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A Brief History Celibacy in the Roman Church

First Century

Peter, the first pope, and the apostles that Jesus chose were, for the most part, married men. The New Testament implies that women presided at eucharistic meals in the early church.

Second and Third Century

Age of Gnosticism: light and spirit are good, darkness and material things are evil. A person cannot be married and be perfect. However, most priests were married.

Fourth Century

306-Council of Elvira, Spain, decree #43: a priest who sleeps with his wife the night before Mass will lose his job.
325-Council of Nicea: decreed that after ordination a priest could not marry. Proclaimed the Nicene Creed.
352-Council of Laodicea: women are not to be ordained. This suggests that before this time there was ordination of women.
385-Pope Siricius left his wife in order to become pope. Decreed that priests may no longer sleep with their wives.

Fifth Century

401-St. Augustine wrote, Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman.

Sixth Century

567-2nd Council of Tours: any cleric found in bed with his wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state.
580-Pope Pelagius II: his policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.
590-604-Pope Gregory the Great said that all sexual desire is sinful in itself (meaning that sexual desire is intrinsically evil?).

Seventh Century

France: documents show that the majority of priest were married.

Eighth Century

St. Boniface reported to the pope that in Germany almost no bishop or priest was celibate.

Ninth Century

836-Council of Aix-la-Chapelle openly admitted that abortions and infanticide took place in convents and monasteries to cover up activities of uncelibate clerics.

St. Ulrich, a holy bishop, argued from scripture and common sense that the only way to purify the church from the worst excesses of celibacy was to permit priests to marry.

Eleventh Century

1045-Benedict IX dispensed himself from celibacy and resigned in order to marry.
1074-Pope Gregory VII said anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy: priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives.
1095-Pope Urban II had priests wives sold into slavery, children were abandoned.

Twelfth Century

1123-Pope Calistus II: First Lateran Council decreed that clerical marriages were invalid.
1139-Pope Innocent II: Second Lateran Council confirmed the previous councils decree.

Fourteenth Century

Bishop Pelagio complains that women are still ordained and hearing confessions.

Fifteenth Century

Transition; 50% of priests are married and accepted by the people.

Sixteenth Century

1545-63-Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage.
1517-Martin Luther.
1530-Henry VIII.

Seventeenth Century

Inquisition. Galileo. Newton.

Eighteenth Century

1776-American Declaration of Independence.
1789-French Revolution.

Nineteenth Century

1804-Napoleon.
1882-Darwin.
1847-Marx, Communist Manifesto.
1858-Freud.
1869-First Vatican Council; infallibility of pope.

Twentieth Century

1930-Pope Pius XI: sex can be good and holy.
1951-Pope Pius XII: married Lutheran pastor ordained catholic priest in Germany.
1962-Pope John XXIII: Vatican Council II; vernacular; marriage is equal to virginity.
1966-Pope Paul VI: celibacy dispensations.
1970s-Ludmilla Javorova and several other Czech women ordained to serve needs of women imprisoned by Communists.
1978-Pope John Paul II: puts a freeze on dispensations.
1983-New Canon Law.
1980-Married Anglican/Episcopal pastors are ordained as catholic priests in the U.S.; also in Canada and England in 1994.

Popes who were married

St. Peter, Apostle
St. Felix III 483-492 (2 children)
St. Hormidas 514-523 (1 son)
St. Silverus (Antonia) 536-537
Hadrian II 867-872 (1 daughter)
Clement IV 1265-1268 (2 daughters)
Felix V 1439-1449 (1 son)

Popes who were the sons of other popes, other clergy

Name of Pope Papacy Son of
St. Damascus I 366-348 St. Lorenzo, priest
St. Innocent I 401-417 Anastasius I
Boniface 418-422 son of a priest
St. Felix 483-492 son of a priest
Anastasius II 496-498 son of a priest
St. Agapitus I 535-536 Gordiaous, priest
St. Silverus 536-537 St. Homidas, pope
Deusdedit 882-884 son of a priest
Boniface VI 896-896 Hadrian, bishop
John XI 931-935 Pope Sergius III
John XV 989-996 Leo, priest

 

Popes who had illegitimate children after 1139

Innocent VIII 1484-1492 several children
Alexander VI 1492-1503 several children
Julius 1503-1513 3 daughters
Paul III 1534-1549 3 sons, 1 daughter
Pius IV 1559-1565 3 sons
Gregory XIII 1572-1585 1 son

 

History sources:
Oxford Dictionary of Popes; H.C. Lea History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church 1957; E. Schillebeeckx The Church with a Human Face 1985; J. McSorley Outline History of the Church by Centuries 1957; F.A.Foy (Ed.) 1990 Catholic Almanac 1989; D.L. Carmody The Double Cross – Ordination, Abortion and Catholic Feminism 1986; P.K. Jewtt The Ordination of Women 1980; A.F. Ide God’s Girls – Ordination of Women in the Early Christian & Gnostic Churches 1986; E. Schüssler Fiorenza In Memory of Her 1984; P. DeRosa Vicars of Christ 1988.

