WI: Priests/Popes could marry?

I know that priests were not allowed to marry for a variety of reasons, but one major reason is that there was a fear that the Pope may become a patrilineal monarchy like most other places. However, what if this never happens?
 
I am not sure if there would be papal dynasty. System might invent way to avoid that.

But there might emerge some powerful priest families. It is possible that there is some families which occupy often some high offices.
 
I always thought the ban on clergy marriage was to accumulate wealth for the church. If that is true you would have a lot less powerful church, especially if you add heredity of office, even de facto heredity, as possibility you under cut its moral authority too.

So in the best of situation office manage to stay meritocratic, even if the priesthood itself became semi hereditary, you would have a monetarily poorer Universal Church, which means it would of had less historical power.
 
Seeing that they are all Men allowing them to marry would either mean the Church accepts homosexuality and Gay Marriage as being alright or allows Women to enter the Clergy, Maybe both

If this were to happen Pope Frank gets the Best Pope Evah award
 
Theologically, it may be pointed out that priests can not marry is because they serve in the place of Christ and therefore, their ministry specially configures them to Christ.
As is "clear" from Scripture, Christ was not married. By remaining celibate and devoting themselves to the service of the Church, priests more closely model, configure themselves to, and consecrate themselves to Christ.
As Christ himself makes clear, "none of us will be married in heaven" (Mt 22:23–30). By remaining unmarried in this life, priests are more closely configured to the final, eschatological state that will be all of ours.

If you, have Christ, married, then it would be allowed in priest hood.
 
Theologically, it may be pointed out that priests can not marry is because they serve in the place of Christ and therefore, their ministry specially configures them to Christ.
As is "clear" from Scripture, Christ was not married. By remaining celibate and devoting themselves to the service of the Church, priests more closely model, configure themselves to, and consecrate themselves to Christ.
As Christ himself makes clear, "none of us will be married in heaven" (Mt 22:23–30). By remaining unmarried in this life, priests are more closely configured to the final, eschatological state that will be all of ours.

If you, have Christ, married, then it would be allowed in priesthood.

Then why does the church allow married priest in the eastern right and converted priest? Pragmatics trump faith? Sorry i'll shut up about this topic.
 
Theologically, it may be pointed out that priests can not marry is because they serve in the place of Christ and therefore, their ministry specially configures them to Christ.
As is "clear" from Scripture, Christ was not married. By remaining celibate and devoting themselves to the service of the Church, priests more closely model, configure themselves to, and consecrate themselves to Christ.
As Christ himself makes clear, "none of us will be married in heaven" (Mt 22:23–30). By remaining unmarried in this life, priests are more closely configured to the final, eschatological state that will be all of ours.

If you, have Christ, married, then it would be allowed in priest hood.

Priests were allowed to marry in the early Church. (Bishops weren't, however.)
 
The priesthood would no longer be the domain of the second sons of the nobility so that might mean the church is less beholden to them, which could have consequences down the line. Looking at protestant clergy, it seems like the priesthood would be semi-hereditary, in the way any other job in the pre-modern era was semi-hereditary.
 
They can. In the Eastern rites, that is. Bishops can't, though.

Most of the Apostles were married (specifically Simon Peter, who is considered the first Bishop of Rome), though Christ apparently wasn't. Paul was celibate and favored celibacy, and since he was one of the main reasons Christianity is not a Jewish sect, that bled through to all of Christianity to this day.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
On Priestly celibacy

It was held in the early Church that with only the rarest of exceptions, a Priest could not marry but that a married man could become a Priest (this remains the rule among the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches). The exception usually was for a widowed priest who had small children

Bishops were required to be celibate as an administrative cannon of the Fourth? ecumenical council- i.e. it is a rule that can be waived in dire need as there is no Theological reason for Bishops to be celibate but that the job generally requires an unattached man to do it

Only under the Reforms of Pope Gregory VII in 1074 is the rule of celibacy imposed on all clerics in the West. Again, this is an administrative rule and can be changed. There is no theological basis for it. For that reason, Eastern rite priests can be married as can married Anglican and certain Lutheran Priests (those Lutheran churches that retain Apostolic succession) who convert to Catholicism after marriage. The same would apply to Orthodox priests who convert

Gregory is generally thought to have imposed this rule because of the habit of married priests to confuse Church and personal property
 
They can. In the Eastern rites, that is. Bishops can't, though.

Most of the Apostles were married (specifically Simon Peter, who is considered the first Bishop of Rome), though Christ apparently wasn't. Paul was celibate and favored celibacy, and since he was one of the main reasons Christianity is not a Jewish sect, that bled through to all of Christianity to this day.

Isn't it that married men can get ordained, but that they can't get married while ordained? So it's not really the same thing.
 
priests were married in western europe until more or less 900-1100

One funnything is that at the time brothels belonged most of the time to the city and only those who could read and count could become managers... so more often than not the local priest / clergyman / biship was also the brothel manager (something not forbidden and completely accepted at the time). At the same time it allowed him to check that it was used by unmarried men.

