“…when baptized he is attached at once to the rank of readers or exorcists, if, that is, it is clear that he had or has one wife and that he received her as a virgin. Two years after his initiation having elapsed, he can be made an acolyte and subdeacon for five more, and thus can be advanced to the diaconate, if during these times he was judged worthy. Then subsequently, with the passage of time, if election of the clergy and people designates him, he justly can obtain the priesthood and the episcopate.” – Pope Siricius (d. 399) Epistola Decretalis 14
The Second Lateran Council – 1139. Pope Innocent II voids all Clerical marriages. Had there been no clerical marriages beforehand, one would have to wonder as to the meaningfulness of such a canon.
There were many married priests and bishops of the Ancient Church, this is an empirical fact which can at best be explained away as an unideal series of mistakes. (The development of doctrine covers over a multitude of heresies). Even the Roman Church, perhaps the most fierce opponent to clerical marriages must blush when they look over their own history and discover that one of their Popes (Felix III) was the great grandfather of another of their Popes (Gregory the Great) or that Pope Hormisdas was the father of Pope Silverius. But things like facts don’t hinder the vigour of RC apologists (though Jesuits seem to like publishing nasty books without imprimaturs full of them).
The reality of the situation is that clerical celibacy was in the East the result of choosing bishops who had been monastics (thus celibate), and in the West the result of trying to end family dynasties that passed off Church benefices to priests and their sons (hardy a glowing instance of piety). Shocking to many Protestants (and even moreso to RC apologists) is the fact that there are still celibate Lutheran monks and Anglican priests who have been called to such a life and valiantly live it. In fact, Archbishop William Laud – who was executed by the Puritans in the English Civil War – was celibate and encouraged the practice of celibacy in the Church of England.
The development of doctrine is the notion Cardinal Newman put forward (Blondel beat him to it I believe, but he was declared a heretic whereas Newman was beatified by Papa Benny 16), that orthodoxy can grow and teachings which began in ‘seed form’ can develop over time and became more full (you can use any verb except “change” it seems). Interestingly enough, the development of doctrine was originally considered a heresy, since the fathers taught that only heresy develops, and the true faith, as St. Jude taught in the New Testament, was once handed down to the saints. A Church which allows this doctrine also immediately succumbs to a circular epistemology since the true interpretation of any past doctrine is the doctrine as it stands now. The living authority thus automatically trumps the dead Tradition, and innovation reigns. Quite perceptively, C.S. Lewis once told an enquiring Roman Catholic that he could not join his communion, since it meant that he not only agreed with everything they taught now, but with everything they would ever teach in the future. It would require a faith in the Magesterium not a faith in Tradition.
It is this type of a scenario which leads Romanists to think that St. Hilary of Poitiers – a married man who was elected bishop by his congregation – was actually a celibate and single man who was appointed bishop by the Pope of Rome. The same logic that calls Lutheran elections of married men to the episcopate unTraditional and ahistorical.
And I haven’t even mentioned 1 Timothy 3:2…or Eastern-Rite Catholics who have married priests… or the Borgias… another time.