Catholic Church does not force Priests to be celebat

Could the celebacy idea have been prevented, or only apply to guys who chose particular orders?

If so how big a difference does this make?

How much risk/ chance is there that Bishoprics might have been openly heretitrary?
 

mowque

Banned
Could the celebacy idea have been prevented, or only apply to guys who chose particular orders?

If so how big a difference does this make?

How much risk/ chance is there that Bishoprics might have been openly heretitrary?


1. Yes, I think so.

2. Even more massive corruption, I think. It may change the Church's view on sex in much later centuries.

3. Very likely, I think.
 
In the mid 13th century the Church banned marrage for Priests, and imposed Celebratcy.
This was due to the Bishops & Arch-Bishops giving the vast Estates they controled to their Kids, and not to the Church.
By declaring the marrages invalid, all the Kids were instantly Illligitimate, and inegible to inheirt.
This is the same Pope that banned pural Marriges.

?Perhaps a different Pope, and different Politics?
 
In the mid 13th century the Church banned marrage for Priests, and imposed Celebratcy.
This was due to the Bishops & Arch-Bishops giving the vast Estates they controled to their Kids, and not to the Church.
By declaring the marrages invalid, all the Kids were instantly Illligitimate, and inegible to inheirt.
This is the same Pope that banned pural Marriges.

?Perhaps a different Pope, and different Politics?

Different politicy can be done. Problem is, though, that it will be difficult to enact something that prevents the kids of bishops and priests getting church property (which IOTL happened even after that law nevertheless).

One possibility I can think of is that any kids of bishops/priests must leave their parents once reaching a certain age to be educated in monasteries far away. That way the kids can be controled by the church and "gifts" out of church property can be avoided. At the same time, the kids get a proper education which helps them later. Effectively, this aims at destroying the family of church officials.

Added to that may be a canonical law that children and maybe grandchildren of church officials can be priests and monks, but never reach a leading function in the church. As kids are "official" ITTL and the church would be able to do the bureaucracy that could be done.

Ultimately, though, it is a basic human characteristic that everybody wants the best for their kids. In the middle ages, this meant that the kids get a similar position of wealth and power as the parents.
 
The catholic church could follow/use the orthodox model. In the eastern churches, ordinary parish clergy are married, but monks, nuns, and bishops are celibates.
So big estates are kept as church porperty but a small village priest´s house can be inherited by his children.
 
My understanding is that priests have never been allowed to marry. However, prior to the Gregorian reforms, it was possible for already married men to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church just like they could in the Eastern Orthodox.

One of the reasons the reform was introduced was to eliminate some of the corruption at the local level with fathers passing on the office to their sons in a kind of sinecure rather than actually doing their jobs.

If you don't make celibacy a requirement, then the Church will need to figure out another way to prevent the abuse that the reforms were instituted to eliminate.

If this happens, then it is still possible for a vow of celibacy to be taken by individual priests, requirements for certain orders, or needed to advance to higher positions.
 
If priestly celibacy is not instituted by Pope Gregory VII then perhaps some Council canons could forbid the Bishops to pass their estates to sons or family members...
Before Gregory VII married priests existed but on the condition that marriage had taken place before their ordination... Once you are ordained you cannot get married... Same principal survives till today in Orthodox Churches...
 
To some degree it does in the Roman Catholic Church too... but in special circumstances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_celibacy_(Catholic_Church)

Exceptions are sometimes made (including in Latin Rite Catholicism), granted by authority of the Pope, when married Protestant clergy become Catholic. Because the rule of celibacy is an ecclesiastical law and not a doctrine, it can, in principle, be changed at any time by the Pope. Nonetheless, both the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and his predecessors, have spoken clearly of their understanding that the traditional practice was not likely to change.

It implies quite clearly that if they wanted to change the rules there would be no serious problems to do it, as it is only a law not a doctrine of the Church.
 
Avert the celibacy rule, at least for cardinals, bishops, priests, and deacons, and you'll likely wind up with many trying to pass along their offices to their children. If they succeed often enough to set a precedent, I'd expect hereditary bishops to become more affiliated with their local secular power structure than with the Pope, as the Pope could no longer pick and choose bishops, and as bishops would now generally come from families with long-established social ties with the local secular aristocracy.
 
... I'd expect hereditary bishops to become more affiliated with their local secular power structure than with the Pope, as the Pope could no longer pick and choose bishops, and as bishops would now generally come from families with long-established social ties with the local secular aristocracy.

As I understand it, this is precisely how many prince-bishoprics worked. Younger brothers of local potentates, having found an ecclesiastical vocation, would be installed as prince-bishop and pass on the office to their nephews.
 
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Could the celebacy idea have been prevented, or only apply to guys who chose particular orders?

If so how big a difference does this make?

How much risk/ chance is there that Bishoprics might have been openly heretitrary?

1) Easily as it wasn't made policy intil about 1200.

2) Probably very little because, IIRC, the issue before 1200 was handled by lesser posts being married and the higher posts (Cardinalates and Papacy) being either widowed or celebate, although I've read that it wasn't unusual for a Cardinal to have at least a mistress, if not a wife. ISTM that the only groups that demanded celebacy were the monastic orders.

3) Probably not that much, especially if said Bishop had more than one son, but I could be wrong.
 
My understanding is that priests have never been allowed to marry. However, prior to the Gregorian reforms, it was possible for already married men to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church just like they could in the Eastern Orthodox.

One of the reasons the reform was introduced was to eliminate some of the corruption at the local level with fathers passing on the office to their sons in a kind of sinecure rather than actually doing their jobs.

If you don't make celibacy a requirement, then the Church will need to figure out another way to prevent the abuse that the reforms were instituted to eliminate.

If this happens, then it is still possible for a vow of celibacy to be taken by individual priests, requirements for certain orders, or needed to advance to higher positions.


One way around that is to disallow church officials awarding church offices to people who are more closely related than 2nd cousins .
 
One way around that is to disallow church officials awarding church offices to people who are more closely related than 2nd cousins .

Technically, that is forbidden by Canon Law anyway. Only a bishop can award clerical prebends, and only the Pope can make a bishop. The problem was always unofficial succession according rules in effect on the spot.
 
So enforce it.

Actually Canon Law forbids direct succession in Bishoprics etc. between family members (if i am not mistaken... If i am wrong correct me) this can be done only by obtaining Papal dispensation...
However if its not direct succession then it is tolerated...
 
I believe that quite a number of the Church of England priests who 'moved' to the Roman Catholic Church following the CoE's decision to allow women priests were married. Certainly the Priest of my niece's parish was and he came complete with wife and children when he replace the previous, presumably celibate priest.
 
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There are many rc priests who are married .. just not latinrite ones. Uniiate priests, outsiide the us, can be married.

Also, im a direct descendant of the last rc bishop of iceland, through his son, also a priest. Techniically the women they lived with werent 'wives', they ere functionally.
 
Hmmm, didn't he get killed by peasants with torches and pitchforks? I thought his sons did as well. I am part Icelandic, so I know a tiny bit about that kind of stuff.

Aside from the usual jokes about catholic priests, I would think that letting them marry might reduce the instances of such events, but I don't want to really offed people or cause a fight.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
They could follow the Orthodox practice of allowing marriage for priests, but demanding celibacy from monks, bishops, archbishops, and other high-ranking churchmen.
 
Hmmm, didn't he get killed by peasants with torches and pitchforks? I thought his sons did as well. I am part Icelandic, so I know a tiny bit about that kind of stuff.

t.

My memory, possibly wrong, was that he was executed by the danish authorities. Together with his son(s), as you say. Obviously said son had kids already who were allowed to live.
 
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