Men were marrying close to 25-27 and women to 17 at that time.
 
Why the difference between Western and Eastern rites when it comes to celibacy?

Eastern priests, at least, were obligated to have sex with their wives, though bishops were required to be celibate and their wives would be sent to the nunnery.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
Why the difference between Western and Eastern rites when it comes to celibacy?

Since there is no theological basis for the rule, the Eastern churches never imposed them. There is also no head of the Orthodox Church so no one to impose such a rule. A Bishop might for his diocese and for his lifetime but it would quickly get gutted. Orthodox Bishops are elected by two thirds and the clergy of the diocese gets half the votes

The Orthodox are very very conservative
 
Through the 3rd Century, bishops in good standing were married in the Church (while being chaste in marriage)- it really wasn't till 306 and thr Council of Elvira that the unmarried celibacy thing was made doctrinal (as in written down). Lower clergy were also married throughout the early years, and even after Elvira they were still married and sexually active (only ceasing secual activity before the Eucharist, as in Eastern Orthodoxy). The Church kept trying through the 4th century to get unmarried ceibacy to be the norm, through several councils, but it took a while to grab ahold.

Basically, pre-Elvira, there was no tradition or practice of priestly celibacy in the Church before 300 AD.
 
I know that priests were not allowed to marry for a variety of reasons, but one major reason is that there was a fear that the Pope may become a patrilineal monarchy like most other places. However, what if this never happens?


Well. Very interesting discussion.
Even recently Pope Francis (in the interview on the airplane returning from the pilgrimage to the Holy Land) spoke about the "priestly celibacy", specifying that, without too much scandal, in the Catholic Churches of the Eastern rite there are already married priests. He then added that «celibacy is not a dogma of faith, is a rule of life that I appreciate so much and I think it's a gift to the Church».
Frankly, not there would be a big problem in the marriage of those who then have access to holy orders. The Church would not be "collapsed" for this change.

Although it, for example, St. Peter Damian denounced the attempt to legitimize the marriage of priests (Nicolaism), with the risk that, for the mentality of the time, this would have resulted in the transmission of an ecclesiastical office to their children, making hereditary or dividing the church properties (assertion replicated also by the historian Henry Charles Lea, an Anglican from the Victorian era, when the Anglo-Saxon historiography showed no certain her sympathy for the "Papists"...), however it is said that there would be a massive threat of «emerge some powerful priest families»: were found priestly dynasties in the Orthodox Churches or in the Church of England, little microcosm born of the Catholic Church, worthy of political weight and historical?

As for the fact that the Papacy «may become a patrilineal monarchy», this fact has happened in the history of the Church: the papacy lived, during the ninth and tenth centuries, its pages darkest. The institution was in the hands of Roman noble families fighting each other, and the figures of the popes who succeeded to the papacy did not possess the moral prestige or spiritual authority. The desire for a reform of the church has made its way between religious movements of various kinds, popular (the Milanese patarìa; in the Milanese Church, in contrast to much of Western Europe, had been preserved the use of choose the priests also among married men) or intellectual and monastic(Cluny, Camaldoli, Vallombrosa, Cîteaux (Cistercium), Chartreuse, ...).

It thus remains the question: when the church was supposed to legitimize the marriage of priests?
And: It would have changed a lot in the history of the Church?
Because, while in the Byzantine Empire the Emperor Justinian I has declared the nullity of any marriage of clerics after that they have received the major orders (sub-diaconate, diaconate, presbyterate and episcopate), in the West the marriage of such clerics, although illegal, remained canonically valid until the Lateran Council (1123) and the Second Lateran Council (1139) which declared them null and void.
Then, no marriage after having received the major orders, but, theoretically, a man already married could be chosen to receive major orders.
Another four hundred years it took to get to the strict standards intended by the Council of Trent and implemented from the second half of the sixteenth century.
1,600 years of church history had passed before of a radical choice of celibacy...

Another question: how many children they should have the priests?
The cue comes from an episode of Law and Order SVU (8x17): Jeb Curtis, an Evangelical preacher has 10 children!
Olivia Benson: Who today has 10 kids?
Elliot Stabler: Not even Catholics.
Dr. Huang: Many Evangelicals believe that the Bible is to be followed to the letter. That's why Curtis has ten children. [...] Curtis and his wife probably thought to repopulate the Earth. Just in Genesis we read that God said, "as for you, be fruitful and multiply; populate the Earth abundantly and multiply in it". They think they have to save America from the evils of feminism, from the declining birth rate, from abortion. They want their children to become soldiers of the Lord, in fact some of them are military.

