Clergy celibacy

“ Their enumeration among abuses, in the second place, of the celibacy of the clergy, and the manner in which their priests marry and persuade others to marry, are verily matters worthy of astonishment, since they call sacerdotal celibacy an abuse, when that which is directly contrary, the violation of celibacy and the illicit transition to marriage, deserves to be called the worst abuse in priests. ”

“ An abbot was as powerful and independent as a bishop. But to make the Papacy supreme it was necessary to call in the aid of the secular priests likewise. Unmarried priests, being more like monks, were more efficient supporters of the papal throne. To maintain celibacy, therefore, was always in accordance with papal policy.
But Nature had gradually asserted its claims over tradition and authority. The clergy, especially in France and Germany, were setting at defiance the edicts of popes and councils. The glory of celibacy was in an eclipse. ”

“ The Roman Catholic clergy are still required to live in celibacy, unless the pope grants them an especial license to take a wife; and great numbers, both of men and women, seclude themselves in convents, from the idea that there is a peculiar sanctity in single life. ”

“ There cannot be much doubt as to the great benefit to the Church of a celibate priesthood, but it is a mistake to endeavour to force the facts of history to demonstrate that celibacy was of primitive obligation. It174 was always felt to be most seemly, and when Western Christendom became sufficiently organized to admit of the rule being made, the popes and councils did what was evidently for the good of the Kingdom of Christ in requiring the clergy to lead celibate lives. ”

“ It is important also to observe that the unmarried clergy of the East are held in much higher esteem by the people than the married Priests.
It cannot, indeed, be denied that at certain epochs of the Church's history, especially in periods of disordered society, there were too many instances of the violation of clerical celibacy. But the repeated violations of a law are no evidence of its non-existence. Whenever the voice of the Church could be heard it always spoke in vindication of the law of priestly chastity. ”

“ If children are "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity" there should be a law passed prohibiting any one being born once, thus making it impossible to be "born again." The clergy are so busy keeping the women in harness that they ignore other commands of the Bible. Celibacy is as positive a command as any that Paul gives. ”

“ Paul, which recommend celibacy as the more excellent way, so as to give honour to those who voluntarily so abode, that they might wait on the Lord; and in particular, to assume that the clergy should rather, of the two, be unmarried than married:—he will not permit the prejudices of a later time to hinder him from honouring those whom his Lord so delighted to honour; he will consider that the same cast of thought which leads men to scorn religious celibacy, will certainly prevent marriage also, which they profess to honour, from being strictly religious. ”

“ The rule produced sin and vice, and introduced moral discord and turpitude into the lives of thousands of the best men of the Middle Ages. In the baser days of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the current practice was a recognized violation of professed duty and virtue, under money penalties or penances. Yet the notion of celibacy for the clergy had been so established by discipline in the usage of priests and the mores of Christendom that a married priest was a disgusting and intolerable idea. ”

“ While it took many hundred years to totally exclude woman from the priesthood, the strict celibacy of the male clergy was during the same period the constant effort of the Church. At first its restrictions were confined to a single marriage with a woman who had never before entered that relation. ”

“ Some of them tauntingly desired the pope to see if he could get the spirits from above to leave their stations and come and rule the Churches under his Holiness, since men were not good enough for him.
The attempt to introduce celibacy among the secular clergy had been begun in the latter part of the Saxon period. We have seen that kings made laws and bishops made canons against the married clergy. ”

“ One needs only to trace the literary and historical sources of those centuries to become convinced that, on the whole, celibacy was a failure so far as the greater part of the clergy was concerned, and a still greater failure in so far as it affected the sphere of womanhood. ”

“ The New Testament gives us no intimation that, during the lifetime of the apostles, monastic vows were taken by men of any age, or by unmarried women, and hardly any of the apostles themselves were celibates.914 But gradually, as continence came to be regarded as a cardinal virtue, and celibacy as the nearest approach to the Divine perfection, a notion that the married state is not consistent with the functions of the clergy became general. ”

“ It is, however, futile to hope that celibacy and continence will furnish the solution of the question. The Protestant world has rejected the idea of a celibate clergy as incompatible with purity and the safety of female virtue. How, then, can we expect that men and women, “with their moral nature more or less stunted, huddled together in dens where the bare conditions of living preclude even elementary ideas of modesty, with none of the pleasures of life save those enjoyed in common with the animals—... ”

“ His spirit of defiance led him to clothe his demands in outrageous forms. On one occasion he declared in language resembling that which he made use of concerning the laws of fasting: “Even though a man has no mind to take a wife he ought, nevertheless, to do so in order to spite and vex the devil and his doctrine.” [308]
The Fathers of the Church accordingly found little favour with him when they required of the clergy, monks and nuns, not merely the observance of celibacy, but also the use of the means enjoined by asceticism for the preservation of chastity ”

“ Nobody can feel more deeply than I do the immeasurable evils of an enforced celibacy; nobody can feel more deeply the deplorable state of the Church which furnishes only rare and exceptional examples of voluntary celibacy for the sake of Christ. ”

“ The monks held that Christ and Paul both taught and practiced celibacy. In the early and middle ages celibacy was looked upon by all churchmen as in itself a virtue. The prevailing modern idea is that marriage is a holy institution, in no sense inferior in sacredness to any ecclesiastical order of life. He who antagonizes it plays into the hands of the foes to social purity and individual virtue. ”

