Page "Clerical celibacy" Paragraph 39

The 4th-century Church Fathers Ambrose and Jerome pointed out that the passage in 1 Timothy 3: 2 – 4 did not conflict with the discipline they knew, whereby a married man who became a bishop was to abstain from sexual relations and not marry again: " He speaks of having children, not of begetting them, or marrying again "; " He does not say: Let a bishop be chosen who marries one wife and begets children ; but who marries one wife, and has his children in subjection and well disciplined.

You surely admit that he is no bishop who during his episcopate begets children.

The reverse is the case — if he be discovered, he will not be bound by the ordinary obligations of a husband, but will be condemned as an adulterer.