1564 Esaminatore, Firenze, Ap. 15th, 1867, p. 100. In Spain, an official return made in 1764 estimated the number of ecclesiastics, regular and secular, at 281,160 souls (Castillo y Mayone, Historia de los Frailes, III. 144).

1565 “D’être fidèle à la nation, à la loi, au roi, et del veiler exactement sur le troupeau confié à leurs soins.” It was not only the objections of the king and of the pope that rendered this oath unpalatable, but also the fact that it gave adhesion to the law for the secularization of ecclesiastical property and of the monastic orders. It was ordered in the Constitution civile du Clergé, Tit. II. Art. 21, 38, adopted July 12 and promulgated Aug. 24, 1790.

1566 I have before me one of the pamphlets issued about this time (Le Mariage des Prêtres, Paris, Laclaye, 1790, 8vo. pp. 102), addressed to the Assembly. It is a tolerably calm and well-reasoned argument, basing its demand upon the usages of the primitive church, the precepts of Scripture, the rights of nature, and public utility. The author asserts himself to be a priest well advanced in life, and he assumes that the corruption of society disseminated by the licentiousness of ecclesiastics is generally recognized and understood.

1567 This speech is printed in full from a MS. in the public library of Geneva, by the Abbé Chavard (Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 483-500).

1568 La loi ne reconnait ni vœux religieux, ni aucun autre engagement qui serait contraire aux droits naturels ou à la constitution.

1569 Desmaze, Pénalités Anciennes, p. 222, Paris, 1866.

1570 I have not found it easy to form a satisfactory estimate of the number of French ecclesiastics previous to the Revolution. Le Bas (Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de l’Histoire de France, V. 218) gives a table, showing an aggregate of 418,206 souls, of whom 235,147 may be considered as attached to the secular service, and 183,059 to the regular orders and canons. Of these latter, 100,451 were men and 82,608 were women. On the other hand, M. Sauvestre (Congrégations Religieuses, pp. 5, 6) quotes from the Abbé Expilly a statement that in 1765 there were 79,000 monks and 80,000 nuns; while he shows that other contemporary authorities reduce the number of members of religious orders in 1789 to 52,000 of both sexes. M. Charles Chabot (Encyclopédie Monastique, p. x., Paris, 1827) computes, after elaborate tabulation, the number of ecclesiastics, regular and secular, at 407,753 persons, enjoying a revenue of 127,610,576 francs.

1571 Lett. Encyc. 15 Mars, 1795, art. IX. (Grégoire, p. 109).

1572 This speech of Portalis père is an admirable commentary on the Concordat, developing its causes and consequences with a rigidity of logic and an enlightened spirit of faith which are equally creditable to the head and heart of the distinguished orator. From the portion devoted to the subject of marriage, I quote the following, as embodying a clear exposition of the intentions of those who negotiated the Concordat.

“Quelques personnes se plaindront peut-être de ce que l’on n’a pas conservé le mariage des prêtres.... En effet, d’une part nous n’admettons plus que les ministres dont l’existence est nécessaire à l’exercice du culte, ce qui diminue considérablement le nombre des personnes qui se vouaient anciennement au célibat. D’autre part, pour les ministres mêmes que nous conservons, et à qui le célibat est ordonné par les réglements ecclésiastiques, la défense qui leur est faite du mariage par ces réglements n’est point consacrée comme empêchement dirimant dans l’ordre civil: ainsi leur mariage, s’ils en contractaient un, ne serait point nul aux yeux des lois politiques et civiles, et les enfans qui en naîtraient seraient légitimes; mais dans le for intérieur et dans l’ordre religieux, ils s’exposeraient aux peines spirituelles prononcées par les lois canoniques: ils continueraient à jouir de leurs droits de famille et de cité, mais ils seraient tenus de s’abstenir de l’exercice du sacerdoce. Conséquemment, sans affaiblir le nerf de la discipline de l’église, on conserve aux individus toute la liberté et tous les avantages garantis par les lois de l’état; mais il eût été injuste d’aller plus loin, et d’exiger pour les ecclésiastiques de France, comme tels, une exception qui les eût déconsidérés auprès de tous les peuples Catholiques, et auprès des Français mêmes, auxquels ils administreraient les secours de la religion” (Dupin, Manuel du Droit Public Ecclés. Français, 4ème éd. pp. 196-8).

