O.K., I guess I should have said Catholic priest. But the question is still here. Why? I friend on mine said that this “tradition” was really started by the Romans with their pantheon of gods and goddess, and adopted by the Christans. This doesn’t make any sense. The Roman myths are very canid about their god’s infidelities, it would not be fair for them (the gods) to demand chasity from their representatives on earth. Anyway, with any religion, giving up sex and marriage is a big scarifice, especially a few centuries ago. Marriage leaded to political ties and sex gave you children who could care for you in your old age and you could marry off for your political or finacile advantage. These are very big things to give up,even for spiritual reasons.
Any idea on how this came to be?
Currently being covered over in GD, here.
It does get more into the why than the when, but down near the end, there is a good historical answer.
I would be surprised to discover that the Romans had a celibate priesthood. Even the Vestal Virgins were only required to remain virgin during their period of office (30 years, ending when they were about 40).
Nothing I have found makes clear whether the Christian (later Catholic) call for celibacy was based more on a desire that the priest devote his life to his flock (without the divided attention or encumbrances of a family) or more on a rejection of sex as being antithetical to holiness. Current arguments make like to paint the church as, basically, anti-sex, but the earliest authors are not so single-minded on the subject.
Beyond that, check out the GD link provided by TXLonghorn.
It appears that the short answer is: so that the church could keep the priests property and wealth without any fear of inheritance.
tomndebbsaid:
While the native Roman religion may not have required a celibate priesthood, one of the most popular of the imported religions in Roman society- the worship of the goddess Cybele, or The Great Mother- had not only a celibate, but a castrated priesthood.
absoul said:
This contention is addressed in the previously mentioned linked thread.
Obviously it was some inspired and fanatical powerful priest who decided that this should be a good idea, and done during the times when women were considered sinful no matter what they did.
I mean, one day some fanatic decided that there should be a high religious leader to tell all other religious leaders what to do, so they created Popes. Charlamagne (SP), I believe it was. Then someone else decided that Nuns should be wed to Christ, who never married and apparently had to say in this, so when polygamy was outlawed, it did not even phase the nuns, who keep on being wedded to Christ.
Another bright bulb, when the Mother Church was struggling for funds, decided that selling the wealthy dispensations – basically get out of hell free cards for a big amount of gold – was a good idea. Of course, no where in the Bible does it stipulate, at least to my knowledge, that any lowly human may absolve another of their sins.
Brought in a lot of bucks though.
I don’t think Priests being celibate is a good idea. How can one discuss sex and sexual related things if one has never had sex or last had sex when times were very different? It’s like one who has never smoked telling a heavy smoker how to stop smoking.
Celibacy was confirmed as a requirement for priesthood in the 10th century. Why it was decided is a much more difficult question to answer.
I believe that one of the reasons for this decision comes from the New Testament (bolding mine).
“Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. 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” (Matthew 19:11)."
My friend Michael is a priest and a bit of a rebel. He explained that the vow of celibacy is a choice made so that one may emulate Christ’s example although he does not agree that it should be mandatory for priests to take this vow. I asked him once why he has remained a priest for nearly sixty years when he disagrees with so many tenets of his faith and he explained that the church can only be changed from within. He has done extensive studies of the church’s history and has been to Rome for this purpose. He is one of the few truly wise people I have ever met.
He also believes that one of the reasons for this ordinance (although not admitted by the church) was to prevent corruption. At one time the Pope was the most powerful man on earth. He alone decided whether or not someone could be named Emperor, princes kissed his feet. As God’s representative on earth the Pope could never be wrong and held nearly absolute power. This position could confer great wealth and this wealth and the title itself could be bestowed on one’s children if they had also entered the priesthood. It is not hard to see why the church would see this as a bad thing.
Wyvern - I would suggest that you use a search engine as the answers to these kinds of questions will require more than a four or five paragraph answer. Books are good too. 
Moongazer - you seem to express a fair bit of anti-Catholic bias here and I’ll provide some brief history.
Charlemagne basically owed the church for his position…
The history of the papacy dates back to the first century a.d. and the church’s members and leaders were persecuted and killed until Rome embraced Christianity in the third century. (ie. Clement was the third recorded Pope and he is often depicted with an anchor as this is how he was supposedly executed by drowning).
Charlemagne was born between 742 - 745. When he inherited the Frankish throne he also inherited the title of “Patricius Romanus” which meant he was the protector the temporal rights of the Holy See as was his father, Pepin the Short. Charlemagne only gained his own title because the Holy Church had given his father sanction to become king in 751.
Pepin was able to crown himself as king only after Pope Zachary gave him sanction to do so in 751. (The papacy was the arbiter of all moral matters at this time).
Charlemagne was not crowned as emperor until 800 a.d. and as it was throughout the middle ages the emperor needed the anointment of the Pope to be recognized as the true emperor.
Now about this castration mentioned above in connection with Cybele (and eunuch-making in the East Roman Empire and in China): when the historians use the word castration, did this mean only the scrotum or everything?
I’m not sure. I recall reading many years ago a book or article which went into kind of gruesome detail about different groups of eunuchs, but I don’t remember the specifics. I do remember though that in some cases it meant just the scrotum, but in others it was the whole package.
I read someplace where there is a passage in the Bible that Peter or one of those complained that Jesus loved Mary Magdalen more than the other disciples and he was jealous.
This source also remarked that maybe Jesus and the Magdalen
were actually dating, etc.
Also the idea of no sex and other ascetic practices found in Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam that make you frustrated and miserable comes about in the minds of priests and other parasites of society with nothing to do but think up ideas, and in the following manner: considering that all things have their opposites, what is good for one of these opposites is bad for the other, to carry out the “logic” of oppositeness. Therefore if the soul is the opposite of the body, then the reasoning goes that the more miserable you can make your body, the more benefit there is for your soul.
The other source of no sex is in masochism, which is practiced by bored monkeys and other animals who have nothing else to do, only they don’t run up their sado- masochism into whole institutions like mankind does in the church, the work-place, the revival of atavistic rituals as in the whole gang thing, government, school, and on and on.
The reference to the Apostles complaining about the relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is found in an apocryphal account, not in the New Testament.
The remarks on asceticism are debatable, but they, at least, reflect an opinion (not a fact) regarding that way of viewing the world.
The rest of your rant on masochism requires a citation to prevent us from laughing at you. (Although it maybe too late.)
IIRC, many popes weren’t priests, had wives, mistresses and children, and were utterly consumed and corrupted by worldly things. The Borgias leap to mind.
It is only a fairly recent innovation that popes are celibate, pious men of God.
Hmmm? The papacy only started in the fifteenth century?
The RCC, as any human institution, has had its fair share of rogues, fools, scoundrels, the power-mad, and the sybaritic. However, the idea that popes have always been corrupt or have only recently cleaned up their acts is silly.
From the 11th through the 16th centuries, the worldly power that the papacy had acquired encouraged all sorts of machinations by various politicians to take or dominate it for their own use. In the midst of that chaos, some of the very worst–and some of the very best–men were elevated to the papacy. I’m more than glad that the papacy has been stripped of its temporal powers and I see no reason to mount ineffectual defenses of scoundrels such as Alexander VI or pius bigots such as Paul IV. However, of the 250+ popes who have served, few were picked for their personal licentiousness or their public avarice.