IS IT AGAIN TIME FOR MARRIED CATHOLIC PRIESTS?

IS IT AGAIN TIME FOR MARRIED CATHOLIC PRIESTS?

Scandal has rocked the Catholic Church recently on a number of fronts. The identification of thousands of child abuse victims by the clergy, the revelation of the number of children fathered by priests and the sexual exploitation of nuns have all made recent headlines. The Church is in obvious crisis! Some observers submit that the celibate lifestyle of the clergy is a relevant factor and there is some support for abolishing celibacy in the Church. How did the practice of unmarried priests and bishops evolve?

During the first thousand years of the Church, the Papacy was assumed by a very eclectic group of individuals. Some popes were elected, some appointed, some inherited the position from their father, some purchased the Chair of Peter and one was even identified as female.(Not a lot of consensus on the latter). Many of the early popes were married, many had children both legitimately and illegitimately. At various times during the early history of the church there were three popes at once, with different supporters, and at other times no popes because there was no consensus on a single candidate. 

The foundation of the Catholic Church evolved over this long period of time with a wide variety of honourable and dishonourable leaders who were very powerful figures during their time. Often using force, fear and influence, they formulated many of the underlying doctrines and fundamental tenets of the organized church. I would venture to say that the rather sketchy evolution of the Church was often molded not by religious commitment and theological debate, but more by expediency and the assertion of power that rivalled that of kings and emperors. 

For example, in 1139, the Second Lateran Council officially imposed mandatory celibacy on all priests. Every priest's marriage was declared invalid and every married priest was required to separate from their wife—leaving them to whatever fate had in store for them, even if it meant leaving them destitute. Of course, this was an immoral thing to do to those spouses, and many clergy realized that there was little religious or traditional basis for it, so they defied that order and continued in their marriages.

Another factor in the push for clerical celibacy was the problematic relationship the Catholic Church had with real estate and inherited land. Priests and bishops were not just religious leaders, they also had political power based on the land they controlled. When they died, the land might go to church or to the man's children—and naturally, the church wanted to keep the land in order to retain political power.

The best way to keep the land was to ensure that no heirs could claim it; keeping the clergy celibate and unmarried was the easiest way to accomplish this. Making celibacy a religious obligation was also the best way to ensure that the clergy obeyed. Catholic apologists deny that such worldly concerns were part of the decision to impose celibacy on priests, but it can't be a coincidence that the final push towards celibacy occurred when conflict over land was increasing. The final blow against priests' ability to marry was decreed at the Council of Trent (1545-1563).

The churches celibacy position is basically a man-made mandate! Nowhere does the New Testament explicitly require priests to be celibate. The Catholic Church distinguishes between dogma and regulations. The male-only priesthood is Catholic dogma, irreversible by papal decree. The ban on marriage, however, is considered a regulation. That means the pope could change it overnight if he wished! That was a very interesting revelation to me.

This simplistic summary basically informed me that priests have not been allowed to marry for only about 450 years out of the 2000+ years of existence of the Catholic Church. Is it time to seriously address the celibacy issue within the Church? Since the rules and regulations regarding married priests were changed once, can they not change again to better meet the needs of our society today?  What do you think?