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 ...