CELIBACY (from celibate, Fr. Eat.
(If/an/his, celibacy. from eolcbs, bachelor). In ecclesiastical history, the abstention from the married state by the clergy and those who have entered upon the monastie life. The Roman Catholic Church requires celibacy ou the part of its clergy as a part of its eeelesiastical (Rs ( ipline. It. holds that this practice is of Apos tolic origin, basing this claim upon what it avers to ha ye been the constant tradition of the Church. and upon .-eVcrall lunenm1 texts. Cath ..lie writers make a careful distinction between the principles upon Which the law of celibacy is tounded and the changes which himy taken place in its application. These principle, are: (1) That the clergy may God with more free dom and with undivided heart. and (2) that being called to the altar. they may embrace the holier life of continence. This does not imply. it is declared, that matrimony is not a holy state, but simply that celibacy is a state of greater perfection. Matt. xix. 12. 1. ('or. vii. 32-40. and Rev. xiv. 4 are cited in support of contention: while the reference in I. Tim. iv. :3 is taken as clearly directed against Manielucan reprobation of marriage in general. it does not follow. how ever, that the Church is absolutely bound to im pose a law of celibacy upon its clergy.
In Apostolic times there to have been no legislation in regard to clerical celibacy, save in the one instance in which it was required of a bishop that he should have been only once married. ID the Second Century the veneration for the virginal life had become widespread, and a continent life for the clergy was regarded as proper to the ecclesiastical office, at least in its major order,. The rule for clerics not to marry after ordination seems to have been in force from very early times. for we find Paph mains, an Egyptian bishop at the Council of Nica.a (3251. while the imposition of a law of continence upon all clerics. declaring the ancient. traditional forbidding clerics to mar ry after ordination to be sufficient. That this was the recognized practice of the early Church seem well established. The Apostolic Constitu tions forbid bishops, priests. and deacons to marry. and the twenty-seventh Apostolic canon contains the same prohibition. The Council of Neo-Ca-sarea (between 314 and 325) decreed that a priest who married after ordination should be degraded to the lay state. A deacon could marry only if he had stipulated for such liberty at the time of his ordination. as provided for by the Council of Ancyra in :314. The Council of Elvira 1305) legislated against the marriage of all those who served the altar in any way, requiring of bishops. priests. and minor clerics a life of con
tinence, even if they had been already married. It was the application of this law throughout the entire Chureh against which Paphnutills pro tested at the Council of Nieira. Nevertheless, it soon afterwards prevailed in the \Vest. We find it so declared in a letter of Pope Sirieins t3S1). addressed to Ilimeriu, Bishop of Tarragona. The Third Synod of Carthage (3971 embodied it in canons. Pope Innocent I. laid it down in his letter to Exuperius. Bishop of who had consulted him in regard to it. Saint Jerome 0/9ainsf Jorinian) that a priest who has "always to offer sacrifice for the people must pray. and therefore always abstain from mar riage." Len. and Gregory the Great. and the Eighth Council of Toledo renewed the prohibi against the marriage of ,ubdencons.
The strict enforcement of the law of celibacy in the pontificate of Gregory VII. has occa sioned much dispute. Protestant writers gener ally, such as Mosheim. Potter. and Banke. eon demn the action of Gregory as an innovation upon aneient discipline. Catholic writers defend this pontiff. and hold that legislation was but the application of the ancient discipline with renewed vigor. There is no ,] old, that in Gregory's time conculdnage was largely prev alent. His immediate predecessors. Leo IX., Nicholas 11., and Alexander IL. issued stringent decrees against it. lint it \vas Gregory who most vigorously and surcessfully enforced this legis lation. Priests living in coneubinage were for bidden to say mass or even to serve at the altar; the faithful Were N‘arned not to hear their mass, and deposition was to be the pimishment of priests who refused to obey. A series of synods from the beginning of the Twelfth Century de clared the marriage of persons in holy orders to he not only unlawful, but invalid. It was now laid down that if persons in minor orders married they forfeited the privileges of the clerical state. However, 13oniface V111. (1300) permitted them to act as clerics, if they had been married only once and then to a virgin, had episcopal permis sion, and wore the habit of clerics. The Council of Trent renewed this law and again decreed the marriage of clerk, in holy null and void. In the Western Church at the present time orders can be conferred on a married man only on the condition that his wife voluntarily and fully consents to it separation. and herself makes a vow of chastity.