Celibacy

"The marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony..."

"Addressing the celibate Teutonic Knights, the Reformer also emphasized Genesis 2:18: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper who shall be with him.” Setting himself squarely against the Papacy and the Church Councils here, Luther declared: “[w]hoever would be a true Christian must grant that this saying of God is true, and believe God was not drunk when he spoke these words and instituted marriage.” Except among those rare persons ”not more than one in a thousand” Luther said at one point-who received true celibacy as a special gift from God, marriage and procreation were divinely ordained. As he wrote: “For it is not a matter of free choice or decision but a natural and necessary thing, that whatever is a man must have a woman and whatever is a woman must have a man.” The Geneva-based reformer John Calvin put an even greater emphasis on Genesis 1:28. He argued that these words represented the only command of God made before the Fall that was still active after God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. This gave this phrase a unique power and importance. Calvin added that this “pure and lawful method of increase, which God ordained from the beginning, remains firm; this is that law of nature which common sense declares to be inviolable.” While occasionally acknowledging in unenthusiastic fashion St. Paul’s defense of the single life, the Reformers were far more comfortable with the social order described in Luther’s Exhortation to the Knights of the Teutonic Order. ““We were all created to do as our parents have done, to beget and rear children. This is a duty which God has laid upon us, commanded, and implanted in us, as is proved by our bodily members, our daily emotions, and the example of all mankind.” Marriage with the expectation of children, in this view, represented the natural, normal, and necessary form of worldly existence."

"The fact is for a long time the Catholic Church struggled with its interpretation of Scriptures on priestly celibacy. It wasn’t until the 12th century that priestly celibacy became mandatory."

"Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

"What happens is that the scandals have an immediate impact. Tradition has weight and validity. Catholic ministers chose celibacy little by little. Up until 1100, some chose it and some did not. After, the East followed the tradition of non-celibacy as personal choice, while the West went the opposite way. It is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change."

"Virginity is better than marriage, however good. ... Celibacy is ... an imitation of the angels. Therefore, virginity is as much more honorable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But why do I say angel? Christ, Himself, is the glory of virginity."

"For now the discipline of celibacy remains firm. Some say, with a certain pragmatism, were losing manpower. If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism revises the issue of celibacy, I think it would be for cultural reasons (as in the East), not as a universal option. For the moment, I am in favor of maintaining celibacy, with the pros and cons it has, because there are 10 centuries of good experiences rather than failures...."

"Celibacy is not merely unknown to Islam, it is unintelligible."

"Although Christian "clergy," such as bishops and deacons, begin to appear around the year A.D. 100 in early Christian communities, priests emerge as Christian leaders only much later. Priests came to be the ordained clergy tasked with officiating rituals like the Eucharist or Lords Supper, also known as Communion. And what about their celibacy? Even here, evidence is both unclear and late: there were reports that some bishops at the Council of Nicea, called by Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325 to address the problem of heresies, argued for a consistent practice of priestly celibacy. This, however, was voted down at the conclusion of the council. The debate resurfaced a couple of hundred years later, but still without uniform agreement. Over time, priestly celibacy became a serious point of disagreement between the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Roman Catholic churches and contributed to the Great Schism between the two in A.D. 1054. Pope Gregory VII attempted to mandate priestly celibacy, but the practice was contested widely by Christians in the Orthodox Eastern Mediterranean world. Five centuries later, the issue was once again at the forefront of debate when it became a significant factor in the Protestant split from Catholicism during the Reformation."

"John Paul II granted that this understanding of celibacy applied equally to men and women choosing to live a consecrated life. However, he distinguished between the nature of celibacy as practiced by men and women. The celibacy of women, as a path to realizing womanhood, could be understood only with reference to Christian anthropology and the complementary spousal relationship: “At the same time they realize the personal value of their own femininity by becoming ‘a sincere gift’ for god who has revealed himself in Christ, a gift for Christ, the Redeemer of humanity and the Spouse of souls: a ‘spousal’ gift. One cannot correctly understand virginity-a woman’s consecration in virginity-without referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift for the other. Moreover, a man’s consecration in priestly celibacy or in the religious state is to be understood analogously. Women’s consecration in virginity was defined in terms of the woman’s role as wife."

"Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command."

"On the preferred place of committed celibacy, there was complete continuity with the doctrine of patristic times so vigorously set forth by writers like Jerome and Chrysostom. In the new European world, where the monasteries had preserved the remains of Roman culture where the clergy had organized the universities, where the reformers or moral life came from the religious orders, the emphasis on celibacy received an institutional impetus it had lacked in the Roman era. Celibacy was now the established norm for the Western secular clergy. Much of the work of social and intellectual leadership was performed by men who, as secular priests, or monks, or brothers, were bound to observe complete sexual continence. Almost all of the theorizing on marriage and sexuality was done by men both personally and institutionally committed to the ideal of lifelong continence."