Personal ordinariate in the context of "Vow of celibacy"

As of June 21, 2024, the Catholic Church comprises 3,172 ecclesiastical jurisdictions worldwide, including over 652 archdioceses and 2,250 dioceses. It also includes various other jurisdictions such as apostolic vicariates, apostolic exarchates, apostolic administrations, apostolic prefectures, military ordinariates, personal ordinariates, personal prelatures, territorial prelatures, territorial abbacies, and missions sui juris.

In addition, there are 2,100 titular sees, encompassing bishoprics, archbishoprics, and metropolitanates.

Clerical celibacy is the requirement in certain religions that some or all members of the clergy be unmarried. Clerical celibacy also requires abstention from deliberately indulging in sexual thoughts and behavior outside of marriage, because these impulses are regarded as sinful. Vows of celibacy are generally required for monks and nuns in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and other religions, but often not for other clergy.

Within the Catholic Church, clerical celibacy is mandated for all clergy in the Latin Church except in the permanent diaconate. Exceptions are sometimes admitted for ordination to transitional diaconate and priesthood on a case-by-case basis for married clergymen of other churches or communities who become Catholics, but ordination of married men to the episcopacy is excluded (see Personal ordinariate). Clerical marriage is not allowed and therefore, if those for whom in some particular church celibacy is optional (such as permanent deacons in the Latin Church) wish to marry, they must do so before ordination. Eastern Catholic Churches either follow the same rules as the Latin Church or require celibacy for bishops while allowing priestly ordination of married men.

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory is a Catholic church on Warwick Street, Westminster, in central London. It is the oldest Catholic church in England (excluding those used as Anglican churches and then returned to Catholic usage). It was formerly known as the Royal Bavarian Chapel, because like several Catholic churches in London it originated as a chapel within a foreign embassy. It was built between 1789 and 1790 to the designs of Joseph Bonomi the Elder. The only surviving eighteenth-century Catholic chapel in London, it is a Grade II* listed building. The parish is now operated by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the British personal ordinariate for the Anglican Use within the Catholic Church, and acts as its central church.