Priests are known as the men who relieve people of their sins, bless newborns into life, sings songs of prayer and says the final words at a burials. They essentially walking one from the cradle to the grave-literally. The job of the priest should also include celibacy.
Clerical celibacy is one’s personal sacrifice of giving up marriage and sexual relationships, which includes masturbation and impure thoughts. Celibacy has been a requirement for priests and bishops in the Latin Catholic Church since the beginning of the eleventh century.
It is a tough obligation to give up human intimacy for the rest of one’s life. Priests receive tremendous amounts of respect for their knowledge and strength to forgo such a lifestyle.
Priests should be celibate because they represent and convey the life of God, not of his creations. It would be unnerving to know that the man preaching the 8 a.m. sermon was no more pure than any of us.
People of the Catholic faith go to priests to confess their greatest sins; priest see them at their most vulnerable. To know that the person one goes to for absolution is no better than any of us greatly shakes their faith.
The hands of the person distributing wafers and red wine should be the hands of a devoted and celibate priest.
Knowing that a priest is sexually active changes the perspective many have of their priest as the impeccable man that knows all the right answers of life.
Priests seem to have a holy allure about them and the fact that they are celibate plays an immense role.
Being celibate means one has the capability of self-will, patience and endurance. These qualities can have one be perceived as close to God.
Some can consider a priest or bishop to be an idol in their own right and their perception of that idol could be altered if they were to find out he was not celibate.
A priest not being celibate is like a teacher without their teaching credential or a doctor without their medical license.
Without fulfilling certain requirements, a priest can lose their credibility.
It would not be an exciting moment for the priest that just baptized a newborn to unveil his non-celibate life. The truth would be a disgrace to the Catholic Church and its worshippers.