Clerical celibacy
Clerical celibacy is the requirement in certain religions that some or all members of the clergy be unmarried. Clerical celibacy also requires abstention from deliberately indulging in sexual thoughts and behavior outside of marriage, because these impulses are regarded as sinful. Vows of celibacy are generally required for monks and nuns in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and other religions, but often not for other clergy.
Within the Catholic Church, clerical celibacy is mandated for all clergy in the Latin Church except in the permanent diaconate. Exceptions are sometimes admitted for ordination to transitional diaconate and priesthood on a case-by-case basis for married clergymen of other churches or communities who become Catholics, but ordination of married men to the episcopacy is excluded. Clerical marriage is not allowed and therefore, if those for whom in some particular church celibacy is optional wish to marry, they must do so before ordination. Eastern Catholic Churches either follow the same rules as the Latin Church or require celibacy for bishops while allowing priestly ordination of married men.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy, celibacy is the norm for bishops; married men may be ordained to the priesthood, but even married priests whose wives pre-decease them are not allowed to remarry after ordination. Similarly, celibacy is not a requirement for ordination as a deacon and in some Oriental Orthodox churches deacons may marry after ordination. For a period in the 5th and early 6th centuries the Church of the East did not apply the rule of celibacy even for ordination to the episcopate.
Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Nonconformist Protestantism in general do not require celibacy of its clergy and allow—or even encourage—clerical marriage. In the past, Lutheran deaconesses in the Church of Sweden took vows of celibacy, poverty and ties to a motherhouse; the vow of celibacy was made optional in the 1960s and in the present-day, Lutheran deacons/deaconesses may marry.
Meanings of 'celibacy'
The word celibacy can mean either the state of being unmarried or sexual abstinence, especially because of religious vows, from sexual intercourse.In the canon law of the Latin Church, the word celibacy is used specifically in the sense of being unmarried. However, for its clergy this state of being unmarried is considered to be a consequence of the obligation to be completely and perpetually continent:
Permanent deacons, namely those deacons who are not intended to become priests, are, in general, exempted from this rule. However, married permanent deacons are not allowed to remarry after the death of their spouse.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
On the granting of permission, by exception, for the priestly ordination of married men in the Latin Church, see [|Rules], below.
Background
In some Christian churches, such as the western and some eastern sections of the Catholic Church, priests and bishops must as a rule be unmarried men. In others, such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the churches of Oriental Orthodoxy and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, married men may be ordained as deacons or priests, but may not remarry if their wife dies, and celibacy is required only of bishops. Since celibacy is seen as a consequence of the obligation of continence, it implies abstinence from sexual relationships. The Code of Canon Law prescribes:Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful.According to Jason Berry of The New York Times, "The requirement of celibacy is not dogma; it is an ecclesiastical law that was adopted in the Middle Ages because Rome was worried that clerics' children would inherit church property and create dynasties."
In some Christian churches, a vow of chastity is made by members of religious orders or monastic communities, along with vows of poverty and obedience, in order to imitate the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This vow of chastity, made by people – not all of whom are clergy – is different from what is the obligation, not a vow, of clerical continence and celibacy.
Celibacy for religious and monastics and for bishops is upheld by the Catholic Church and the traditions of both Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. Bishops must be unmarried men or widowers; a married man cannot become a bishop. In Latin Church Catholicism and in some Eastern Catholic Churches, most priests are celibate men. Exceptions are admitted, with there being several Catholic priests who were received into the Catholic Church from the Lutheran Church, Anglican Communion and other Protestant faiths. In most Orthodox traditions and in some Eastern Catholic Churches men who are already married may be ordained priests, but priests may not marry after ordination.
Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox tradition considers the rule of clerical celibacy to be an unchangeable dogma, but instead as a rule that could be adjusted if the Church thought it appropriate and to which exceptions are admitted.
From the time of the first ecumenical council the Christian church forbids voluntary physical castration, and the alleged self-castration of the theologian Origen was used to discredit him.
Clerical continence in Christianity
First century
Some of the earliest Christian leaders were married men. The mention in Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38, and Matthew 8:14–15 of Peter's mother-in-law indicates that he had at some time been married According to Clement of Alexandria, "Peter and Philip begat children", and Peter's wife suffered martyrdom.On the other hand, in Luke 18:28–30, Jesus responds to Peter's statement that he and the other disciples had left all and followed him by saying "there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive back an overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to come".
