Talk:Clerical celibacy

message: Aren't Buddhist monks celibate?
: That's already noted in the first paragraph.  --Preost 00:32, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
: Not really, many, including the Dalai Lama are acually asexual as opposed to celibate, because they lack the normal desires. True celibates, like most Catholic priests, have these desires underneath but are repressing them.
Yeah right. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Buddhism has a long tradition of celibacy starting with the Buddha. If you want to bash Catholics then you have to include the Dalai Lama. One previous Dalai Lama had real problems remaining celibate. In fact he didn't even try. Child abuse in Buddhist monasteries in not at all unknown.
Comments such as the one I have deleted are completely unfounded and inappropriate. Thebike 03:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Buddhist monks

message: It was my understanding that clerics took a vow of chastity, but not a vow of celibacy.  Celibacy was a mandates practice, but not something which was vowed. john k
:Clerics do not take a vow of celibacy.  Technically, a secular cleric (i.e. a diocesan priest) makes a promise to the church, with God as witness, to remain celibate.  This is an oath, not a vow.  However, if a cleric belongs to a religious order or congregation, he takes a vow of chastity along with vows of poverty and obedience.  Those are direct promises to God.  Pmadrid 22:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vow of celibacy?

message: YES. Unmarried pastors in the ELCA/ELCIC cannot have sex. A pastor cannot cohabit without marrying. To say that they don't have to sign a pledge is irrelevant. To my knowledge, nobody does. Gay pastors don't sign a pledge, they just minister with the undertanding that they do so conditional on their celibacy. Same for straight pastors. I am not going to engage in an edit war, so lets resolve this here please. Carolynparrishfan 12:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it fits.  These requirements are found all throughout Christianity.  It has nothing to do with clerical celibacy.  It even generally applies to all members of Christianity -- the only difference is that they aren't responsible as role models in the same way a cleric is. Crushti (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Evangelical Lutheran Church in America|ELCA]]/[[Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada|ELCIC]]

message: It's a bit misleading to say that gay men are "bound by exactly the same rules" as straights. If the rules are no sex outside of heterosexual marriage (which is not an viable option for gays) then the deck is stacked. It gives a false sense of equality. The fact is that heterosexual Mormon clergymen can form loving, lifelong partnerships, and gay ones can't. I am reminded of the recent parliamentary debate over the Civil Marriage Act in which Jason Kenney asserted that the law as it existed then was fair because gays could legally get married--to members of the opposite sex. A novel argument, but silly and question-begging nonetheless. Carolynparrishfan 17:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mormonism

message: I'm gathering some information on apostolic tradition and early church practice on this subject. I'm new as a wikipedia editor, so you will have to excuse mistakes (non-technical, that is). (I hope I did the right thing opening this new talk section.) Doc 07:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  @ Thebike: To play Devil's advocate, what evidence do we have of apostolic celibacy other than Paul's?  Peter, for example, had a mother-in-law (Luke 4.38).  It has always seemed to me that 1 Tim. 3.1-7 gives at least permission and possibly a preference for bishops to be married.  This is not to dispute that celibacy was common in the 2nd century; but I would want to have good evidence for celibacy in the apostolic era before assuming that we can read the 2nd century back into the 1st. jrcagle 02:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early History 

message: I'm not a fan of celibacy in church leadership, but I can't imagine that this paragraph fits under the NPOV guidelines:
::Behind the image of a celibate Jesus is sexism that supports a social system giving men dominance. The thought of a non-celibate Jesus was an anathema to the Church Fathers of the first centuries who established the connection between sex and sin. St Ambrose wrote that, "The ministerial office must be kept pure and unspoiled and must not be defiled by coitus." St. Augustine (354-430) became the Church's greatest advocate for celibacy. He felt sex was always tainted and the "original sin" of Adam could only be passed on by intercourse and conception. St. Augustine said he considered an erect penis a visible sign of man's inner revolt against God.
I've tagged that section as POV with the hope that it can be re-worked by someone with specific knowledge of the issue. jrcagle 02:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Priests who had descendants had heirs.  Heirs were problematic because the sanctuary and other possessions of the local church would go to them.  By eliminating heirs, the church no longer had a problem holding onto property.
That is not supported by history and is rhetorically biased by basing a conclusion that is not related to the cause -- sort of like saying no one can shout fire in a crowded theater because the government wants to control how people think and what they say.  If someone wants to discuss heirs they must do it academically.
Needs More Facts Re: Success Rates (a la Sipe Survey)...?  I am having a hard time finding info to back this up, please help if you can: A while back I watched a show on viewer-supported LinkTV where a thorough discussion of celibacy in the Church included statistics that seemed to go farther, and were more recent (I think) than the Sipes survey, of how only 20% of RC Priests really are celibate, and the other 80% are "trying" but failing (either with use of porn/masturbation or people).  It went further still by discussing how this really created an environment whereby Priests were prevented from maturing emotionally and psychosexually - creating an accident waiting to happen.  If facts like those exist they should certainly be included in a wikipedia page on clerical celibacy, don't you think?  Personally, I would go further to say that society at large should take a more Parental point of view and not come down so hard on "offending priests" but steer them towards education and therapy, instead of prison or de-frocking, knowing how easy it is to cure (or make whole) offenders who come to terms with their own underlying needs (dopamine) and the effects of offenses on the populations they serve (be they adults or children).  Why is this just a history page, devoid of any recent perspective? -OasisMike I've learned a new way of thinking. (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celibacy in the RC church 

