Quotes about Priestly Celibacy

Frederick IV

It seems to me that the Pope's son, the Cardinal, is not in a condition for me to give him my daughter to wife. Make a cardinal who can marry and take off the hat, and then I will give him my daughter.

Naples was an independent kingdom before the unification of Italy. This quotation illustrates one of the lowest periods of the Roman Catholic Church where the personal morality of the Pope and Cardinals was greatly at odds with the earlier and current positions of the Church. This hypocrisy, nepotism, and corruption was one of the major factors that led to the Reformation. Note that the Pope had an illegitimate son who he named a Cardinal and the Pope wanted his son to marry the daughter of the king. The king was not enthusiastic given the son’s status as a Cardinal of the Church.

Quinisext Council

… those who have been married to one wife, if she was a widow, and likewise those who after their ordination have unlawfully entered into one marriage that is, presbyters, and deacons, and subdeacons, being debarred for some short time from sacred ministration, and censured, shall be restored again to their proper rank, never advancing to any further rank, their unlawful marriage being openly dissolved.

Note that the penalty for priests who married was not very great. By this Cannon, they would be forbidden to perform their priestly duties for a short while, and the marriage was dissolved, but they could maintain their rank, status and privileges although they could not advance further. This reflects the greater tolerance for marriage of the Eastern Church then the Westerners of Rome would allow. This grew to total acceptance of married priests in the Eastern Church but there were ideological differences when there was but one church.

Pope John Paul II

The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.

Alex Gibney

Jesus Christ never preached there should be celibate priests. The only reason the church has this is because it's a mechanism of power and control. You can control priests who are celibate.

Pope Francis

If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism were to review the issue of celibacy, I think it would do so for cultural reasons, not so much as a universal option.

William P. Leahy

The church may hold whatever it holds with regard to clerical celibacy.

Pope Gregory VII

The king of England, though in certain respects he is not as religious as we would wish, still shows himself to be more acceptable than other kings... he neither destroys nor sells the churches of God.. and he bound priests by oath to dismiss their wives.

Some politicians then and later were not as religious as the leading clerics would prefer. The quotation shows that priests commonly married at that time even though the church had forbidden it.

Gene Robinson

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone.

Jennifer Haigh

That renunciation of human closeness, of our deepest instincts: is it, in the end, simply too much to ask? Good men-sound, healthy men-can't make the sacrifice, or don't want to; has Holy Mother settled for the unsound and unhealthy? Has the Church, ever pragmatic, made do with what is left?

Pope Paul VI

Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes.

John Updike

Sex ages us. Priests are boyish, spinsters stay black-haired until after fifty. We others, the demon rots us out.

Priestly Celibacy Quotes