- "The fact is that prior to the sixteenth century the Fathers of the Church had no scruple in admitting that in primitive times the canon had no existence and the custom was not observed. The reader may therefore well be spared a disquisition upon a matter which may be held to be self-evident, and be contented with a brief reference to some of the authorities of the Church who, prior to the Reformation, admitted that in primitive times marriage was freely permitted to the ministers of Christ." p. 10
- "In little more than twenty years after this emphatic denunciation of all interference with married priests, we find the first absolute command addressed to the higher orders of the clergy to preserve inviolate celibacy. So abrupt a contrast provokes an inquiry into its possible causes, as no records have reached us exhibiting any special reasons for the change.
While the admirers of ascetic virginity became louder and more enthusiastic in their praises of that blessed condition, it is fair to presume that they were daily more sensible of a lower standard of morality in the ministers of the altar, and that their susceptibilities were more deeply shocked by the introduction and growth of abuses. While the Church was kept purified by the fires of persecution, it offered few attractions for the worldly and ambitious. Its ministry was too dangerous to be sought except by the pure and zealous Christian, and there was little danger that pastors would err except from over-tenderness of conscience or unthinking ardor. When, however, its temporal position was incalculably improved by its domination throughout the empire, it became the avenue through which ambition might attain its ends, while its wealth held out prospects of idle self-indulgence to the slothful and the sensual. A new class of men, dangerous alike from their talents or their vices, would thus naturally find their way into the fold, and corruption, masked under the semblance of austerest virtue, or displayed with careless cynicism, would not be long in penetrating into the Holy of Holies. Immorality must have been flagrant when, in 370, the temporal power felt the necessity of interfering by a law of the Emperor Valentinian, which denounced severe punishments on ecclesiastics who visited the houses of widows and virgins. When an increasing laxity of morals thus threatened to overcome the purity of the Church, it is not surprising that the advocates of asceticism should have triumphed over the more moderate and conservative party, and that they should improve their victory by seeking a remedy for existing evils in such laws as should render the strictest continence imperative on all who entered into holy orders. They might reasonably argue that, if nothing else were gained, the change would at least render the life of the priest less attractive to the vicious and the sensual, and that the rigid enforcement of the new rules would elevate the character of the Church by preventing such wolves from seeking a place among the sheep. If by such legislation they only added fresh fuel to the flame; if they heightened immorality by hypocrisy, and drove into vagabond licentiousness those who would perhaps have been content with lawful marriage, they only committed an error which has ever been too common with earnest men of one idea to warrant special surprise.
Another object may not improbably have entered into the motives of those who introduced the rule. The Church was daily receiving vast accessions of property from the pious zeal of its wealthy members, the death-bead repentance of despairing sinners, and the munificence of emperors and perfects, while the effort to procure the inalienability of its possessions dates from an early period. Its acquisitions, both real and personal, were of course exposed too much greater risk of dilapidation when the ecclesiastics in charge of its widely scattered riches had families for whose provision a natural parental anxiety might be expected to override the sense of duty in discharging the trust confided to them. The simplest mode of averting the danger might therefore seem to be to relieve the churchman of the cares of paternity, and, by cutting asunder all the ties of family and kindred, to bind him completely and for ever to the Church and to that alone. This motive, as we shall see, was openly acknowledged as a powerful one in later times, and it no doubt served as an argument of weight in the minds of those who urged and secured the adoption of the canon." pp. 42-43
- "As for the morals of monastic life, it may be sufficient to refer to the regulation of St. Theodore Studia, in the ninth century, prohibiting the entrance of even female animals." p. 83
