It has recently been reported on TV, radio, and the print media, that a local Roman Catholic priest has revealed that he has been secretly married. (see for example http://penrith-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/glenmore-parks-father-kevin-lee-removed-by-church/; http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/church-dumps-priest-who-wed-20120501-1xxh7.html) He is threatening to expose other Roman Catholic priests who likewise are secretly married. Media reports say that since coming out, he has been excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. I have been subsequently informed by a Roman Catholic priest that this last point was poorly reported and the Catholic Priest was not excommunicated.

Anyone living a 'double life' is never good, either for him or his people, not the least for a Roman Catholic priest. However, the burden of blame in this matter clearly lies with the Roman Catholic Church and its cruel, unnecessary, unbiblical, anti-creational, and unwise teaching that priests and bishops are forbidden from marrying, and must be celibate for life. It's not that they see the single state as the best for ministry (which is true from one perspective: 1 Corinthians 7). It's that the married state is forbidden. This final point is repugnant to Scripture. Let me explain.

About the words 'Priest' and 'Priesthood'

The word 'priest' is an English word that developed as a contraction of the Greek and Latin word, 'presbyter'. 'Presbyter' is the word the bible uses (Titus 1:6), but through usage over the centuries it was shortened in English first to 'prester', then to 'priest' (Oxford English Dictionary; Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church).

Unfortunately, the word 'priest' has come to label two very different offices described in the bible. The first office is the Old Testament sacrificing priest (Hebrew 'Cohen', Gk 'Hierous', Lat 'Sacredos'). These priests were almost always married and had children. In fact, they needed to have children to perpetuate the priesthood, as only the sons of Aaron could be priests. This office no longer exists since the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

According to the New Testament, the office of 'sacrificing priest' under the Old Covenant has been fulfilled by Christ and his once and for all sacrifice on the cross (Hebrews 8-10). Jesus was both sacrifice and sacrificing priest. However, in the New Testament, the language of the sacrificing priest is also applied to the church as a whole and to every believer individually (1 Peter 2:5; Revelation 5:10), and metaphorically to those who preach the gospel and whose converts are a 'holy offering' to God (Romans 15:16). From passages like these, the protestant reformation developed the (correct) doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Every believer in Christ is a priest in this sense. I have been informed by a Roman Catholic Priest that 'The Catholic Church holds to the idea of a priesthood of believers' and they call this the 'baptismal priesthood'.

In church history, the second office the word 'priest' is used to label is the New Testament 'presbyter' or 'elder' (Gk & Lat 'presbyter'). This office is ongoing to the present day, and is a teaching and leadership office in the church modeled on the family. The only sacrifice in Scripture required of these priests is that required of every believer, which is 'to offer his body as a living sacrifice to God' (Romans 12:1-2).

The use of one English word ‘priest’ to describe two different offices is ambiguous, unfortunate and confusing. As a result, from 1611, the word 'presbyter' in Titus 1:6 was translated by the King James Bible (AV) as 'elder'. However, the Roman Catholic Douay-Rhiems Bible (RCDR) retained the word 'priest'. So the Roman Catholic Douay-Rhiems Bible translates Titus 1:6 as saying that Titus is to 'ordain priests in every city' who are 'the husband of one wife, having faithful children'. Priests are expected to be married and have children who believe the gospel. The official Catholic bible says so!

While Protestant Bibles used the word 'elder' instead of 'priest' to translate 'presbyter', the Church of England followed the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic practice of retaining the word 'priest' in it's formularies to describe the office of presbyter. These three churches share what is called an 'episcopal' form of government (they have bishops) and a threefold order of ministry. Those three orders of ministry are first, deacons (lit, servants); second, priests (presbyters, lit, elders); and third, bishops (episcopoi lit overseers).

In New Testament times, presbyters and overseers seems to be simply different names for the same office (compare Titus 1:6ff with 1 Timothy 3:1ff). However, with the growth of the church and the spread of the gospel, the word 'bishop' (Gk & Latin 'episcopos' or 'overseer') came to be reserved for the leading elder of churches in an area: the elder of the elders, the overseer of the overseers, and the pastor of the pastors. In those churches, there is a heirarchy of offices: from the laity (people) are ordained deacons. From the deacons, priests/presbyters are made. From the priests, bishops are consecrated.

About the marriage of 'priests' who are 'presbyters'

New Testament 'priests' or 'presbyters' were almost always married, as the above quote from Titus 1:6 shows. So were New Testament bishops: 'A bishop' must be 'the husband of one wife' (1 Timothy 3:1-2 RCDR). The Apostle Simon Peter, said by Roman Catholics to be the first Pope, had a wife, as did the other apostles. In 1 Corinthians 9:5-6, Paul says that he and Barnabas have the right to take a believing wife along with him, as do the other Apostles, the Lord's brothers, and Cephas (ie Simon Peter). Tertullian, hardly given to allowing Christians licence, notes that 'Apostles, withal, had a "licence" to marry, and lead wives about (with them)' (On Exhortation to Chastity Ch 8 in A Roberts & J Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Reprint: Hendrickson), 4:55). The Roman Catholic commentator Daniel Harrington agrees with me that Peter was married and his wife went along with him on his missionary travels (1 Corinthians: Sacra Pagina, 336).

