Priestly Celibacy

Many non Catholics believe Catholic priests cannot be married. This is false.

First, Anglican priests whom are married and then convert to the Roman Catholic Church still remain priests and still remain married. This also applies to Orthodox priests.

Second, even if it were not the case that one converted from Anglicanism or Orthodoxy, one can enter the Roman priesthood and still be married afterwards, and both his sacraments of marriage and holy orders are valid and binding. It's not common that this happens, but it does happen.

There are those who caricature the Church by saying she declares this something akin to dogma. This too is false. It is not dogma, but discipline, or how the church decides to conduct herself, which is certainly subject to change. This is important because there are some protestants who will point to examples of bishops whom were married, including Pope Peter, and say this is an example of false doctrine on part of the Catholics. Of course, it is not Catholic doctrine, and for that reason we openly acknowledge these people were married, and good for them too! The way the Church chooses to conduct herself has changed, and that's okay.

Still, some insist that there is a biblical mandate to not forbid people from marrying. They often quote 1st Timothy 4:1-5, which reads, 

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good,and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."

The idea is that the Catholic Church is that which is being described here. This is incorrect. First, as it already has been shown, the Catholic Church in fact does not forbid anyone from marrying. Secondly, we don't order people to abstain from certain foods, unless it is a sort of fast, which I think any congregation can understand. Because we don't do that, the Catholic Church is not that being described in 1st Timothy (logically in polish notation until I can figure out how to do symbols in html: c E (m K f); c=true, m=true, f=false, therefore, K=false, therefore, E=false). Thirdly, the text gives you insight as to why these things were banned by looking at the justification for their use. It says, in contradiction to those who would have these things banned, that they are good. So, those who forbade these things thought they were not good. But does the Catholic church teach that marriage is not good? Or that we ought to abstain from certain foods because they are not good? No, those were the Gnostics who said that. The church believes marriage is so good, it's a sacrament. So for those three reasons, this passage simply doesn't apply or affect anything concerning Catholicism.

Yet the charge persists. Why? It's because the Church asks those who take holy orders to also take vows of chastity. But since when is that the same as forbidding people to get married? Take a similar example, freedom of speech. The government is not allowed to stifle anyone's free speech. However, if you wanted to work with the government, and the government said to you there are certain things you are not allowed to say (like anything critical of the president if you wanted to work on the president's security detail) if you choose to work with them, would that be a stifling of free speech? Obviously not. Sure, in any other cases, that would have been, but in this case it is not. If, however, the government said everyone, against their will, was a federal agent and therefore, no one could be critical of the president, then that would be a violation. But because no one is forced to be a federal agent no one is being forced or forbidden to do anything. In the same way, no one is forced to be a priest, no one is forced to take vows of chastity (some even take vows of silence and poverty, so are these orders thus forbidding one to speak their mind or be rich?)

So there you have it. Priests can be married.