Why can’t priests get married?

At first, priests did not marry by choice, in order to dedicate 100% of their time and energies to prayer and preaching – just like Jesus Christ. In 1139, at the end of the Lateran Council, however, marriage was officially forbidden to members of the Church. Although the decision was based on biblical passages – such as “It is good for a man to abstain from his wife” (found in the first letter to the Corinthians) -, one of the strongest reasons for the transformation of celibacy (as the prohibition of marriage) as a rule was what, already at that time, dictated the rules of humanity. Faith? None of that. Money! In the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 15th century), the Catholic Church reached the peak of its power, accumulating much riches, mainly in land. In order not to run the risk of losing property to the heirs of clergy members, the best thing was to prevent these heirs from existing. This didn’t make much difference to the monks, who, by choice, already lived in isolation in monasteries, but in some parishes the ban caused discord. The biggest of them occurred at the beginning of the 16th century and was one of the reasons why Christianity went through its biggest rift: Martin Luther broke with the pope and created the Lutheran Church, which allowed its pastors to marry – and still allows today (see the chart below). After the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church reaffirmed celibacy, defining at the Council of Trent, in 1563, that whoever broke it would be expelled from the clergy. The rule remained until 1965, when Pope Paul VI allowed priests to marry and continue attending the Church (without the role of priests, of course). To obtain this release, the groom priest needs to send a request to the Vatican and wait for authorization, which can take up to ten years. “John Paul II made the process more time-consuming, but Benedict XVI is clearing the table”, says theologian Afonso Soares, professor at PUC-SP. In addition to promoting such cleanliness, the new pope surprised, in August last year, by accepting that former Anglican pastor David Gliwitzki, married and father of two daughters, become a priest.