Before, Priests and Popes Often Married, But When Did They Stop Marrying?

• The Catholic church, with an estimation of about 1.4 billion faithful across the world, will be electing a new leader on Wednesday, May 7
• The position of the pope is for anyone who is baptised, but the next pope has always come from the ranks of cardinals since 1378
• While it is difficult to predict who will become the next pope, the tradition of celibacy for priests and popes has been traced back to the 16th century when the practice became a criterion to becoming pope

Cardinals across the world are gathered on Wednesday, May 7, to elect the next leader of the Catholic Church. The Catholic members across the world are estimated to be 1.4 billion.

Technically, the role of the next pope can go to any baptised Christian male, but every pope since 1378 has come from the ranks of the cardinals, who always elect the pontiff.

Will the next pope be a married man?

According to the BBC Pidgin, it is difficult to predict the next pope. However, it is practically certain that the next pope would not be a married man.

There has been heated debate within the church on the requirement for clergy to remain celibate. For centuries, there have been consistent calls for them to accept married men and women into the priesthood.

However, BBC Pidgin reported that their insistence that clergy should remain celibate has never always been the case. The early Christian Church, many priests and more than one pope, have gotten married.

How celibacy started in Catholicism

The people who supported the idea that priests should not be getting married have referred to Jesus himself and the four gospels in the New Testament, which did not mention a wife.

In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus also recommends celibacy for those who can hold their body for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven.

In the letter Paul reportedly wrote, the apostle says it would be better if everybody did not marry and practice celibacy as him, even though in his first letter to Timothy, he said bishops can marry once. Indeed, earlier Christians praised staying away from sexual relations.

St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, the two most significant theologians of the Church, promoted clerical celibacy as the best way of being dedicated to spiritual pursuits.

Road to celibacy in the Catholic church

However, the road to celibacy that has now become uniform and a rule, which is being enforced in the church, has been long and is still being contested.

In AD325, the Council of Nicea, Roman Emperor Constantine, discussed the practice of priestly celibacy, and by AD692, the Council of Trullo made it mandatory for bishops to remain celibate, not not everyone followed the practice.

Clerical celibacy has been one of the major factors that contributed to the "Great Schism" between the Catholic and Orthodox churches in the 11th Century.

The 11th-century Gregorian reforms and the two Lateran councils of 1123 and 1139 enforced the practice of staying away from sexual relations more seriously, and finally, celibacy became the defining feature of the Western-rite Catholic priesthood in the reformation era of the 16th Century and the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563).

List of popes in the last 110 years

Legit.ng earlier reported that Pope Francis has become the 10th leader of the world of the Catholic Church in the last 110 years in history.

The late Francis died on Monday, April 21, which was the same day as Easter Monday, just after delivering Easter Sunday's sermon.

The list of popes who have ruled the Catholic Church world in the last 110 years, from Pope Pius X to Francis, has been compiled.

Source: Legit.ng