- "The prevailing laxity, indeed, was already threatening serious dilapidation of the ecclesiastical estates and foundations. How clearly this was understood is shown by Pelagius I in 557, when he refused for a year to permit the consecration of a bishop elected by the Syracusans. On their persisting in their choice he wrote to the Patrician Cethegus, giving as the reason for his opposition the prelate's wife and children, by whom, if they survive, the substance of the Church is wont to be jeopardized; and his consent was finally given only on the condition that the bishop-elect should provide competent security against any conversion of the estate of the diocese for the benefit of his family, a detailed statement of the property being made out in advance to guard against attempted infractions of the agreement. That this was not a merely local abuse is evident from a law of the Visigoths, which provides that on the accession of any bishop, priest, or deacon, an accurate inventory of all Church possessions under his control shall be made by five freemen, and that after his death an inquest shall be held for the purpose of making good any deficiencies out of the estate of the decedent, and forcing the restoration of anything that might have been alienated." p. 95
- "As regards the secular clergy, even darker horrors are asserted by Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, and other prelates, who forbade to their clergy the residence of mother, aunt, and sister, in consequence of the crimes so frequently perpetrated with them at the instigation of the devil; and the truth of this hideous fact is unfortunately confirmed by the declarations of councils held at various periods." pp. 108-109
- "The nominal punishment for unchastity -- loss of benefice and deposition -- was severe enough to induce the guilty to hide their excesses with care, when they chanced to have a bishop who was zealous in the performance of his duties. Efforts at concealment, moreover, were favored by the forms of judicial procedure, which were such as to throw every difficulty in the way of procuring a conviction, and to afford, in most cases, practical immunity for sin, unless committed in the most open and shameless manner. Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, the leading ecclesiastic of his day, whose reputation for learning and piety would have rendered him one of the lights of the Church, had not his consistent opposition to the innovations of the papacy caused his sanctity to be questioned in Rome, has left us elaborate directions as to the forms of prosecution in such matters. Notwithstanding his earnest exhortations and arguments in favour of the most ascetic purity, he discourages investigation by means of neighbors and parishioners, or irreverent inquiries on the subject. Only such testimony was admissible as the laws allowed, and the laws were very strict as to the position and character of witnesses. In addition to the accusers themselves, seven witnesses were necessary. Of these, one was required to substantiate the oaths of the rest by undergoing the ordeal, thus exposing himself and all his fellows to the heavy penalties visited on perjury, upon the chance of the red-hot iron or cold-water trial, administered, perhaps, by those interested in shielding the guilty. If, as we can readily believe was generally the case, these formidable difficulties could not be overcome, and the necessary number of witnesses were not ready to sacrifice themselves, then the accused could purge himself of the sins imputed to him by his own oath, supported by one, three, or six compugators of his own order; and Hincmar himself bears testimony to the associations which were formed among the clergy to swear each other through all troubles. Even simpler, indeed, was the process prescribed not long before by Pope Nicholas I, who ordered that, when legal evidence was not procurable, the accused priest could clear himself on his own unsupported oath." pp. 110-111
- "We need not wonder, therefore, if we meet with but slender indications of priestly marriage during all this disorder, for there was evidently little danger of punishment for the unchaste priest who exercised ordinary discretion in his amours, while the penalties impending over those who should openly brave the canonical rules were heavy, and could hardly be avoided by any one who should dare to unite himself publicly to a woman in marriage. Every consideration of worldly prudence and passion therefore induced the priest to pursue a course of illicit licentiousness -- and yet, as the century wore on, traces of entire neglect or utter contempt of the canons began to manifest themselves." p, 111
- "The last extreme of depravity would seem attained by John XII, but as his deposition in 963 by Otho the Great loosened the tongues of his accusers, it is possible that he was no worse than some of his predecessors. No extreme of wickedness was beyond his capacity; the sacred palace of the Lateran was turned into a brothel; incest gave a flavour to crime when simple profligacy palled upon his exhausted senses, and the honest citizen of Rome complained that the female pilgrims who formerly crowded the holy fanes were deterred from coming through fear of his promiscuous and unbridled lust.