“ During the fifty or so generations that have elapsed since the establishment of Christianity, the nunneries and monasteries, and the celibate lives of Catholic priests, have had vast social effects, how far for good and how far for evil need not be discussed here. The point which I wish to enforce is the potency, not only of the religious sense in aiding or deterring 57marriage, but more especially the influence and authority of ministers of religion in enforcing celibacy. ”

“ They may keep concubines and remain priests. If they take wives, they are thrown to the flames.
Parents who design their children for a celibate priesthood should emasculate them in their infancy, instead of forcing them, reluctant or ignorant, into a furnace of licentiousness. ”

“ The cohabitation of women with bishops, presbyters, and deacons prohibited on account of their celibacy.
We decree that bishops shall not live with women; nor shall a presbyter who is a widower; neither shall they escort them; nor be familiar with them, nor gaze upon them persistently. And the same decree is made with regard to every celibate priest, and the same concerning such deacons as have no wives. ”

“ Nevertheless, there is often a danger that we may lose sight of its essence—that we may look upon celibacy as a mere disciplinary law of the Church, made for prudential reasons, and our duty as merely to abstain from every thought or act which may endanger its observance— to look on celibacy, in short, as a negative rather than a positive precept, forbidding us to do this or that, but not adding anything very special to our daily spiritual life, beyond absence of sin. ”

“ Again, in the one Church, for the more devoted spirits religious orders and councils of perfection exist, and celibacy is the condition of all superior spiritual vocations; in the other it is yet in practice doubtful, whether councils of perfection are not inventions of the Evil One, and whether the putting forth of celibacy as meritorious be not an infringement of the one Sacrifice offered on the Cross. ”

“ The celibate is unencumbered by family responsibilities and expenses, and is therefore better able to respond to difficult and dangerous tasks, such as mission work in pagan lands and ministrations to the dying in fire, wreck, or plague, The Church does not denounce or condemn the married clergy of non-Catholic bodies ”

“ Such is the law of celibacy, which in the language of the Apostle, (1 Cor. vii.) takes away from the ministers of religion much solicitude, and enables them to attend upon the Lord without impediment. And such likewise are the laws relating to certain impediments of matrimony, or irregularities in the qualifications for holy orders; the design of which is to enforce the purity and decorum of the sacramental institutions. In this view, the precepts of the Church are no burdens, nor meant to be; but are means, devised in wisdom and kindness, for our greater sanctification. ”

“ The Injunction of Celibacy.―In accordance with a hint given by the Spanish Provincial Synod of Elvira in A.D. 306 in its 32nd canon, the Œcumenical Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 was inclined to make the obligation of celibacy at least for the Ordines Majores a binding law over the whole church. But on the other hand the Egyptian bishop Paphnutius, a confessor and from his youth an ascetic, stoutly maintained that the fellowship of married persons too is chastity. His powerful voice decided the matter. ”

“ At the outset it may be stated that celibacy as a prerequisite to admission to such orders was required of women before it was of men; and so in one way the profession of a nun antedates the corresponding profession of a monk, as the idea of an unmarried life had already made much progress in the Christian Church among women before it came into vogue among the men. ”

“ Women can treat him with greater confidence than if he were a possible suitor, and then can confess to him, which is felt to be difficult with a married or a marriageable clergy. By being decidedly celibate the clergy avoid the possible loss of dignity which might result from allying themselves with families in a low social position. ”

“ Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” ”

“ The clergy were set apart from the laity in several ways. The higher orders—bishop, priest, deacon, and sub-deacon—were required to remain unmarried, and in this way were freed from the cares and interests of family life. The Church held, moreover, that the higher clergy, when they had been properly ordained, received through their ordination a mysterious imprint, the "indelible character," so that they could never become simple laymen again, even if they ceased to perform their duties altogether or were cast out of the Church for crime. ”

“ That is to say, It is not permitted to men who are clerics in Holy Orders to marry after their ordination. Bishops must keep perfect continence, whether before their consecration they are married or not. Priests, deacons, and subdeacons already married can keep their wives and live with them, except on the days they are to approach the holy mysteries. ”

“ From the birth of the Church, out of the womb of Fear and the fatherhood of Ignorance, it has taught the inferiority of woman. In one form or another through the various mythical legends of the various mythical creeds, runs the undercurrent of the behef in the fall of man through the persuasion of woman, her subjective condition as punishment, her natural vileness, total depravity, etc.; and from the days of Adam until now the Christian Church, with which we live specially to deal, has made Woman the excuse, the scapegoat for the evil deeds of man. ”

“ the clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers. ”

“ and it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.” ”

“ 0 height and depth of purity, which fears so much that the children will not know who their fathers are, because, forsooth, they must rely upon their mother's word instead of the hired certification of some priest of the Church, or the Law! I wonder if the children would be improved to know what their fathers have done. I would rather, much rather, not know who my father was than know he had been a tyrant to my mother. I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of Nature. ”

“ Never was there a more injurious mistake than that it is the business of the clergy only to have the care of souls.” ”

“ "You are the child of my captivity. My profession condemns me to celibacy. God has sent you to me to console, at one and the same time, the man who could not be a father and the prisoner who could not get free." ”

“ In fact the clergy are at present divisible into three sections: an immense body who are ignorant and speak out; a small proportion who know and are silent; and a minute minority who know and speak according to their knowledge. ”