WI: No Clerical celibacy?

From what I understand the whole celibacy thing came from the fact that Priests were leaving their Parish's to their sons or using them as dowrys for their daughters, thus pissing off the Church. The church, not wanting to lose revenue, made priests be celebite, or at least unmarried, thus keeping their properties. It took a while to enforce but they eventually pulled it off. So what if the Clerical celibacy was never made a law? Let's say different rules where put in place to let the church keep their properties. How would this change history? I mean besides Clerical celibacy not being an issue today. Would the various ecclesiastical states in Germany and Italy becoming hereditary? What about the Papacy itself? Could it turn into a semi-hereditary monarchy? Would we see offical titles for the wives of various Clerics, like Bishops, Archbishops or even Cardinals and Popes?
 
Question: In the Orthodox churches I know celibacy isn't required of priests. But, I think in order to advance within the hierarchy up to like patriarch you have to be celibate. I may be wrong here.

I think it would be interesting if Catholicism followed a similar model. Priests can marry but if you want to advance, you put aside your worldly desires.
 
Question: In the Orthodox churches I know celibacy isn't required of priests. But, I think in order to advance within the hierarchy up to like patriarch you have to be celibate. I may be wrong here.

I think it would be interesting if Catholicism followed a similar model. Priests can marry but if you want to advance, you put aside your worldly desires.

You are correct about Orthodox priests marrying but it stopping them from going anywhere in their careers (atleast Greek Orthodox priests can marry, don't know about the other Orthodox churches as well).
 
(atleast Greek Orthodox priests can marry, don't know about the other Orthodox churches as well).
Russian Orthodox too, at least. Priests can marry, but bishops must be celibate.

There were a lot of married priests in Northern Italy, too, before some pope around Year 1000 imposed celibacy.
 
Question: In the Orthodox churches I know celibacy isn't required of priests. But, I think in order to advance within the hierarchy up to like patriarch you have to be celibate. I may be wrong here.

I think it would be interesting if Catholicism followed a similar model. Priests can marry but if you want to advance, you put aside your worldly desires.

This isn't exactly accurate, but it's close. The Orthodox Churches both Eastern and Oriental (it's worth noting that the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian, and some Indian Orthodox Christians form a different communion than the Greeks, Russians, Serbians, Romanians, etc.) married men are allowed to be ordained deacon and later priest, but once a man is ordained deacon he can no longer marry. Bishops, and the patriarchs they select from among themselves, are only recruited from monks, which is why they are all celibate. From what I understand, this practice was instituted to ensure that the Church was governed by people who would be less interested in worldly matters and who would guard her doctrines more fiercely. In practice, the monastic process can be expedited, where a man is quickly tonsured and then ran through all the various ordinations necessary to become a bishop.

There are two ways to go about inculcating this practice in the West. You can either nip it in the bud and have someone convince Gregory the Great not to impose total clerical celibacy on the Western Church, or you can have the Byzantines hold onto the city of Rome longer. This will result in more popes being selected from among the Greeks who can Hellenize the liturgy and impose Eastern customs, though by this point the reforms will probably not be too effective outside of Italy and it will be hard to go against precedents established by St. Gregory Dialogos himself.
 
So from what I've read here the best bet would be either for Gregory not to enforce celibacy or for the Byzantine Empire to continue to rule Rome (and much of Italy, no doubt). Why did Gregory enforce it in the first place? Was it his own views or was he persuaded over to them? Also, lets say he either id persuaded over or is overruled by another Pope, would the status quo remain, with Priests marrying and Bishops and above remaining "celibate" or would it be changed at a later date, perhaps during the Renaissance, when the Papal families really started to gain power (by Papal family, I mean the Popes relatives exercising power) . When and if the Protestant Reformation roles around, would that become an issue or no? Could we see official wives for Bishops and above or no?
 
Who imposed celibacy, btw? I agree that the reason probably was not to lose wealth...

And could the OP clarify whether he meant:
a) no celibacy at all
b) no celibacy for lower ranking priests, celibacy for higher ranking ones (per OTL Orthodox church)
 
Who imposed celibacy, btw? I agree that the reason probably was not to lose wealth...

And could the OP clarify whether he meant:
a) no celibacy at all
b) no celibacy for lower ranking priests, celibacy for higher ranking ones (per OTL Orthodox church)

Pope Gregory the great it the Pope that really enforced the clerical celibacy. Before him, there was "official rules" about priests marrying but they were never really enforced.

As for the who, I thought that Orthodox bishops were allowed to marry, my bad:eek:. I guess I mean Priests initially, but all the clergy later (ie the Renaissance). I say that it could be changed later because in the Orthodox Church there was never any ecclesiastical states (ie Archbishopric of Cologne, Tier, the Papal States itself) so there was never a real opportunity or need to establish dynasties in the east that there was in the west. In the west, on the other hand, various families reigned supreme in the Papal States (the Borgia, the Colonna, the Barberini, ex) so the idea of a legitimate Pope would be interesting, at the very least, for those families.
 
What happened to wives of the priests who were married at the time?

Now that is a good question. I red that when officials would go to the various towns and villages to try and enforce clerical celibacy Priests would send their wives children away and when the official left the family would return. I would assume that the various married priests eventually died and the new ones were educated against marrying.
 
I could be misremembering, but I'm sure I read that the Church in England continued to reject celibacy until St Dunstan's reforms in the late C10th. I'd imagine if that's true, then there were other areas of hold-out.
 
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And even when the rules were nominally enforced, actual practice was sometimes .... looser.

Im a descendent of jon biskup arason, the last rc bishop of iceland, descended through this father and his son, both rc priests and all nominally celibate!

So when BISHOP can get away with this in the hinterlands, you can imagine parish priests in the boonies in england, say, did much the same.
 
Question: In the Orthodox churches I know celibacy isn't required of priests. But, I think in order to advance within the hierarchy up to like patriarch you have to be celibate. I may be wrong here.

It goes like this : Greek Catholic and Orthodox priests can marry, but they are banned from divorcing. Ergo, they have to really think it over when they decide to marry and have children with their wife - there is no backing out of it, they will have to make sure that they'll be happily married.

During the height of the 16th century Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary, there were instances of Catholic priests misusing the chaotic characteristics of this period of religious quarrels, secretly or openly taking wives or lovers and founding families en masse as they wished, some of the bolder ones even several times over. There were several publicly-spread cautionary tales from the era which focused on warning the undecided parts of the Catholic clergy from breaking with centuries long traditions and adopting the more lenient, Protestant-style priesthood customs.

Then again, I've also read of the odd case from the 14th and 15th century, where Catholic priests had secret lovers or otherwise broke their vow of celibacy. One notoriously famous case occured during the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg (IIRC) and involved a promiscuous priest from one of the smaller Spiš towns. His case was so outrageous for the era, that once the authorities found out, they made his life a living hell. While he was eventually pardoned, his whole career was ruined and he basically spent the rest of his life in prison and then in a monastery.

And even when the rules were nominally enforced, actual practice was sometimes .... looser.

People being people... ;)

Im a descendent of jon biskup arason, the last rc bishop of iceland, descended through this father and his son, both rc priests and all nominally celibate!

Ha, so you do have Icelandic roots after all ! :D And you're even the descendant of a naughty-naughty bishop. :p :)

So when BISHOP can get away with this in the hinterlands, you can imagine parish priests in the boonies in england, say, did much the same.

Yeah, the examples from medieval Hungary that I've mentioned certainly confirm this tendency.
 
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