St Paul's sarcophagus found.

[Brian Ellis]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6219656.stm

[Jessterw]

And this is why I want to be cremated

[Gurm]

Ahh yes. St. Paul, the man whose writings were so horrifyingly misinterpreted that they spawned an entire religion full of baby-rapists!

(Paul was the one that wrote the lines central to the Catholic dogma of celibacy. He also, of course, wrote the NEXT line which read "this is a bad idea". Funny how that second line has been removed from most Catholic bibles...)

[Nowhere]

Nothing's sacred.

[Brian Ellis]

Ahh yes. St. Paul, the man whose writings were so horrifyingly misinterpreted that they spawned an entire religion full of baby-rapists!

(Paul was the one that wrote the lines central to the Catholic dogma of celibacy. He also, of course, wrote the NEXT line which read "this is a bad idea". Funny how that second line has been removed from most Catholic bibles...)

That is utter nonsense, Gurm.

The RC church's view on celibacy is not based on anything Paul wrote, but Matthew's gospel 19:12 "For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

Paul wrote to Timothy: "Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences. They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving."

And to the Hebrews, he wrote: "Let marriage be honoured among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterers."

And to the Corinthians he wrote, "Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?" and also, "It is better to marry than to burn." (meaning he recommended celibacy if possible but he did not mandate it).

Even Jean Calvin, who was not exactly a Pavlian fan and was a priest before reforming wrote

In one thing they are more than rigid and inexorable, - in not permitting priests to marry. It is of no consequence to mention with what impunity whoredom prevails among them, and how, trusting to their vile celibacy, they have become callous to all kinds of iniquity. The prohibition, however, clearly shows how pestiferous all traditions are, since this one has not only deprived the Church of fit and honest pastors, but has introduced a fearful sink of iniquity, and plunged many souls into the gulf of despair. Certainly, when marriage was interdicted to priests, it was done with impious tyranny, not only contrary to the word of God, but contrary to all justice. First, men had no title whatever to forbid what God had left free; secondly it is too clear to make it necessary to give any lengthened proof that God has expressly provided in his Word that this liberty shall not be infringed. I omit Paul's injunction, in numerous passages, that a bishop be the husband of one wife; but what could be stronger than his declaration, that in the latter days there would be impious men "forbidding to marry?" (1Ti 4: 3). Such persons he calls not only impostors, but devils. We have therefore a prophecy, a sacred oracle of the Holy Spirit, intended to warn the Church from the outset against perils and declaring that the prohibition of marriage is a doctrine of devils. They think that they get finely off when they wrest this passage, and apply it to Montanus, the Tatians, the Encratites, and other ancient heretics. These (they say) alone condemned marriage; we by no means condemn it, but only deny it to the ecclesiastical order, in whom we think it not befitting. As if, even granting that this prophecy was primarily fulfilled in those heretics, it is not applicable also to themselves; or, as if one could listen to the childish quibble, that they do not forbid marriage, because they do not forbid it to all. This is just as if a tyrant were to contend that a law is not unjust because its injustice presses only on a part of the state.

The earliest reference to celibacy of priests was at the Synod of Elvira in the 4th century and this promulgated celibacy for the first time as a Canon Law discipline. It is NOT a dogma and never has been. Prior to Elvira, priests were enjoined to be married before ordination and many bishops and popes had children with their wives in the first 300 years of Christianity. Even the first pope, Peter, as claimed by the RC church was married (his wife's mother was healed by Jesus).