In 1 Corinthians 7:8, Paul the Apostle indicates that he was unmarried: either single or a widower. In 1 Corinthians 9:5, he contrasts his situation with that of the other apostles, including Peter, who were accompanied by believing wives. Paul, says Laurent Cleenewerck, a priest of the Orthodox Church in America and professor of theology at Euclid University, clearly favored celibacy, which he understood as "a gift". Cleenewerck supports this statement by quoting 1 Corinthians 7:5–8:
In the same chapter Paul, who wrote that a pastor is to be "the husband of one wife", forbids abstinence of marital relations except "for a set time" and states that celibacy is a gift.
A locus classicus used in favour of sacerdotal celibacy is 1 Corinthians 7:32–33 and a locus classicus used against sacerdotal celibacy is the statement in 1 Timothy 3:2–4 that a bishop should be "the husband of one wife" and "one who ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection".
One interpretation of "the husband of one wife" is that the man to be ordained could not have been married more than once and that perfect continence, total abstinence, was expected from him starting on the day of his ordination. Usually these also conclude that, because of the exclusion of sexual relations, the members of the clergy were not entitled to marry after ordination.
Another interpretation of "the husband of one wife" was a prohibition of polygamy, which was not uncommon in the Old Testament.
On the other hand, George T. Dennis SJ of Catholic University of America says: "There is simply no clear evidence of a general tradition or practice, much less of an obligation, of priestly celibacy-continence before the beginning of the fourth century." Peter Fink SJ agrees, saying that underlying premises used in the book, Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy, "would not stand up so comfortably to historical scrutiny". Dennis says this book provides no evidence that celibacy had apostolic origins.
Similarly, Philippe Delhaye wrote: "During the first three or four centuries, no law was promulgated prohibiting clerical marriage. Celibacy was a matter of choice for bishops, priests, and deacons. The apostolic constitutions excommunicated a priest or bishop who left his wife 'under pretense of piety'."
However, the 19th-century Protestant historian Philip Schaff evidences that by the early 4th century, priestly celibacy-continence was not a novelty, stating that all marriages contracted by clerics in Holy Orders were declared null and void in 530 by Emperor Justinian I, who also declared the children of such marriages illegitimate.
Catholic author Greg Dues states that:
Second to third centuries
, writing of the apostles, indicated that he was obliged to believe that apart from Peter, who was certainly married, the apostles were continent. In his De praescriptione contra haereticos, Tertullian mentioned continence as one of the customs in Mithraism that he claimed were imitated from Christianity, but does not associate it specifically with the clergy. In De exhortatione castitatis, Tertullian did regard with honour those in ecclesiastical orders who remained continent.The Didascalia Apostolorum, written in Greek in the first half of the 3rd century, mentions the requirements of chastity on the part of both the bishop and his wife, and of the children being already brought up, when it quotes 1 Timothy 3:2–4 as requiring that, before someone is ordained a bishop, enquiry be made "whether he be chaste, and whether his wife also be a believer and chaste; and whether he has brought up his children in the fear of God".
There is record of a number of 3rd-century married bishops in good standing, even in the West. They included: Passivus, bishop of Fermo; Cassius, bishop of Narni; Aetherius, bishop of Vienne; Aquilinus, bishop of Évreux; Faron, bishop of Meaux; Magnus, bishop of Avignon. Filibaud, bishop of Aire-sur-l'Adour, was the father of Philibert de Jumièges, and Sigilaicus, bishop of Tours, was the father of Cyran of Brenne. No statement is made about whether they had children after becoming bishops or only before.
"A famous letter of Synesius of Cyrene is evidence both for the respecting of personal decision in the matter and for contemporary appreciation of celibacy. For priests and deacons clerical marriage continued to be in vogue".
The consequence of the requirement from higher clerics who lived in marriages to abstain permanently from sexual intercourse with their wives was prohibition for those who were single of entering a marriage after ordination. The Apostolic Canons of the Apostolic Constitutions decreed that only lower clerics might still marry after their ordination. Bishops, priests, and deacons were not allowed.