There has never been any doubt, however, that it is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the Council Fathers explicitly recognised when they stated that "it is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood." Pope John Paul II took up this theme when he said at a public audience on 17 July 1993 that celibacy "does not belong to the essence of priesthood." He went on to speak of its aptness for, and its congruence with, the requirements of sacred orders, asserting that the discipline "enters into the logic of consecration."