With such corruption at the head of the Church, it is grotesque to see the popes inculcating lessons of purity, and urging the maintenance of canons which they set the example of disregarding so utterly. The clergy were now beginning to arrogate to themselves the privilege of matrimony; and marriage, so powerful a corrective of indiscriminate vice, was regarded with peculiar detestation by the ecclesiastical authorities, and awoke a far more energetic opposition than the more dangerous and corrupting forms of illicit indulgence. The pastor who intrigued in secret with his penitents and parishioners was scattering the seeds of death in place of the bread of life, and was abusing his holy trust to destroy the souls confided to his charge, but this worked on damage to the temporal interests of the Church at large. The priest who, in honest ignorance of the canons, took to himself a wife, and endeavored faithfully to perform the duties of his humble sphere, could scarcely avoid seeking the comfort and worldly welfare of his offspring, and this exposed the common property of all to dilapidation and embezzlement. Disinterested virtue would perhaps not be long in making a selection between the comparative evils, but disinterested virtue was not a distinguishing characteristic of the age.
Yet a motive of even greater importance than this rendered matrimony more objectionable than concubinage or licentiousness. By the overwhelming tendency of the age, all possessions previously held by laymen on precarious tenure were rapidly becoming hereditary. As the royal power slipped from hands unable to retain it, offices, dignities, and lands became the property of the holders, and were transmitted from father to son. Had marriage been openly permitted to ecclesiastics, their functions and benefices would undoubtedly have followed the example. An hereditary caste would have been established, who would have held the church and lands of right; independent of the central authority, all unity would have been destroyed, and the collective power of the Church would have disappeared. Having nothing to gain from obedience, submission to control would have become the exception and, laymen in all but name, the ecclesiastics would have had no incentive to perform their functions, except what little influence, under such circumstances, might have been retained over the people by maintaining the sacred character thus rendered a mockery.
In an age when everything was unsettled, yet with tendencies so strongly marked, it thus became a matter of vital importance to the Church to prevent anything like hereditary occupation of benefices or private appropriation of property, and against these abuses its strongest efforts were directed. The struggle lasted for centuries, and it may perhaps be fortunate for our civilization that sacerdotalism triumphed, even at the expense of what at the moment was of greater importance. " pp. 114 - 116
- "Such, at the opening of the eleventh century, was the condition of the Church as regards ascetic celibacy. Though the ancient canons were still theoretically in force, they were practically obsolete everywhere. Legitimate marriage or promiscuous profligacy was almost universal, in some places unconcealed, in others covered with a thin veil of hypocrisy, according as the temper of the ruling might be indulgent or severe." p. 126
- "They thus became offenders of a far deeper dye, for the principles of the Church led irrevocably to the conclusion, paradoxical as it may seem, that he who guilty of immorality, knowing it to be wrong, was far less criminal than he who married, believing it to be right. What before had been a transgression, to be redeemed by penance and repentance, became heresy -- an awful word in those fierce times." p. 162
- "Perhaps in this there may have been an unrecognized motive urging him [Hildebrand / Pope Gregory] to action. Sprung from so humble an origin, he may have sympathized with the democratic element, which rendered the Church the only career open to peasant and plebeian. He may have felt that this was a source of hidden power, as binding the populations more closely to the Church, and as enabling it to press into service an unknown amount of fresh and vigorous talent belonging to men who would owe everything to the establishment which had raised them from nothingness, and who would have no relationships to embrace their devotion. All this would be lost if, by legalizing marriage, the hereditary transmission of benefices generally resulting should convert the Church into a separate caste of individual proprietors, having only general interests in common, and lazily luxuriating on the proceeds of former popular benefice. To us, retrospectively philosophizing, it further appears evident that if celibacy were an efficient agent in obtaining for the Church the immense temporal power and spiritual authority which it enjoyed, that very power and that authority rendered celibacy a factor not devoid of advantage to the progress of civilization. When even the humblest priest came to be regarded as a superior being, holding the keys of heaven in his hand, and by the machinery of confession, absolution, and excommunication wielding incalculable influence over each