Thus, besides Paul and Barnabas, the situation was that Jesus' brothers (who I take to be the sons of Mary and Joseph), the other Apostles, and Peter, were all married, took their wives with them, and their wives had the right of financial support from the church. Paul and Barnabas were single and unmarried, which from the perspective of the new creation is better (1 Corinthians 7). But the other apostles were married, which from the perspective of this creation is better (Genesis 2:18-25). Moreover, deacons, presbyters and bishops in 1 Timothy and Titus were all expected to be married. Paul himself, the single man, says that it is 'the doctrine of devils' and of those who 'depart from the faith' that 'forbid people from marrying' (1 Timothy 4:1-3).

The Orthodox Church allows it's deacons and priests to marry before ordination, but not it's bishops, and none are allowed to marry after ordination. The Roman Catholic Church forbids its deacons, priests and bishops to be married, either before or after ordination. These are also called those of the Latin Rite. However, priests who were born Anglican are allowed to take their wives if they are subsequently ordained Catholic priests. Likewise, deacons and priests of the Uniat churches (also called 'Eastern Catholics' or belonging to the 'Eastern Rite') such as Maronite and Melkite Catholics, who first went with the Eastern Orthodox church, were allowed to rejoin the Roman Catholic church and for their deacons and priests to remain married.

In contrast, all clergy in Anglican orders are permitted to be married and the 'husband of one wife' as allowed in Scripture by Article 32: 'Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God's Law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as far all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better for godliness'. Likewise, other protestant churches such as Lutherans, Presbyterians, Reformed, and Baptists permit their ministers to marry. They do so because of the clear teaching of the New Testament, and that marriage is part of God's good creation.

It has been said that Celibacy is a vow before God and is freely taken. No one is forced to enter into it. However, it is not a vow that God requires.

We have examples of unnecessary and foolish vows made in Scripture. Jephthah's vow to sacrifice the first thing that comes out the door comes to mind (Judges 11:29-40). God never asked or required that vow. Yet, as a result of the vow, Jephthah presents Yahweh a sacrifice analogous to pagans (compare the rejection of child sacrifices offered to Molech: Leviticus 18:21; 20:1-5) and which God never required. He should have at least broken his vow and lived with the consequences, or as would have been more pious, redeemed the life of his daughter at the tabernacle according to Leviticus 27:1-8 (See Daniel I Block, Judges: NAC, 377).

It could be argued that, on one reconstruction of the situation, the widows over 60 were required to vow to not marry to receive support from the church (1 Timothy 5:12). The phrase 'to incur condemnation because they invalidated the first faith' may mean that the widows over 60 on the roll of widows took an oath of service which either implicitly or explicitly involved a promise not to remarry (supported by the Catholic commentators L T Johnson and Quinn and Wacker and the Protestant commentators H Alford, D Guthrie and G W Knight). Alternatively, a quite tenable reconstruction is that it might refer to those widows who set aside their faith in Christ to marry a non-Christian (cf 1 Cor 7:39, and supported by the Protestant commentators J Calvin, I H Marshall, W D Mounce, P H Towner ).

Even if the first interpretation is correct (which I do not concede), it is one thing to ask women over 60 to promise to serve the church and implicitly or explicitly not remarry. It is quite another thing to ask young men to vow the celibate state and renounce marriage. In fact, it is the youthfulness of the widows that is the reason that they are not being put on such a list because they want to remarry. The whole point of Paul providing a minimum age of over 60 is that sexual desire or the desire to marry is for those women thought not to be an issue.

A Roman Catholic priest has informed me that 'Celibacy is a discipline in the Catholic Church, it is not a question of divine faith. Celibacy has not always been a requirement for ordination as a priest, but is a reasonably long standing tradition.' But if Scripture allows the marriage of bishops, priests and deacons, why then should the Discipline of the Church take away the freedom God gives? The only reason I can think is that the Roman Church is a Pharisaical institution, preferring the tradition of men to the teaching of God about marriage and ministry. Jesus says of the Pharisees of his day, 'You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the teaching of men' (Mark 7:8). By taking away the freedom God gives, the Roman Church church is doing something analogous. The Roman Catholic church must repent of this unbiblical imposition.

The pastoral implications of this have sadly been felt in our own day, with the scandal of clerical sexual abuse. While the propensity to sin exists in every human organisation and every human heart, and marriage does not guarantee the avoidance of sexual sin, an anti-creational imposition of celibacy will continue to contribute to the hurt of both clergy and those in their care. The Roman church ignores Scriptures clear teaching that 'it is better to marry than to burn with passion' (1 Corinthians 7:9), to the hurt of herself, her people both clergy and lay, all Christian churches who are tainted by association, and our society.

Roman Catholicism, with it contempt of novelty, has adopted the practical novum. The older practise is a married apostolate and clergy. This tradition should be rejected in favour of the New Testament and therefore more ancient practise.

The issue of clerical celibacy is another (but not the main) reason why all Christian people should leave the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and join a church based on the bible.