Directa Decretal

[1] It became the first of a series of documents published by the Magisterium that claimed apostolic origin for clerical celibacy and reminded ministers of the altar of the perpetual continence required of them.

[3][4] While priests of the East and West were required to refrain from all sexual contact by virtue of their presiding at sacrifices, this was an exceedingly difficult discipline to maintain.

Just as the Levite priests of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem had been required to abstain from sexual contact (in order to achieve ritual purity) merely for a lengthy period prior to the periodic performance of the sacrifices of the temple, so the priests of the Early Church were required by ecclesiastical law to abstain from sexual contact.

[7] Fifteen points are studied in the decretal,[8] but the key passage is: The Lord Jesus formally stipulated in the Gospel that he had not come to abolish the law, but to bring it to perfection; this is also why he wanted the beauty of the Church whose Bridegroom he is to shine with the splendor of chastity so that when he returns, on the Day of Judgment, he will find her without stain or wrinkle, as his Apostle taught.

It is through the indissoluble law of these decisions that all of us, priests and deacons, are bound together from the day of our ordination, and [held to] put our hearts and our bodies to the service of sobriety and purity; may we be pleasing to our God in all things, in the sacrifice we offer daily.