member of his flock, it was well for both parties that the ecclesiastic should be free from the ties of family and the vulgar ambition of race. It is easy to see how the Churchmen could have selected matrimonial alliances of politic and aggrandizing character; and as possession of property and hereditary transmission of benefices would have followed on the permission to marry, an ecclesiastical caste, combining temporal and spiritual power to a dangerous excess, might have repeated in Europe the distinctions between the Brahman and Sudra of India. The perpetual admission of self-made men into the hierarchy, which distinguished the Church even in times of the most aristocratic feudalism, was for ages the only practical recognition of the equality of man. If, therefore, the Church was to attain the theocratic supremacy which was the object of its ambition, sacerdotal celibacy was not only an element necessary to its success, but a safeguard against the development of an hereditary ecclesiastical aristocracy which might have proved fatal to intellectual and social progress." p. 183-184
- "In 1089, the year after his consecration, Urban published at the Council of Amalfi a decree by which, as usual, married ecclesiastics were sentenced to deposition, and bishops who permitted such irregularities were suspended; but where Gregory had been content with ejecting husbands and wives, and with empowering secular rulers to enforce the edict on recalcitrants, Urban, with a refinement of cruelty, reduced the unfortunate women to slavery, and offered their servitude as a bribe to the nobles who should aid in thus purifying the Church." p. 198
- "The description which Ivo of Chartres gives of the convent of St. Fara shows a promiscuous and shameless prostitution on the part of the nuns of that institution even more degrading. Instances like these could be almost indefinitely multiplied . . . " p. 219
- "The immediate effect of the reformation thus inaugurated may perhaps be judged with sufficient accuracy by the incident of Abelard and Heloise, which occurred about this period. That Ableard was a canon when that immortal love arose, was to, in such a state of morals, any impediment to the gratification of his passion, nor did it diminish the satisfaction of the canon Fulbert at the marriage of his niece, for such marriages, as yet, were valid by ecclesiastical law. In her marvellous self-abnegation, however, Heloise recognized that while the fact of his openly keeping a mistress, and acknowledging Astrolabius as his illegitimate son, would be no bar to his preferment, and would leave open to him a career equal to the dreams of his ambition, yet to admit that he had sanctified their love by marriage, and had repaired, as far as possible, the wrong which he had committed, would ruin his prospects for ever. From a worldly point of view it was better for him, as a Churchman, to have the reputation of shameless immorality than that of a loving and pious husband; and this was so evidently a matter of course that she willingly sacrificed everything, and practiced every deceit, that he might be considered a reckless libertine, who had refused her the only reparation in his power. Such was the standard of morals created by the Church, and such were the conclusions inevitably drawn from them." p. 223
- "The example which King John had set, however instructive, was not appreciated by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the "focariae" were allowed to remain virtually undisturbed, at least to such an extent as to render them almost universal. Although by rigid Churchmen they were regarded as mere concubines, there can be little doubt that the tie between them and the priests was of a binding nature, which appears to have wanted none of the rites essential to its entire respectability. Giraldus Cambrensis, who died at an advanced age about the year 1220, speak of these companions being publicly maintained by nearly all the parish priests in England and Wales. They arranged to have their benefices transmitted to their sons, while their daughters were married to the sons of other priests, thus establishing an hereditary sacerdotal caste in which marriage appears to have been a matter of course." pp. 237-238
- "In a former section we have seen the efforts made by Calixtus II to enforce the received discipline of the Church, and we have noted the scanty measure of success which attended his labours. He himself apparently recognized that they were futile, and that some action of more decided character than had as yet been attempted was necessary to accomplish the results so long and so energetically sought, and so illusory to its ardent pursuers. On his return to Italy, and his triumph over his unfortunate rival, the anti-pope Maurice Burdino, he summoned, in 1123, the first general council of the West, to confirm the Concordat of Worms, which had just closed half a century of strife between the papacy and the empire. Nearly a thousand prelates obeyed his call, and that august assembly promulgated a canon which not only forbade matrimony to those bound by vows and holy orders, but commanded that if such marriages were contracted they should be broken, and the parties to them subjected to due penance.