message: This article should be renamed Religious celibacy and the there should be as large a section dedicated to Buddhism as any other religion. I know that anti-Catholic bigots want to pretend that celibacy only exists within Catholicism, but the reality is that it is even more important in Buddhism. Wikipedia should not allow bigots to leave people uneducated on the real history of religious celibacy which predates the birth of Christ.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crashloans (talk • contribs). 
:Clerical celebacy is currently of much higher notability than celibacy in other religions. It is up to bigots to get themselves educated. To this end Wikipedia supplies NPOV material for whoever chooses to read it. -- Alan Liefting talk 02:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, certainly you can add material on Buddhism.  But if reiligious celibacy practiced in Buddhism is not clerical celibacy, then perhaps the celibacy of Catholic priests is the most prominent example of celibacy that can properly be called clerical, so it doesn't seem so innacurate to feature it prominently. Michael Hardy 00:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious celibacy 

message: There are reports that bishops and priests in Sub-Saharan Africa have special problems with celibacy because of ancient cultural rules that a tribal chief can never be celibate. I don't have any numbers or statistics on this, but it would be interesting if valuable information could be gathered on the subject. ADM (talk) 16:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Clerical celibacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

message: I recently placed a link to a blog that was talking about this exact subject from a Protestant, paleo-orthodox perspective but it was rejected.  Why?  The blog was thorough in citing its Scriptural sources, though it was undeniably biased (as apologetic religious articles are by nature).  Is there a way to put the external link back up, without having it removed?  I guess I really thought it fit the wikipedia guidlines.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by The.famous.adventurer (talk • contribs) 09:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Reliable_references#Self-published_sources. You are not yet "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications".  Lima (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: The social upheavals in some Protestant churches regarding the ordination of women and homosexuals into the priesthood has led to an increase in the number of Protestant priests who want to be affiliated with the Catholic Church. There have been some exceptions made for them. Is continence still required of them, or is this also an area where an exception has been made? Either way, should it be addressed in the main article? Ileanadu (talk) 17:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps what I have now added to the already existing mention of this matter is enough.  Esoglou (talk) 19:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been in the article for several years.  Search of the word "Protestant".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.152.136 (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Conversion of Married Protestant Priest

message: The Introduction of this Article states that the Church of the East does not apply rule of celibacy for ordination not too dissimilar to the Anglican Church ("The Church of the East has not applied the rule of celibacy even for ordination to the episcopate"), while under the body regarding the summary of the Rules for Christian Clergy condtradicts this by saying that they follow the same rule as the Eastern Orthodox Church which enforces clerical celibacy for the episcopate ("...Assyrian Church of the East follow the same rules that hold in the Eastern Orthodox Church..."
Which one is it and where are the sources regarding this?
Signed,
Former BabycakesBurger  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.197.27.82 (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for drawing attention to this.  As it turns out, both statements needed to be corrected.  Esoglou (talk) 18:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction regarding Clerical Celibacy for the Church of the East

message: Firstly, there is a lot of overlap between this article and celibacy. In fact, neither article seems sure of what it should cover. Celibacy's lead permits the idea of celibacy for non-religious reasons, but then restricts itself entirely to religious pursuits in the article. This article (clerical celibacy) attempts to embrace all religions, but really is overwhelmingly concerned with Christianity. The exact scope of each article needs to be determined.
Personally I feel this article should be redefined to cover only celibacy among Christian clergy. Sections for Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant clergy will be given equal weight. Other religions can remain at the end with a brief discussion and a link to celibacy, which adequately covers the topic.
Secondly, the section "Clerical continence in Christianity" is way too long and overwhelmingly focused on the Latin (Western) Church. Perhaps there is room for some of this detail at Clerical celibacy (Catholic Church) but even then some of it will probably be chopped.
Lots of other issues besides this. I'm a bit busy now, but I'll reach out for a request for consensus soon. 8bitW (talk) 20:43, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  A lot of work needed 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think this article should include a definition, since the term is frequently used, and appears to be the technical requirement that implies celibacy. But it's not clear how this word should be interpreted, or whether there's ambiguity in its definition.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acjohnson55 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is meant by "continence"? 

message: The article says: "In February 2019, it was revealed that the Catholic celibacy policy has not always been enforced."  This was known long before 2019.  I daresay it was known in 1019.  There were even laws about concubinage among clergy.--98.111.164.239 (talk) 09:06, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  February 2019?  Really? 

message: In October 2019, most of bishops at Amazonassynod in Rome said, married priests should be allowed in Roman Catholic church.
* Katholisch.de: Viele Bischöfe für verheiratete Priester und Frauendiakone(German), October 20, 2019
--Amazkatheneu (talk) 12:55, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amazonassynod in Rome in October 2019 

message: An edit about clerical celibacy seems relevant to the main article - edit was originally added to the lede, but afterwards reverted - the edit is as follows: 
QUESTION: Is the edit worth adding to the lede of the main article - or not? - Comments Welcome - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 19:19, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The first part "The requirement of celibacy [in the Catholic Church] is not dogma; it is an ecclesiastical law that was adopted in the Middle Ages" is true and covered in the article (eventually). The second part "because Rome was worried that clerics' children would inherit church property and create dynasties" is correct but only one of the reasons for this policy, whose very slow development is covered in the article. The motivations behind the development of clerical celibacy are not very well covered, but we should not be relying on, or atributing to, a stray journalist.  We need better stuff, properly sourced to historians. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant [[Clerical celibacy]] edit worth adding to lede - or not?