibate from the first, though I don’t know what the actual rule was. A bishop is not just a priest with a promotion: it’s a separate ordination.
Back in the day, there was an administrative in addition to a philosophical reason for adopting the celibacy rule: it was a (somewhat successful) attempt to keep local bishops from taking church property and giving it to their children. (As it turned out, influential clergy often got prime positions in the hierarchy for their bastards, but the church property remained more or less intact.)
Actually, there are some sects that recognize (and are recognized by) Rome and that allow married priests. I know a Lebanese woman who is a member of the Greek Catholic (not Orthodox) church and she told me that their priests are all allowed to marry. It was agreed to when they recognized Rome. I am not sure about bishops, but I suspect not. And Anglican converts, as already mentioned. There are so many exceptions that I cannot imagine the prohibition will endure.
Here is a problem, though. I think that priests ordained in the Latin rite, take a vow of celibacy and the only way to be released from the vow is to quit. The people mentioned above, Greek Catholics, Anglicans, etc., have taken no such vow.
Well, not entirely from the first: At least some of the Apostles were married, and they’re officially considered the first bishops.
So what’s the rule? Are priests not allowed to every have been married. Let’s say I’m married and my wife dies. Then I convert and become a Roman Catholic, and want to be a priest. Is this possible?
To make the above example a little bit more absurd, what happens if if my dead wife turns out not to be dead and shows up after 10 years?
Remember that many priests are already brothers belonging to one of several religious orders. Heck, IIRC, Jesuit brothers are all at least encouraged (if not expected) to eventually become priests.
Obviously, with religious orders, most of them (all?) have a vow of celibacy. So it is not that they have taken a vow of celibacy when they got priesthood (they may have), but they also already took that vow when they became part of that religious order.
One of my teachers in high school was married as a youth (before conversion), before becoming estranged from his wife. Nobody knows what became of her, and for all anyone knows, she might well still be alive. He still became a priest.
I imagine that things would have been different if he (and probably she) had been practicing Catholics at the time. But I don’t know all the details. Bricker or tomndebb could probably say more.
With the shortage of priests, the Church in the United States is recruiting older men, including many widowers, as “second career priests.” Many of these widowers have children and grandchildren.
Examples:
Chicago
New Jersey
San Bernardino
What would happen if a wife whose was sincerely believed to be dead unexpectedly reappeared? I’m sure it would be handled on a case-by-case basis.