Shrack, I think the major issues we're talking about here are authority in the Church, and celibacy; the latter being under examination due to the suspicion of the former to levy the said discipline upon the Church's clergy.
So, I'd like to take the time to discuss this in some detail, so that you might understand the positon of the Catholic Church in these areas. You are free to disagree with the conclusions I post, as you are free to disagree with me and the Catholic Church. Nobody says you have to accept the Catholic viewpoint.
Sit back and get comfortable, Gentle Readers, as this might get a tad lengthy.
Of course not. But we are not talking a commandment that was passed on in the Scriptures. We are talking about the Catholic church forbidding priests to marry when neither God nor his apostles ever demanded such thing from ministers. So, in your opinion, who has the last word? God, who permits ministers to marry, or your magisterium, who forbade them to marry?
But the problem that we are discussing here is the fact that the law of God, which permits ministers to marry, does not carry the same weight as the ecclesiastical law of the Catholic church. Since when do the laws of men take precedence over the law of God?
First of all, you repeatedly refer to clergy being allowed the option to marry as "the law of God", and you haven't yet proven to me, by means of Scripture or otherwise, that this is a "law". Scripture indicates that is
allowed, certainly, but the particular preference of the individual is a long ways from being a "law".
Celibacy is a discipline, which exists from the time of Paul, as I previously mentioned. It was considered mandatory in various early dioceses throughout the first millennium of Christian history, and was imposed Church-wide at the 2nd Lateran Council in 1139. The reasons for this are several.
For one, the Church recognized the teaching of Paul that a man who is unmarried can attend full-time to the responsibilities of the Church, whereas a married man has divided responsibilities.
For another, the Church has always insisted that clergy should be chosen by the
Church; (this is what the lay investiture battles, where some king or duke felt he had the right to "appoint" priests he was happy with, as opposed to whom the Church felt was suitable for the job, were all about); in the Middle Ages, the usual rule for a job being passed along was
primogeniture, meaning that the occupation of a father went to his oldest son when he died. There were cases of this happening with married priests; the father would die, and his son would simply take his place. It often proved, however, that the kid was not quite suitable for the job, either by deficiencies in morality or intelligence, and the Church, again, wanted men in Holy Orders who were fit for the job, not just somebody who inherited the position. Imposing mandatory celibacy was a way to clear up this problem.
And finally, by 1139, the West had been in a Crusade or two, and was hoping to send Christian missionaries to convert the Muslims. This was a vain hope, of course, but that's besides the point. With celibate clergy, the Church could simply send missionaries wheresoever she chose, without having to worry about dependents being unsupported for months or years while the missionaries were away. This is sort of an extension of my first point above.
Your avoiding answering to the truth of what Paul wrote. He said the church, the Christian assembly, is the pillar and ground of truth, not any magisterium.
Here is the issue of authority. You are taking this verse to mean "the assembly"----the whole Christian body of believers, who should come together and make decisions about issues in the Church. But it should be borne in mind that the Christian Church is not, and never was, a democracy. Take a look at the Book of Acts. Who has the authority when issues came up? Hint: it wasn't the whole assembly of believers.
In Acts 6:2, it was the twelve Apostles. At the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:6, it was the Apostles and the priests who decided what to do, not the entire assembly. And even in cases where the assembly is mentioned as being involved, such as Acts 15:22, it is still the Apostles and leaders in the Church who make the decisions, and the assembly merely gives its blessing.
The Catholic Church has always seen itself, through the teaching authority which it got from the Apostles (the Magestrium), as the final arbiter of matters of faith or doctrine. This does not mean the entire body of believers, but the leaders of the Church---the Pope and the bishops. The origin for this belief comes from Christ Himself, and parts of it can be found in Scripture. In Matthew 28:18-20 and John 20:21, power is delegated to the Apostles---not to the assembly. In Ephesians 4:11, the structure of the Church is shown to be
hierarchical, with those bearing the titles of evangelists, pastors, teachers, etc. on one side, and the body (or assembly) on the other. 1 Timothy 3:1 and 5:17 as well as Titus 1:5 indicate regulations for those in leadership positions; meaning that leadership of the Church is not the province of the entire assembly.
There are manifold examples of this hierarchical structure and its subsequent authority throughout the early literature of the Church. Ignatius (who died in 110 AD) wrote letters to the Ephesians, Magnesians, and Trallians, and in every one strictly ordered them to be in complete obedience to their bishops. Clement, bishop of Rome, said the same thing in 80 AD. The Bishop of Rome being in charge, and the bishops of other churches being in leadership positions, are mentioned by Hegesippus in 180 AD, Irenaeus in 180 AD, Tertullian in 200 AD, Clement of Alexandria in 190 AD, Origen in 226 AD, Cyprian of Carthage in 251, and Firmilian of Caesarea in 255, all of which pre-date the advent of Emperor Constantine, who, according to a popular Protestant mythology, "took over" the Church and introduced all sorts of pagan practices.