This was a bold innovation. With the exception of a decretal of Urban II in 1090, to which little attention seems to have been paid, we have seen that, previous to Calixtus, while the sacrament of marriage was held incompatible with the ministry of the altar and with the enjoyment of Church property, it yet was respected and its binding force was admitted, even to the point of rendering those who assumed it unfitted for their sacred functions. At most, and as a concession to a lax and irreligious generation, the option had been allowed of abandoning either the wife or the ministry. At Rheims, Calixtus had deprived them of this choice, and had ordered their separation from their wives. He now went a step further, and by the Lateran canon he declared the sacrament of marriage to be less potent than the religious vow: the engagement with the Church swallowed up and destroyed all other ties. This gave the final seal to the separation between the clergy and the laity, by declaring the priestly character to be indelible. When once admitted to orders, he became a being set apart from his fellows, consecrated to the service of God; and the impassable gulf between him and the laity bound him for ever to the exclusive interests of the Church. It is easy to perceive how important an element this irrevocable nature of sacerdotalism became in establishing and consolidating the ecclesiastical power.
The immensity of the change thus wrought in the practice, if not in the doctrine, of the Church can best be understood by comparing the formal command thus issued to the Christian world with the unqualified condemnation pronounced in earlier times against those who attempted to dissolve marriage under religious pretexts. And in all ages the Church has regarded chastity of the monastic orders as even more imperative than that of the secular clergy." p. 264 - 265
- "By destroying all such marriages, pronouncing them null and void, inflicting an ineffaceable stigma on wife and off-spring, subjecting the woman to the certainty of being cast off without resource and without option on the part of the husband, the position of the wife of an ecclesiastic would become most unenviable; her kindred would prevent her from exposing herself to such calamities, and no priest could succeed in finding a consort above the lowest class, whose union with him would expose him to the contempt of his flock." p. 268
- "It is somewhat significant that when, in France, the rule of celibacy was completely restored, strict Churchmen should have found it necessary also to revive the hideously suggestive restriction which denied to the priest the society of his mother or of his sister. Even in the profoundest barbarism of the tenth century, or the unbridled licence of the eleventh; even when Damiani descanted upon the disorders of his contemporaries with all the cynicism of the most exalted asceticism, horrors such as these are not alluded to. It is reserved for the advancement of the thirteenth century and the enforcement of celibacy to show us how outraged human nature may revenge itself and protest against the shackles imposed by zealous sacerdotalism or unreasoning bigotry." pp. 280-281
- "If the irregular though permanent connections which everywhere prevailed had been the only result of the prohibition of marriage, there might perhaps have been little practical evil flowing from it, except to the Church itself and to its guilty members. When the desires of man, however, are once tempted to seek through unlawful means the relief denied to them by artificial rules, it is not easy to set bounds to the unbridled passions which, irritated by the fruitless effort at repression, are no longer restrained by a law which has been broken or a conscience which has lost its power. The records of the Middle Ages are accordingly full of the evidences that indiscriminate licence of the worst kind prevailed throughout every rank of the hierarchy.
Even supposing that this fearful immorality were not attributable to the immutable laws of nature revenging themselves for their attempted violation, it could readily be explained by the example set by the central head. Scarcely had the efforts of Nicholas and Gregory put an end to sacerdotal marriage in Rome when the morals of the Roman clergy became a disgrace to Christendom." pp. 289-290
- Discusses jus primea noctis or droit de marquette on page 300. In a footnote, Lea mentions that DuCange s.v. Marcheta gives abundant proof of its existence. Lea also footnotes Lagreze's Historie du Devil dans les Pyrénées.
