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The Catholic Church considers the law of clerical celibacy to be not a doctrine, but a discipline. Exceptions are sometimes made, especially in the case of married male Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant clergy who convert to the Catholic Church, [10] and the discipline could, in theory, be changed for all ordinations to the priesthood.
The Latin Catholic Church as a rule requires clerical celibacy for the priesthood since the Gregorian Reform in the late 11th century under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, but Eastern Catholic Churches do not require clerical celibacy for the priesthood and the Latin Catholic Church occasionally relaxes the discipline in special cases ...
In some Christian churches, such as the western and some eastern sections of the Catholic Church, priests and bishops must as a rule be unmarried men. In others, such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the churches of Oriental Orthodoxy and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, married men may be ordained as deacons or priests, but may not remarry if their wife dies, and celibacy is required ...
Marriage in the Catholic Church, also known as holy matrimony, is the "covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized". [1]
The canon law of the Roman Catholic Church requires that clerics "observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven"; [1] for this reason, priests in Roman Catholic dioceses make vows of celibacy at their ordination, thereby agreeing to remain unmarried and abstinent throughout their lives.
Sacerdotalis caelibatus (Latin for "Of priestly celibacy") is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI.Acknowledging the traditions given by the Holy Spirit to the Church in the East and acknowledging some few pastoral exceptions in the West, the encyclical explains and defends the Catholic Church's tradition of clerical celibacy in the West.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was more businesslike in explaining the essentials of how and where the blessings could be bestowed, and that Catholic teaching on marriage and ...
Eastern Catholic Churches while allowing married men to be ordained, do not allow clerical marriage after ordination: their parish priests are often married, but must marry before being ordained to the priesthood. [19] Eastern Catholic Churches require celibacy only for bishops.