How do Roman Catholics interpret 1 Timothy 4:3

I don't think St Paul in this passage is referring to priests. He is writing about the Gnostics who at the time forbade certain foods, marriage under certain conditions, etc. The Gnostics were a heretical and ideological threat to the early Christian church, and many ancient manuscripts by the church fathers exists today as a demonstration of this fact. It seems like you're trying to draw a connection between the Catholic church and this heresey, but that's wrong, because Paul was forewarning Timothy about specific group within his immediate context, not about the rules the Catholic Church would impose hundreds of years down the track. (Priests even in the Orthodox church can be ordained as married men, and they broke off from the Catholics nearly 1000 years ago.)

Although Catholics are called to fast, this is only for a temporary period, as a sacrifice to the Lord. Abstinence seems to imply an indefinite fast, which Catholics don't do.

Don't trust a Catholic layman's interpretation of the Bible because if you get one, you're getting it from a heretic!

Nevertheless, you can probably figure out that the word abstain is not the same as anathematize. The message, that I get from reading GK Chesterton in a louder fashion than 1 Timothy I think is essentially the same. Don't mix piety with diet.

The word abstain here in greek is ἀπέχεσθαι and I'm not a Greek scholar man, so my diggings will always fit my assumptions, but my assumption here is that abstain doesn't mean "never" it only means "don't". Unfortunately, that was the opposite of what I wanted to find out because my brain was all twisted around your question when researching.

What I really wanted to find out was that Abstain in 1 Timothy means "fast forever religiously like a Muslim", what I think I found out was that it means "refrain from for a time" you can see for yourself by intra-texting the Greek.

So, I might as well not answer this question, but I will if only to illustrate how dangerous personal interpretation of the Bible can be. And why Catholics, I believe are logical and not spiritual about their vegetarianism. We believe what the Church asks us to do is for our own good, if we can't see the rationale then that's all the better because obedience is a virtue that needs more practice in our times.

But maybe the biggest point is that the entire church abstains from meat on certain days of penance, not just one Christian guru and his sect. If you view the Catholic Church as a denomination, then yeah, you've got a point, but if you believe that the Church is One; and a living, unified teaching unit that can create new disciplines (not new doctrines) then you don't have a contradiction.

St. Paul was talking about false teachers and not validly ordained Bishops. He provided a useful way to tell Gnostics from Catholics, if you don't have a Diocesan newspaper. I think that, to a Catholic, the Magesterium Catholic Church shouldn't be on peoples minds when St. Paul brings up false teachers.

So what is the Catholic understanding of this verse and why isn't it referring to their practices in these areas?

Let's address each in turn.

1 Tim 4:3 Considering the fact that Paul was one of the Catholic Apostles who were succeeded by the Bishops (we can see references to St. Paul & ordaining men in Scripture), the questioner's statement (This passage appears to list forbidding marriage and demanding abstinence from foods as examples of 'teachings of demons') that it is the Catholic Church's teachings that comprise these teachings is a presumption and not established.

Subdiaconate reference - celibacy is distinctly different from chastity. Catholics have always meant chastity to mean sexual purity so that even married spouses should live chaste lives in the marital covenant without being celibate.

celibacy - noun 1. abstention from sexual relations. 2. abstention by vow from marriage: the celibacy of priests. 3. the state of being unmarried.

chastity - noun 1. the state or quality of being chaste.

chaste - adjective, chaster, chastest. 1. refraining from sexual intercourse that is regarded as contrary to morality or religion; virtuous. 2. virgin. 3. not engaging in sexual relations; celibate. 4. free from obscenity; decent: chaste conversation. 5. undefiled or stainless: chaste, white snow. 6. pure in style; not excessively ornamented; simple. 7. Obsolete, unmarried.

Even if the initial decision was voluntary, the process seems to admit no possibility for a later change.

This simply does not deal with lived reality in the Catholic Church. There are priests who later understand they are being called to the married state. When this happens, the priest requests permission to leave the clerical state. I have a personal friend for whom this is reality and he raised a family for the past 30-odd years.

In regard to 'demanding abstinence from foods', I note that there has been a change since Vatican II, but we still have: On Ash Wednesday and all of the Fridays of Lent, Catholics over the age of 14 are required to abstain from meat and from foods made with meat.

Abstinence from foods serves the biblical purpose of keeping one's body and its passions under control. Note St. Paul's self-control in first Corinthians:

9:27. But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.

*Note - I chastise, etc...Here St. Paul shows the necessity of self-denial and mortification, to subdue the flesh, and its inordinate desires.

Treating on the issue of celibacy: there is evidence that the Gnostics (a group claiming the title Christian but were far from (I do not have my copy of Pagels's The Gnostic Gospels to give a more specific example at this time)) denounced sex, sexuality, as well as the consumption of meat as "of this world" and forbade it to all members for all time.

That cannot be stressed enough. Certain Gnostics believed that this world was created by the demiurge, a semi-deity which is responsible for the creation of matter, but also its infestation with sin. This lead to two camps among the Gnostics: those who taught that all things material, no matter how much the body needed them and no matter how beneficial to the individual and the community, were intrinsically cursed; and those who taught that the material was completely irrelevant, and so eat, drink, and sleep with who you will.

Given those cults as a context, it becomes fairly clear that the passage in Timothy is not talking about people who voluntarily give themselves to celibate life. A voluntary celibacy, even if it is codified, does not apply to the faithful as a whole (as do the teachings of the Gnostics). Similarly, a limited fast or abstinence from food (clearly declared good multiple places throughout the Bible), does not meet the conditions of 1 Tim.

Now, before we start discussing whether or not the Church has the authority to increase the time and conditions of fasting, it should be noted that there are no less than three separate standards issued by the Church evidenced in the New Testament (the original dietary laws, "refrain from strangled animals", and "so long as you do not scandalize your brother"). Surely this is binding the faithful to refrain from certain meats, yet the Church is not of the devil.

It should also be mentioned that St. Paul's discussion of widows in 1 Tim. has several markings of what we would now call a religious order. Specifically, 1 Tim. 5:11 teaches, "But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry". Why does it matter if a widow desires another husband except if she is supposed to refrain? And if she is supposed to refrain, then would it not be appropriate to say that she is under obligation, just as the unmarried deacon is in the Catholic Church?