Catholic Priests, Chastity, and Marriage

[Ederico]

I would like some information on why Catholic Priests cannot get married. I read somewhere that this was not even a principle of the early Church but was introduced around the 1100AD or so.

I would like some historical and theological information on why the Catholic Church decided that its priests should not marry and on what was such a decision based upon.

Any help is welcome.

[Ederico]

No info from the Stirpes Members?

[Johnny Reb]

Ok, I'll bite. Basically, it came down to the fact that having a family provided too much of a conflict of interest for the priest. One cannot effectively administer to the needs of a congregation when they have a family to take care of as well. Dates/appointments could conflict, and family issues could take precedence over Church issues. It's best to just avoid the whole thing.
The other side of this, (and this is what forced the Church to change it's stance on priest marriage in the first place, though it doesn't apply now), is that in the middle ages, the priest owned the Church and everything in it. When he died,his estate would get split up amongst his children, which, needless to say, caused all sorts of problems.