- "Nunneries were brothels, and to take the veil was simply another mode of becoming a public prostitute." p. 328
- "The opening of the sixteenth century witnessed an ominous breaking down of the landmarks of thought. The revival of letters, which was fast rendering learning the possession of all men in place of the special province of the legal and clerical professions; the discovery of America, which destroyed reverence for primeval tradition, and accustomed men's minds to the idea that startling novelties might yet be truths; the invention of printing, which placed within the reach of all inquirers who had a tincture of education the sacred writings for investigation and interpretation, and enabled the thinker and the innovator at once to command an audience and disseminate his views in remote regions; the European wars, commencing with the Neapolitan conquest of Charles VIII, which brought the nations into closer contact with each other, and carried the seeds of culture, civilization, and unbelief from Italy to the farthest Thule -- all these causes, with others less notable, had been silently but effectually wearing out the remnants of that pious and unquestioning veneration which for ages had lain like a spell on the human mind.
In this bustling movement of politics and commerce, arts and arms, science and letters, religion could not expect to escape the spirit of universal inquiry." p. 348
- "It would be a mistake to credit Luther with the Reformation. His bold spirit and masculine character gave to him the front place, and drew around him the less daring minds who were glad to have a leader to whom to refer their doubts, and on whom their responsibility might partly rest; yet Luther was but the exponent of a public sentiment which had long been gaining strength, and which in any case would not have lacked expression. In that great movement of the human mind he was not the cause, but the instrument. Had his great opponent Erasmus enjoyed the physical vigour and practical boldness of Luther, he would have been handed down as the heresiarch of the sixteenth century. He too had borne his full share in preparing the minds of men for what was to come. The whole structure of sacerdotalism felt the blows of his irreverential spirit, which boldly declared that the Scriptures alone contained what was necessary to salvation. Theological subtleties and priestly observances were alike useless or worse than useless.
For the living, it was idle to attend Mass; for the dead, it was folly to look to such a means for extrication from purgatory. The confessional was to be visited only as a formal prerequisite to partaking of the Eucharist; pilgrimages and the veneration of relics were ridiculed with a reckless freedom which showed how shaken was the reverence of the past. Nothing, indeed, can give us a more thorough conviction of the readiness of the public to welcome a radical change than the wealth of indignant bitterness which Erasmus, himself a canon regular and a priest, heaps upon all orders of the Church, and the immense applause which everywhere greeted his attacks. His sarcastic humour, his biting satire, his exquisite ridicule, nowhere finds a more congenial subject than the vices of the monks, the priests, the prelates, the cardinals, and even of the pope himself, until even Luther, as late as 1517, feels constrained to deplore that the evils which afflicted the Church should be thus exposed to derision. It affords a curious illustration of the times to read those writings which a century earlier might have led him to share the fate of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, and to reflect that he was not only the admiration of both the learned and the vulgar of Europe, but also the petted protégé of king and kaiser, the correspondent of popes, and finally the champion of the system which he had so ruthlessly reviled, and which he never ceased to deplore. The extraordinary favour with which his works were received by all classes shows how fully he was justified in the indignation which he so unsparingly lavished on clerical abuses, and how eagerly the public appreciated one who could so well express that which was felt by all. Equally significant was the popularity of the "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," in which the learned wits of the new school poured forth upon the clergy a broad and homely ridicule which exactly suited the taste of the age; while Cornelius Agrippa more than rivaled Erasmus in the wealth of vigorous denunciation with which he lashed the vices of all the orders of ecclesiastics, from the pope to the béguine." pp. 350-352
- "Accordingly, Pius IV, by a bull of 14 April, 1561, addressed to Valdes, the inquisitor-general, empowered the Inquisition, throughout the Spanish dominions, to investigate and punish all confessors who solicited women in the act of confession, even to the extent of degrading and relaxing them to the secular arm for punishment at its discretion. As before, all exemptions of the monastic Orders were withdrawn." p. 501
