Is requiring priests to be unmarried biblical, wise, or neither?
The passage it turns on
Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife. Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn.
1 Corinthians 7:1-9In context. Paul answering the Corinthians on marriage: it is good to stay unmarried as he is, but each has a gift, and ‘it is better to marry than to burn’.
Paul wishes all were unmarried as he is and says later in the chapter that the unmarried can care for the Lord’s things without distraction. The Church asks that of its priests, and accepts for ordination only men who have discerned that gift. A discipline, not a doctrine, and one the Church could change.
Paul says each has his own gift and that it is better to marry than to burn; he gives the gift of celibacy no office. To require it of every priest is to assume a gift God gives to some, and the chapter is advice to a church, not a rule for clergy, who are told elsewhere to be husbands of one wife.
Press a reading to put the lamp behind the words that side leans on. The passage does not change.
What each side holds
Latin-rite Catholic priests promise celibacy. The Catholic Church calls this a discipline, not a doctrine: Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men, and married former Anglican clergy have been ordained as Catholic priests. Protestants hold that the New Testament assumes married leaders, warns against forbidding marriage, and that a rule that binds a whole clergy to a gift Paul says is given to some is unwise.
Both sides honour celibacy chosen for the kingdom, which Jesus and Paul both praised. The question is whether it may be required.
The points people make
Eunuchs for the kingdom
His disciples said to him, “If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Matthew 19:10-12In context. After the teaching on divorce, the disciples wonder whether it is better not to marry; Jesus says some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom, ‘he who is able to receive it, let him receive it’.
Scripture states it. Jesus praises celibacy chosen for the kingdom, for those able to receive it. Nothing in the saying makes it a condition of leading the church.
The Catholic reading
Jesus speaks of those who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven and says “he who is able to receive it, let him receive it”. Christ was unmarried, Paul was unmarried, and the Church has always held virginity for the kingdom in high honour, as a sign of the age to come.
“If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy,”
Jesus describes a gift received by those able; he does not attach it to an office, and the disciples he was speaking to were mostly married men. Protestants honour the single life and have their own celibate missionaries. The dispute is the rule, not the calling.
“Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God's Law, either to vow the estate of single life,”
This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer, he desires a good work. The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having children in subjection with all reverence; (but if a man doesn’t know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the assembly of God?) not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil.
1 Timothy 3:1-7In context. Paul to Timothy on overseers: ‘the husband of one wife’, sober, able to teach, one who manages his own household well.
Scripture states it. Scripture assumes married overseers and sets rules for their households. It gives no rule of celibacy for church leaders.
The Catholic reading
Paul tells Timothy an overseer must be the husband of one wife: not “must have a wife” but “no more than one”, in a world of easy divorce. Many of the first bishops were married; the Church later asked more of them, as it may, and still ordains married men in the East.
“not that he must have one wife, but that he must have only one wife.”
Paul’s picture of a bishop is a man who manages his own household and children well, which is how the church can judge how he will manage God’s. The qualifications assume marriage as the norm and nowhere hint at a celibate clergy; Peter himself had a mother-in-law.
“It is also evident that in the ancient Church priests were married men.”
But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:1-5In context. Paul warning of false teachers in later times who forbid marriage and command abstinence from foods, which God made to be received with thanks.
Scripture is silent on it. Paul condemns teachers who forbid marriage and foods as if what God made were not good. In the same letter he describes younger widows who “desire to marry” as having “rejected their first pledge” (1 Timothy 5:11-12), a pledge not to marry that he recognises. Scripture is silent on a rule ordaining only unmarried men; whether that rule forbids marriage is argued from its effect, not from the passage.
The Catholic reading
Paul warns against teachers who forbid marriage as evil, like the Gnostics who despised the body. The Church calls marriage a sacrament and holy; it does not forbid priests to marry, it ordains only men who have freely given marriage up, as a soldier gives up other things.
“priestly celibacy is not an unchangeable dogma but a disciplinary rule.”
A rule that no priest may marry, enforced for nine hundred years in the West, is near enough to forbidding marriage that the verse has always troubled honest Catholics, and some of them have asked for the rule to change. Paul’s warning stands beside the rule, whatever the rule’s intent.
“the prohibition of marriage is a doctrine of devils.”
My defense to those who examine me is this. Have we no right to eat and to drink? Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work?
1 Corinthians 9:3-6In context. Paul defending his rights as an apostle: he could travel with ‘a wife who is a believer’, as the other apostles do, and Peter (Cephas) is named.
Scripture states it. Scripture says Peter had a mother-in-law and that apostles took believing wives along on their travels. Catholics do not dispute it.
The Catholic reading
Peter had a mother-in-law, so he had been married; whether his wife was living is not said, and the tradition is that the apostles left all, families included (Luke 18:28-30). Celibacy was asked of clergy in the West from the fourth century and made law at the Lateran councils in 1123 and 1139.
“We absolutely forbid priests, deacons, subdeacons and monks to have concubines or to contract marriages.”
Paul says that the other apostles and Cephas took believing wives along on their travels, in the present tense. The first pope was a married man on the road with his wife. That is the New Testament’s own picture of apostolic ministry.
“this minister should not be forced to live without a lawful wife, but should be allowed to have one”
But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.
1 Corinthians 7:32-35In context. Paul continuing: the unmarried can care for the Lord’s things without distraction, the married must also please a spouse; he says this for their profit, not to bind them.
Scripture is silent on it. Paul says the unmarried can serve without distraction, that “each man has his own gift from God”, and that he says it to help, not to ensnare. Scripture is silent on a rule binding all priests to the gift; both sides apply these principles to it.
The Catholic reading
A celibate priest is free for his people, can be sent anywhere, and is a living sign that God is enough. The shortage of priests and the abuse crisis have led some bishops to ask for married priests; the popes have kept the rule while allowing exceptions, and the question is open in the Church.
“The researchers discount celibacy as a cause of abuse for several reasons.”
A whole clergy bound to a gift given to some produces men living without it, and the Reformers said so from their own experience as monks and priests. Protestants point to married pastors’ homes as the New Testament’s model; they do not claim the rule caused the abuse crisis, and the data do not show that either.
“far too many of the clergy were celibate but not chaste.”
One talk from each side, chosen for making its own case well. Each loads from YouTube only when you press play.
Bishop Robert Barron. 8 min. Bishop Robert Barron on why the Latin church asks its priests to be celibate. Open on YouTubeGavin Ortlund. 39 min. Gavin Ortlund’s Protestant critique of required clerical celibacy. Open on YouTube
Sources on this page
Every quotation above, with the page it comes from and the day it was read. Primary documents first where a side has one.