- Oct 4, 2016
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A poster yesterday asked a whole slew of questions about the RC. I figured I would cover one because I think it is worth knowing about if you are RC. I will probably post some updates or modifications to the thread, when I go back to reading on this topic again (most likely in a few days).
(OK this post is based on some reading I did 20+ years ago so likely will be modified/ corrected when i get to rereading on the topic).
Roughly speaking about a century or so before the Great Schism is where the Celibacy rule change happened in the West.
The basic reason of celibacy in the RC of the priesthood becoming Celibate came from something I sometimes noticed as a Protestant, namely that sometimes churches, or parishes could essentially become a personal fiefdom of a given minister and his family. In Protestantism that sort of thing is somewhat understandable in that if a minister treats the congregation and church building as his own property in most cases it is also that he actually did the hard work of founding the congregation in question, but this is much, much less likely in the case of parishes in the 900s of Western Europe.
Anyway this was a problem in some areas because 1)the priesthood of a church was passed on like a hereditary right to the presbyter's son, much like any other piece of property (So the ministry is all about natural inheritance rather than a personal call to it), 2) This was a problem because it was a loss of property as far as the larger Church body is concerned (People who did not buy or build the property were using it like their own), 3) In some cases this led to a breakdown of Church discipline (by virtue of people thinking that they own the parish like an individual franchise they can run it like they want to).
Why aren't priests allowed to get married and have their own children?
(OK this post is based on some reading I did 20+ years ago so likely will be modified/ corrected when i get to rereading on the topic).
Roughly speaking about a century or so before the Great Schism is where the Celibacy rule change happened in the West.
The basic reason of celibacy in the RC of the priesthood becoming Celibate came from something I sometimes noticed as a Protestant, namely that sometimes churches, or parishes could essentially become a personal fiefdom of a given minister and his family. In Protestantism that sort of thing is somewhat understandable in that if a minister treats the congregation and church building as his own property in most cases it is also that he actually did the hard work of founding the congregation in question, but this is much, much less likely in the case of parishes in the 900s of Western Europe.
Anyway this was a problem in some areas because 1)the priesthood of a church was passed on like a hereditary right to the presbyter's son, much like any other piece of property (So the ministry is all about natural inheritance rather than a personal call to it), 2) This was a problem because it was a loss of property as far as the larger Church body is concerned (People who did not buy or build the property were using it like their own), 3) In some cases this led to a breakdown of Church discipline (by virtue of people thinking that they own the parish like an individual franchise they can run it like they want to).