Is priest celibacy biblical?
http://www.sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=478&newsId=743244
CATHOLICS are the only major Christian denomination whose priests do not marry. But when and how did it become so? Moses Mulondo finds out
MINISTERS in the Pentecostal, Anglican and Seventh Day Adventist churches are all married. In the Orthodox Church, some priests are married while others are celibate. But the entire clergy in the Catholic Church is celibate.
This has thrown the Catholic Church, especially in the western world in a crisis which is threatening its survival.
This is a crisis concerning sexual immorality or sex scandals among the Catholic priests who have taken vows of celibacy.
In March 2010, CNN aired a special report titled: “Catholic Church’s sex scandal goes global,” in which they gave reports from various parts of the world confirming that this leprosy is slowly eating up the Catholic Church.
In the recent past, almost wherever the Pope has been visiting in Europe and America, uninvited guests include crowds of people who have been sexually abused by Catholic priests to the extent that the Pope has made it his calling to apologise to these people for whatever happened.
Now if the cases of those who have been abused have become so many, you can imagine the extent of agreed upon sex between Catholic priests and consenting adults.
Of course, reports indicate that this same sin commited by these Catholic priests is rampant on all the other continents including Africa.
It should be recalled that the European Parliament made an unprecedented attack on the Vatican, approving a motion blaming it for the rape suffered by nuns in Africa in the 1990s as Pope John Paul II planned to visit the institution.
In Uganda, we have heard many reports of Catholic priests, who have fathered children, those who have died of HIV/AIDS and many accused of engaging in sexual intercourse.
But where does the Catholic Church get this teaching which has enslaved many would-be married priests who are quietly burning with the demands of nature?
Apostle Alex Mitala, the overseer of National Fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches, believes the Catholic Church got many things wrong as far as priesthood is concerned among which is the practising of the Old Testament priesthood of Aaron which creates a special priestly class distinct from other Christians.
“In the New Testament, Jesus is the high priest and all of us as long as we are washed in his blood automatically become part of his priesthood. The New Testament priesthood is not, therefore, based on whether one is married or not or whether a person went to a seminary or not, as the Catholic Church teaches,” Mitala argues.
Referring to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians, Mitala, however, clarified that if a priest decides to remain unmarried it is acceptable. It only becomes a problem when that optional practice is enforced as a mandatory requirement to priesthood as the Catholic Church does. That teaching is not anywhere in the Bible. Even great Old Testament prophets like Samuel, Moses and many others had wives and so did the priests of the New Testament like Peter himself whom the Catholics considers to have been the first Pope,” Mitala elaborated.
Mitala said he is a married man with six children and many other Pentecostal pastors are married and that in his observation, they may be better priests than those unmarried Catholic priests.
But Fr. Dr. Alex Ojacor, the National Spiritual Director of Gaba National Seminary, explains that the Catholic Church chose to institute that requirement for purposes of total commitment to priestly work.
Fr. Ojacor cited 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 where Paul said: “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband.”
Asked where in the Bible the Catholic Church gets the teaching that it is mandatory for a priest to be unmarried, Ojacor admitted that in the history of the Church, there used to be married priests, but in the 16th century, it was decided by the Catholic Church’s Council of Plates that the recommendation for a priest to be unmarried to be made mandatory. I also find it very practical because it helps you have undivided attention to the service of the church,” Ojacor explained.
Pastor William Nsereko believes since this is a generation of high sexual promiscuity, it is advisable that every priest be married.
“One of the key prophecies of the end time in which we live is that the level of sexual immorality would be high and that is why both Jesus and Paul called it an adulterous generation. It is, therefore, safer that each priest be married,” Nsereko argues.
Nsereko backed his argument with 1 Corinthians 7: 2, which says: “Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her husband.”
Published on: Saturday, 8th January, 2011
