(c) Martimort’s Deaconesses (1986) “It is well known that, according to the ancient Latin discipline, priests and deacons who had previously contracted marriage were required, upon ordination, to practice continence but were not required to separate themselves from their wives. … In Rome, in the ninth century, [these wives] received a special blessing … and a special costume was even conferred upon them.” Aimé Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: an historical study (Ignatius, 1986) at 201, citations omitted, discussing the wives of deacons. Order it here. This passage is interesting in several respects: yet another accomplished ecclesiastical historian reports with aplomb that continence was obligatory for married men becoming deacons or priests in the West; there was appropriate solicitude for the wives of clerics lest they be cut off from the spousal support (financial, emotional, etc.) that they had a right to expect from their husbands, and for that matter, indications that married men should not be required to do without the personal assistance of their wives; and a special blessing and even manner of dress were conferred on the wives of clergy in recognition that wives too were making a great sacrifice consequent to their husbands’ ordination and would benefit by special sacramental support. (d) Brian Mullady, op, recently defended priestly celibacy in 2010, available here. I would offer here three emendations to Mullady’s comments on continence. • First, the obligation of clerical continence (c. 277) does not forbid married clerics from “consummating” their marriages, for consummation is a singular act (c. 1061 § 1) that would have been performed by married men long before they took holy orders. Rather, clerical continence requires married clergy to cease exercising their right to sexual relations with their wives after ordination (a consequence reflected by the twice iterated requirement—cc. 1031 and 1050—that wives consent to the ordination of their husbands, lest wives be deprived of the opportunity to exercise their conjugal rights within marriage without their consent). Clerical marriages, in any event, despite the observance of continence after ordination, remain “consummated”. • Second, I would assert less firmly the idea that clerical continence has its “origin” in the Levitical observances of the Old Testament. I think it better to say that clerical continence finds prefigurement in Levitical (or temporary) continence, certainly, but that the ‘origins’ or foundations of clerical continence today are rooted in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, as Mullady suggests in the rest of his answer. • Third, it is not so much, I think, “celibacy” that the Latin Church does not impose on Eastern Churches in union with Rome (indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, there is a growing question as to how much Rome, rhetoric notwithstanding, imposes celibacy on Western clergy these days) but rather, that Rome has not for many centuries expected continence of married Eastern clerics, despite unquestionably requiring it of her own, albeit relatively few, married clerics. The more pressing is sue for the Roman Church, therefore, is: to what extent will the near-total, post-Conciliar disregard for the hitherto undoubted obligation of perfect and perpetual continence for Western clergy, including those men married, continue to be ignored? Or, is the obligation simply to be abandoned? 14 Sep 2011.