So the Catholic Church sees itself, through the Magesterium of Popes, bishops, and councils, as the final word on faith and doctrine---not the Bible, not Sacred Tradition, and not the assembly. The Church cannot and does not
change anything in Scripture or Tradition, but it does consider itself the proper
interpreter of Scripture and Tradition. Indeed, it was the Magesterium of the Catholic Church which, in a series of councils, decided what was going to be
considered Holy Scripture. They included the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John, for example, but they left out the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Philip. You are, of course, not required to agree.
Which brings us back again to celibacy:
Therefore, being the pillar and ground of the truth empowers the assembly to follow God's laws in permitting marriage to its ministers, and not imposing upon them celibacy as a requirement to enter the ministry.
Dismissing the idea above of the assembly having the authority, which we have already disposed of, the Church has the right as the final arbiter of faith and doctrine, to impose disciplines on the Church or segments of it, and to lift them as well. Celibacy is a discipline, which means the Church imposed it, and the Church can lift it, if she so desires. You might be interested to know that Catholic priests in most, if not all, of the Eastern rites, can indeed marry. This is a reflection of the absence of primogeniture in the ancient East, while in the West, it was prevalent. Ergo, celibacy is more common to the Roman, or Western, rite of the Catholic Church than it is to the various Eastern rites of the Catholic Church. Roman Catholic deacons are also allowed to take orders while married, and ordained ministers who are converts to Catholicism can also become Catholic priests while married. So, married clergy does exist, it is simply not the norm.
The difference is, Paul was not laying down a law in 1 Corinthians. He was not requiring ministers to be celibate in order to enter the ministry. In fact, he wasn't even addressing ministers at all but rather the congregation at large. And the reason for his advice was because of the "present distress" in verse 26. It was a temporary suggestion, based on the choice of the individual, and not a perpetual church mandate to be imposed upon ministers or ministers-to-be.
The Church hasn't laid down a law in imposing celibacy, either. Celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine; it is
forced on no one. Men who decide to become priests
freely choose to embrace celibacy; nobody holds a gun to their head. If they don't want to be celibate, they don't have to become priests. Any male Catholic is free to marry, to embrace Holy Orders, or to remain single. The choice is entirely up to him. But someone who freely chooses to pledge his life to Christ alone, and then changes his mind, saying, "No, I've decided I want to marry that woman over there", we equate with someone who freely chooses to pledge his life to a woman in marriage, and then changes his mind, saying, "No, I've decided I don't love this woman any more---I want to marry that woman over there".
please explain to me, then, why when God says marriage is "honorable in all," the Catholic church has made it dishonorable for priests?
Marriage is not dishonorable for anyone----it was the Catholic Church, after all, who, on the injunction of Jesus, elevated marriage to the level of a sacrament. The examples you have quoted are all originally from the Middle Ages, and are all those of men who have
already made their pledge to the Church alone, and then have gotten involved in a romantic situation. Which, as I pointed out, is seen pretty much like being unfaithful to your wife in favor of another woman.
Celibacy is not as easy discipline, and it is totally misunderstood by most modern people, who simply cannot for the life of them figure out why anybody would want to live their entire life without having access to "the wild thang" from time to time. It is especially misunderstood by most non-Catholic Americans, who do not understand the history of the Church or the disciplines within it, and who usually take no authority except Scripture, which they elevate above all. The Catholic Church does not operate under the said strictures---which opens it up to misapplications of 1st-century injunctions against ancient heretical groups being applied to Christians of later centuries, under completely different situations.
I realize I have probably not changed your mind one whit on this subject, Schreck. You will still come back and say, "But the
Bible says....." And that's fine, if that's what your church is based entirely upon. The Catholic Church is not. In the Catholic Church, the Church is the interpreter of both the Bible and the discipline of celibacy. We do not see the imposition of a discipline as a contradiction of Scripture; but we also do not see the Scriptural passages in question as absolute "laws", either. I do realize that your major kick in this whole thing isn't with celibacy, but with authority in the Church. We say the Magesterium, which you see as mere men setting themselves up as being superior to God. You say the full body of believers, which we see as a sure bet to another 20,000 different denominations, because if everybody has the say about what's right and proper, then everybody is going to have their own church. That's okay, I guess, but the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church doesn't operate that way. I guess the bottom line is if celibacy ain't your thing, then you hadn't oughtta be doing it. And if you disagree with the way the Catholic Church runs itself, then you shouldn't be a Catholic; you should be a Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Assembly of God, or any one of whatever you like.
I don't know if this helps or not, but there you go.
Blessings,
----Wols.