A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying from copies, and not the original books.
So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.
"You fuckers", he says, with anger and sadness in his eyes, "the word was celebrate!"
Seriously though, celibacy has never had anything to do with sex, purity and holiness. It was all about money. Mix money and the Catholic church and you get a mess.
Back in the days before Martin Luther, a sort of one-man equivalent of today's ICAC, blew the whistle on indulgences, the priests and bishops who were selling this shit became wealthier and worldier. Many were married and regarded the endowments being made to the church as their personal property which they passed along to their sons and heirs.
Then came tough Gregory VII. He told married priests they couldn’t say Mass; in other words, they couldn't be priests. To keep the money in the church, celibacy was born.
And it has just been introduced into the Australian Parliament, but only for Ministers of the Crown, which must seem hugely ironic for at least one newly-created backbencher. Not to mention the general public, as politicians have been screwing people left, right and centre ever since time began.
