Married Popes

Our discussion on clerical celibacy, and how Emperor Justinian decreed no bishop or higher position could be married, leads us to take a look at popes that were married.

The first, of course, was Peter, long before the mater of celibacy was ever raised in the early Church. Peter's mother-in-law gets mentioned in Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38, and Matthew 8:14–15 when Jesus enters the house where she is and heals her.

Pope Felix III (483 - 492) was the son of a priest and was married himself, though he was widowed before he became pope. He had two children, one of whom was a daughter whose son became Pope Gregory I (590 - 604).

Hormisdas was pope from 514 to 523. He was also widowed before becoming pope, but he had a son who became Pope Silverius I (536 - 537).

Pope John XVII (six months in 1003) was married (whether widowed  cannot find), and had three sons who became priests.

Pope Clement IV (1265 - 1268) was also widowed before he even entered the priesthood, inspired by his father who had done the same. Clement had two or three daughters, all of whom entered convents.

Pope Honorius IV (mentioned here) was also widowed before going into the priesthood, and had two sons.

But now we come to the pope who was married when he was pope. Adrian II was married to Stephania, a Roman noblewoman, before he entered Holy Orders. They had a daughter. Adrian was 75 when Pope Nicholas I died in November 867, and the cardinals chose the humble and devout Adrian as his successor. Adrian, out of humility and (likely) advanced age, tried to turn down the offer, which was wise.

Stephania and their daughter moved into the Lateran Palace with Adrian. Unfortunately, there were elements who did not want him to be pope. Stephania and their daughter were murdered in 868, and Adrian died on 14 December 872.

The story of Stephania's murder comes to us from a contemporary German account, the Annals of Saint Bertin. We'll see what we can find there next time.

Justinian and Celibacy

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527 - 565) took a keen interest in Christianity, and he had some thoughts on clerical celibacy. His Justinian code covered a wide rage of topics, including religion.

There were a few reasons for getting involved, one of which was economic. The early Church allowed children of priests to inherit their father's possessions, which included Church possessions. Justinian wanted to prevent Church property from being divided up or lost to secular figures.

The imperial decree was that married men and men with children could not become bishops:

This is why it is fitting to elect and ordain as bishops men who have neither children nor grandchildren, considering that it is not possible for a man subjected to the concerns of daily life, especially those that children bring to their parents, to apply all his zeal and spirit to divine liturgy and ecclesiastical matters. [Justinian's letter to Atrabius, Prefect of the Praetorium, March 1, 528]

Priests were not allowed to marry. Priests that were already married were required to practice sexual continence; that is, they were no longer allowed sexual activity with their wives (or anyone), but were to live with their wives "as a sister." (For the record, Justinian was married to Theodora from 525 until her death in 548, but they had no children.)

The Western Church allowed a married man to move up in the hierarchy so long as he vowed to be celibate, but Justinian allowed no such option for bishops, because they needed to be free from worldly concerns and irreproachable regarding sexual continence since they were in charge of much more than priests.

A code of laws must also include a way to enforce those laws, and punishment is the proper deterrent. In another letter, Justinian wrote:

Though the holy canons do not allow priests who are much loved by God or the very religious deacons and subdeacons to marry ..., we see that some of them despise the holy canons and beget children from the wives with whom, according to the priestly rule, they are not permitted to have relations. The only punishment for such an offense has always been dismissal from the priesthood…let such men be deposed from the priesthood and from the sacred ministry, .... Clearly, if such actions are forbidden by the holy canons, in the same way the crime must be stamped out according to our civil laws; besides the aforementioned penalty of deposition, we order that not even children previously considered legitimate be accounted as legitimate any longer,... [Justinian's letter to Julian, Prefect of the Praetorium, October 18, 530]

Not only did the priest get defrocked and become an outcast in society, his children also suffered from "the sins of the father." 

The Western Church had a slightly different view, and for a time did not want to  disrupt the sacrament of marriage that had been established by God. Tomorrow we'll look at the last married pope and his wife!

Clerical Celibacy

The last post talked about attempts by popes to "monasticize" parish priests, preventing them from having families that could be a drain on church resources and potentially lead to sons inheriting or being appointed to benefices for which they were not suited. But was there a Biblical argument for clerical celibacy?

Modern canon law of the Latin Church (a faction that keeps faith with the papacy) states:

Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity.

There are deacons who never intend to take priestly vows who are not bound by this rule, but if they are married and their spouse dies, they are not allowed to remarry.

The Roman Catholic Church states:

All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to "the affairs of the Lord", they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church's minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God.

...but acknowledges that this is not the case for everyone:

In the Eastern Churches a different discipline has been in force for many centuries: while bishops are chosen solely from among celibates, married men can be ordained as deacons and priests. ... Moreover, priestly celibacy is held in great honor in the Eastern Churches and many priests have freely chosen it for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Curiously, these rules are not religious dogma; they are understood to be choices imposed by the hierarchy, and therefore are subject to change if authorities pursue that option. Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Protestantism do not require that their ministers be celibate.

The apostles of Jesus were not required to be unmarried. Matthew 8:14-15 tells us "when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his [Peter's] wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever." So Peter had a mother-in-law. Clement of Alexandria (c.150 - c.215 CE) claimed that Peter and Philip had children. Paul the Apostle, on the other hand, contrasts himself with other apostles by pointing out that some had wives while Paul had never been married. Paul clearly thinks his status is "better" when he write in 1 Corinthians 7:5-8:

Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

So "you can better devote yourself to God if you do not have a woman around" seems to be his attitude. Later in that chapter he expresses that an unmarried man can focus on God, but the married man has to deal with worldly things. The 3rd-century Manichaeans (whose enemy was Augustine) saw sex as corruption, as did the Montanists, whom Pope Innocent I tried to quash.

The first person to declare widely—and who had the power to enforce—that all marriages of priests were null and void and the children of such unions were illegitimate was not a pope, but a married man. Let's see who that was tomorrow.