Myths and Facts

Myth: All priests take a vow of celibacy.
Fact: Most priests do not take a vow. It is a promise made before the bishop.

Myth: Celibacy is not the reason for the vocation shortage.
Fact: A 1983 survey of Protestant churches shows a surplus of clergy; the Catholic church alone has a shortage.

Myth: Clerical celibacy has been the norm since the Second Lateran Council in 1139.
Fact: Priests and even popes still continued to marry and have children for several hundred years after that date. In fact, the Eastern Catholic Church still has married priests.

In the Latin Church, one may be a married priest if:

  • one is a Protestant pastor first; or
  • if one is a life-long Catholic but promises never again to have sexual relations with ones wife.

Myth: The vocation shortage is due to materialism and lack of faith.
Fact: Research (1985 Lilly endowment): there is no evidence to support loss of faith for less vocations…youth volunteer and campus ministry is rising.

We believe that priests should be allowed to marry and that
women have an equal right to have their call to ordination
tested along with male candidates.
We believe celibacy is a gift of the Spirit, as is the call to marriage
and the single life. Gifts cannot be mandated, so it is from a deep respect for the gift of celibacy that we request that it be made optional and not forced upon those who do not feel called in this way.

 

originally developed by Corpus Canada
revision jointly sponsored by Call To Action and FutureChurch

Julian of Norwich

The significance of Julian’s struggle to reconcile the truth of her experience with official Church teaching ought not to be lost on contemporary women. Julian provides a courageous example of one who, based upon her own experience of God, dared to question Church teaching, out of a spirit of love and loyalty to that Church, in a day when such questioning could be construed as heresy punishable by death. In articulating her theology, she appropriates Church tradition selectively, emphasizing those points of doctrine compatible with her own religious experience. Her courage to do this did not stem from any pretense of greater learning on her own part, but from the fact that she trusted absolutely, after a good amount of questioning and discernment, in her revelations as indica­tive of God’s will for herself and the whole Church.

Essay and prayer by Joan M. Nuth, Ph.D.

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Phoebe

Sister, deacon, benefactor. Missionary, evangelist, fund-raiser. There can be no doubt about Phoebe’s leadership in the church. She provided generously for the needs of her community at Cenchreae. She used her personal and material resources to create space for the Body of Christ to meet, to be fed, and to grow.

Essay and Prayer by Claire Noonan

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Perpetua and Felicity

One of the most precious documents of early Christian history is The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, an early third-century account of the martyrdom of two women and three men in the arena at Carthage in 203 CE. This document is invaluable because it contains the actual diary kept by Perpetua while she was imprisoned awaiting her death. Although it is framed by the comments of an editor, scholars universally accept the authenticity of Perpetua’s account as the earliest piece of writing by a known woman in Christian history. It grants a rare glimpse into what a woman thought about the meaning of the Christian faith, free from the gloss of male commentary.

Essay by Joan Nuth and Prayer by Christine Schenk, CSJ

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Penny Lernoux

Penny Lernoux did not set out to right wrongs. She was simply a journalist, doing her job to record the times accurately, honestly. As it turned out, the “times” converted her, called out to her, and she could not ignore what she saw and heard.

For 27 years, Penny lived this commitment, reporting on political and economic conditions in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and throughout Central America. She sent her stories back to the United States, writing of corruption and violence, torture and oppression. It was not a pretty world. Those she visited were filthy from poverty and gaunt from hunger. Yet she found beauty in the faces of the poor, saw how they imaged Christ perhaps more than anyone she had met. And she knew their stories must be told, particularly to the wealthy and powerful of North America. A change must come, and she did her best to bring it about.

Essay and prayer by Tara K. Dix

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Our Lady of Guadalupe

Wherever there are crucified peoples and pharaohs standing on the necks of the oppressed, there will be a need to hear the significant message of Guadalupe. From the midst of the poor comes our call to conversion and faith. To believe in Guadalupe is to believe in the poor and the God who stands among them. The Guadalupe message then and now calls for response: a response of faith, conversion, and participatory transformation.

Essay and prayer by Jeanette Rodriguez, Ph.D.

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Mary Ward

In 1631 the Vatican Inquisition called her “a heretic, a schismatic, a rebel against holy Church” and had her thrown into prison. In 1951, some 320 year later, Pope Pius XII called her “that incomparable woman given…to the Church in one of the darkest, most blood­stained periods of history.” Her name, Mary Ward, is not widely recognized in the modern world. But it ought to be. She might well be the model and patron saint of every woman or man who dares in good faith to dissent on particular declarations of official Church policy.  Ward’s dissent was deliberate, quite public and increasingly controversial for more than 21 years. It was also extraordinarily effective.

Essay by Robert McClory and prayer by Christine Schenk, CSJ

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Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was not only young and female, she was also a peasant and illiterate. Still, none of these “limitations” ever stopped her from following her call, as crazy as it might have seemed to the rest of the world. In fact, she doggedly pursued it as if her eternal life depended on it. She has been described as strong­-willed and purposeful, bordering on stubborn. Those qualities are highly prized by independent young women today, and the fact that they are held up in a young woman from our history is encouraging.

Essays and prayer by Heidi Schlumpf

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