Why do Catholic Priests reject marriage For Themselves? (hell, church, protestant)
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Um,I think it is more that the Vatican rejects marriage on their behalf.Supposedly one of the Grand Poobah popes had a vision that priests needed to be unmarried.The effects of his brilliance are obviously still being felt today.
A priest is father of his parish and his wife is the Church (or maybe just his girlfriend? Christ's bride is the Church, technically). He's far too busy taking care of them to have another family; the community and the Church is his.
Of course, it's all Tradition really; other rites (Eastern Rites, that is) allow marriage by priests, if I remember correctly. Orthodox Christianity had different Tradition.
A priest is father of his parish and his wife is the Church (or maybe just his girlfriend? Christ's bride is the Church, technically). He's far too busy taking care of them to have another family; the community and the Church is his.
Of course, it's all Tradition really; other rites (Eastern Rites, that is) allow marriage by priests, if I remember correctly. Orthodox Christianity had different Tradition.
Episcopalians can marry.Eastern Orthodox married men can become priests,but single men who become priests must remain single.Most Orthodox priests though are married.Neither group has much problem with child abuse by priests.
Eastern Rite Catholics follow the same rules as Eastern Orthodox.And Episcopalian married priests who convert to the RCC are allowed to remain as RCC priests as well.
Bishops in most forms of Eastern Orthodoxy are celibate. The emphasis on celibacy was one of the controversial, and surprisingly pro-women, things in early Christianity. The reason it was, or was used as anyway, "pro-women" is because marriage was sometimes rather bad for women. In parts of the Hellenistic world particularly marriage could mean being attached to some guy you don't like who treats you like a possession. Worse he's allowed to cheat, but you as the woman are not. So for some women saying "I won't marry you, I'm going to be a Christian virgin" gave her some control over her life. You see something like this with Neo-Platonist pagans too as Hypatia, who was killed by one Christian faction over her politics, was celibate. (Although her celibacy likely had more to do with Neo-Platonic rejection of the world as corrupt and sex as keeping your mind in this world rather than on loftier pursuits)
Anyway back to men. Ohioankid got to most of the reasons there. Some additional ones I've heard is that celibacy in some ways was also seen as being more like Paul and Jesus. Additionally monasticism was seen as less corrupt than clergy. Lastly a celibate priesthood avoids the chance, and the potential corruptions, of an inherited priesthood. Granted I have heard of societies with strong traditions of "inherited priesthood" that tried to get around that. In 17th-18th c. Ireland a celibate priest would raise his nephew to be a priest and thereby maintain a kind of "inherited priesthood." The Church cracked down on that though and is opposed to an inherited priesthood by and large.
I read somewhere that celibacy for Catholic priests initially was not for religious reasons at all, but monetary. That the Catholic Church was like some sort of business, and if the priests married, parts of the church's property (the tons of land it owned) would be slowly chipped away from it and given to the priests' wife and kids.
The money/land thing is the common explanation you read in many Protestant tracts. I don't know how much historical validity it has though.
A feminist critique of celibacy, which I did not mention, seems to have a bit more validity from what I can tell. That being that priests were forbidden to marry because they did not want a woman influencing them or having a special role in the parish. Although this is potentially insulting to my faith there does seem to be a few statements by Pope Gregory et alia that indicate "meddlesome wives of priests" were a concern. However I know a liberal Episcopalian woman who shares that concern. So far as I can tell she's okay, if maybe not enthusiastic, with women priests but she feels like the wives of priests sometimes have an unearned place in the church. Unlike a woman priest a priest's wife is not someone who went to seminary or anything so from her perspective they sometimes put themselves as authorities without any qualifications or experience. And as men are about as capable as women of marrying idiots you may end up with someone who doesn't know what they're talking about putting herself up there as important because she's the priest's wife. I'm not sure I agree with this, it seems like there could be ways to avoid this potential problem besides celibacy, but this is basically how she put it.
Catholic priests haven't always had to be celibate. In the 4th century, it was fine. There was a proposal at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (where they wrote the Bible, BTW), to ban priests from being married, and it was defeated.
Later in the 4th century, a rule came down that said priests couldn't have sex the night before a mass. Once mass became normal, well, no reason for a wife now.
The rules were overturned in 692. Later in 1139, a council of priests decided to outlaw all marriages of priests, and that all previous marriages were null and void.
BTW, this didn't mean that priests couldn't have sex, just that they couldn't be married. Priests could have concubines.
This was also one of the reasons that Martin Luther left the church, and started the reformation. Luther later was married.
A very brief, highlight view, lots more out there.
The money/land thing is the common explanation you read in many Protestant tracts. I don't know how much historical validity it has though.
It is not only a common Protestant explanation but also a common Catholic explanation.
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