- "It was evident that papal utterances of a more definitive character were requisite if the efforts to suppress the crime were to have a measure of success, and in 1622 Gregory XV attempted this in the comprehensive bull Universi Dominici Gregis. He not only confirmed the acts of his predecessors, but extended their provisions over all the lands of the Roman obedience, constituting not only inquisitors, but also episcopal officials as special judges over all the clergy, including the exempted religious Orders, with exclusive jurisdiction, and full power to inflict punishment, even to degradation and relaxation to the secular arm. Moreover, he sought to meet all the evasions by defining that solicitation, whether for the priest himself or for another, could occur either before or after confession, and when there was a pretext of it, provided it was in a place where confessions were heard, and he included illicit and indecent talk and acts within the definition." pp. 504-505
- "The confessor in search of easy victims had a resource in requiring male penitents who confessed to carnal sins to name their partners in guilt, when the knowledge thus gained could be utilized in selecting objects for solicitation." p. 512
- "If the Council of Trent had thus failed utterly in its efforts to create that which had never existed -- purity of morals under the rule of celibacy -- it had at length succeeded in its more important task of putting an end to the aspirations of the clergy for marriage." p. 528
- "It would, of course, be vain to expect at the present day, from the rulers of the Church, the outspoken candour of the Middle Ages, when evils were denounced openly and in the coarsest terms. In those days councils could speak, because none but those connected with the Church were likely to be cognizant of their proceedings, while in the sixteenth and seventeenth century the immorality of ecclesiastics was so notorious that no harm could arise from admitting it in the efforts made for its correction. In modern times, however, when an external veil of decency is to be maintained before the eyes of antagonistic critics, when scandal is of all things to be avoided, and when the proceedings of ecclesiastical bodies are carefully revised at Rome before they are allowed to become public, with the consciousness that they may be spread by the Press before a world of hostile mockers, ready to jeer at the woes of the Church, only the most guarded allusions can be made to such subjects, and these only when the case is urgent. When, therefore, we see that almost every council held in modern times deemed it necessary to insist on the supreme importance of preserving chastity -- lying, swearing, stealing, and other sins not being even alluded to; when the caution against undue familiarity with women, even devotees, is constantly urged; and when the relations between the priest and his servant are frequently indicated by directions that he must not admit her to companionship at the table, or on walks and journeys, and especially in visiting fairs or merrymakings, it would be difficult not to recognize under this guarded phraseology an admission of the actual relationship existing between the good pastors and their female inmates, and a friendly warning, si non caste saltem caute." pp. 562-563
- "Irrespective of questions of morality, the rule of celibacy in modern society is harmful to the State in proportion as it contributes to the aggrandizement of those who enforce it. A sacerdotal caste, divested of the natural ties of family and of the world, with interests in many respects antagonistic to the communities in which its members reside, with aims which, from the nature of the case, must for the temporal advancement of its class, is apt to prove a dangerous element in the body politic, and the true interests of religion as well as of humanity are almost as likely to receive injury as benefit at its hands, especially when it is armed with the measureless power of confession and absolution, and is held in strict subjection to a hierarchy. Such a caste would seem to be the inevitable consequence of compulsory celibacy in an ecclesiastical organization such as that of the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy based upon it can scarce fail to become the enemy of human advancement, so long as the priest continues to share the imperfections of our common nature. How little the aims of that hierarchy have changed with the lapse of ages may be seen in the pretensions which it still advances, as of old, to subject the temporal sovereignty of princes and peoples to the absolute domination of the spiritual power. The temper of Innocent III and Boniface VIII is still the leading influence in its policy, and the opportunity alone is wanting for it to revive in the twentieth century the all-pervading tyranny which it exercised in the thirteenth. Even the separation of Church and State is condemned as a heresy, and as the State is denied the privilege of defining the limits of its own authority, it would be difficult to set bounds to the empire which is its rightful heritage, and of which it is deprived by the irreligious tendencies of the age" p. 574-575
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