Even the Amish on average 7 children per couple...
If, therefore, this thought could be passed into a church that admits the marriage of the clergy, then there would be a phenomenon similar to what happens in the Neocatechumenal Way of Francisco "Kiko" Argüello, a Spanish artist, and of Carmen Hernandez, a former nun and a autodidact theologian?
Their prolific families are a powerful multiplier. They say that nine out of ten children, once get to reach 20s, remain in the community and also they similarly take The Way. When later they will be married and will have children, the boom will be amazing.

A similar boom would have occurred even in the Christian West?
Applied to historical data (Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal (1540-1770), Cambridge, 1998), are obtained astonishing numbers.
The Archdiocese of Milan (the largest in Europe) in the nineties of the sixteenth century, had 2,101 priests (only priests, not counting sub-deacons and deacons): 2,100x10 children = 21,000 persons; assuming 2 soldiers in every family, there would be an army of 4,200 soldiers; in 1689 the priests were 3,302: 3,300x10 children = 33,000 persons, 6,600 soldiers; in 1766 4,743, about 47,500 persons (that is, more or less, equal to the entire population of the city of Cologne in 1600), 9,500 soldiers.
The Archdiocese of Cologne (Köln), at the time of the Council of Trent, had 8,450 members of the clergy (priests, deacons and sub-deacons): 84,500 persons, about 17,000 soldiers; a such army in the hands of Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg... a catastrophe.
And again: during the Twelve Years' Truce, in the Dutch Republic were there 219 priests (1616), which, if they had a family, would constitute a community of about 2,000 persons with 400 soldiers; in 1642 the priests amount to 500... 5,000 children, 1,000 soldiers... a sweet problem for the Dutch Calvinists.


The words of Pope Francis should always be carefully considered.
Interesting is that Pope Francis speaks of "celibacy", not of "chastity".
In the civil law the celibacy is the "state of being unmarried".
In Christian language, however, the concept of "celibacy" is closely connected with that of "chastity" and "sexual continence".
According to the legislative definition, one can be celibate, but attend (even sexually) women.
Today the two conditions are views closely related, so many do not distinguish between celibacy (as civil status) and chastity or sexual continence (as a virtue), and hence there are many confusions.
In the Church when it says that a priest must be celibate, it means to live in chastity total, that is not only abstain from any sexual intercourse, but also be free emotionally.

«Celibacy is not a dogma».
"Pope Francis said this".
Ok. But he also added that «[celibacy] is a rule of life».
It speaks for the first time explicitly of "celibacy" in the Code of Canon Law of 1917 (can.987, §2): the marital status «is an impediment» to the sacrament of the Order, married people can not receive Holy Orders.
We all know the "small lesson" that «has not always been so».
St. Peter was married (Mt 8,14; 1 Cor 9,5-6), St. Paul was unmarried, St. John was even virgin. St. Hilary of Poitiers, an important theologian of the Latin world (doctrine of the Trinity) and tenacious adversary of Arianism, and St. Gregory of Nyssa, a leading theologian of the world greek, were married. St. Augustine had a concubine, St. Ambrose instead was unmarried and perhaps even virgin.
Receiving the sacrament of Orders, however, "the dynamics marital" changed : a man ordered (deacon, priest or bishop), undertook himself to live in perfect continence. It was not a written law, codified, but stemmed from the imposition of hands during the ordination: the grace of the Holy Spirit received, made the person totally consecrated to Christ, to the service of the Gospel, of the sacraments and of the people.
Who was unmarried (celibate), as who was married, engaged himself to live in chastity. St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, and his wife Therasia, for example: after the ordination of him, both decided to live in perfect chastity.
But not all were saints.
For this reason, from the fourth century synods took care to stem abuse that could cause scandal among the faithful (Council of Nicaea, can.3); the Synod of Elvira, in Spain, expressly forbade the sacred ministers married to continue living with their wives (can.27; can. 33).
In the early Church, the problem was not whether to order people married or unmarried, but how to live, authentically, priestly chastity. The prevailing attitude was to choose unmarried people, hoping that they were sexually more virtuous.
Instead, the transition from "priestly status" to "marital status" has never been admitted into the Church, nor Latin (Catholic Church), nor Greek (Orthodox Churches). So, to say that in the ancient Church the priests could marry is nonsense; to say that the Orthodox priests can marry is another nonsense.
Priestly celibacy, therefore, while not a dogma, is however a valuable «gift to the Church» (Pope Francis), that the Catholic Church has developed over time and that has jealously preserved because considered that it was the best way to keep high the spirituality of the clergy. Anticipating the usual recriminations (homosexuality, pederasty, pedophilia, etc.) is necessary to recognize that, unfortunately, «however, not all are saints».

If there was the marriage for priests, today , perhaps, instead of discussing about women priests, we'll talk to grant the marriage to nuns and monks ...
 
2,100x10 children = 21,000 persons; assuming 2 soldiers in every family, there would be an army of 4,200 soldiers;

Nonsense. With an infant mortality of 50% and a wife mortality close to 10% you need a miracle (well many of them) to have 10 living children before 1930!
 
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