1573 Code Civil, Liv. I. Tit. v.

1574 In an address to the Council of State, Dec. 20th, 1813, Napoleon said, “Le sacerdoce est une sorte de mariage; le prêtre étant uni à l’église comme l’époux à son épouse, il n’y aurait aucun inconvénient à appliquer au prêtre qui se marierait la peine de la bigamie: un tel ecclésiastique ne mérite aucun sorte de considération”—Bouhier de l’Écluse, de l’État des Prêtres en France, Paris, 1842, p. 17.—Chavard (Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 409-10) quotes Dean Stanley as asserting, on the authority of the elder Duc de Broglie, that Pius VIII. spontaneously offered to Napoleon to permit sacerdotal marriage, but that the Emperor declined the proposal. I cannot but think, however, that there must be some mistake in this statement.

1575 For many of the above details I am indebted to the curious but ill-digested little work—“Histoire du Mariage des Prêtres en France,” published by Grégoire in 1826. Grégoire, though a priest of the ancien régime, was a sincere and consistent republican. A member of the States General, of the Convention, and of the Council of Five Hundred, elected Bishop of Blois by the voice of a people who knew and respected him, he preserved his ardent faith through all the excesses of the Revolution, and his democratic ideas in spite of the injuries inflicted on his class in the name of the people. The sincerity and boldness of his character may be estimated by a single example. When, on the 7th of November, 1793, Gobel, Bishop of Paris, appeared before the Convention with twelve of his vicars and publicly renounced his sacred functions on the ground that hereafter there should be no other worship than that of liberty and equality, almost all the ecclesiastics in the Convention followed his example. To hold back at such a moment was dangerous in the extreme, yet Grégoire had the hardihood to utter a defiant protest. “I am a Catholic by conviction and by feeling, a priest by choice, a bishop by the voice of the people, but not from the people nor from you do I derive my mission, and I will not be forced to an abjuration.” To him perhaps more than to any one else is attributable the skilful management which carried the church through the storms and persecutions of the Revolution, but the same inflexibility which maintained his Catholicism through the ordeal of 1793 and 1794 caused him to stand by his republicanism long after it had gone out of fashion. He was not to be bought or bullied; the Legitimist was less tolerant than the Terrorist, and under the Restoration he was reduced almost to absolute indigence. Together with the other constitutional bishops, he had been compelled to resign his bishopric by order of the pope after the Concordat of 1801, and he was too dangerous a man to be rewarded for his invaluable services to religion. He died in 1831.

1576 Grégoire, op. cit. p. 102.

1577 Bouhier de l’Écluse, op. cit. It was apparently this case which led to the publication, under date of Monaco, 1829, of the “Considerazioni imparziali sopra la legge del Celibato Ecclesiastico, proposte dal Professore C. A. P.”—a tolerably well written summary of the arguments against the rule.

1578 Talmadge’s Letters from Florence, p. 166.

1579 Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 525-30.

1580 J. M. Cayla, Les Curés mariés par le Concile, Paris, 1869.

1581 Encyc. Mirari vos.

1582 Encyc. Qui pluribus.

1583 Litt. Apostol. Multiplices inter.

1584 Panzini, pp. 16, 58, 102, 143, 201, 401.

1585 Ibid. p. 123.

1586 Naples was, perhaps, the first kingdom in Europe to promulgate a civil marriage law, and to withdraw matrimonial cases from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. This was one of the reforms of the minority of Ferdinand IV. about the year 1760. See Colletti’s History of Naples, Horner’s Translation, I. 107.

1587 Conc. Vatican. ann. 1870 Const. Dogmat. I. cap. iv. I use Cardinal Manning’s version.

1588 Castillo y Mayone, II. 247, 254.—Panzini, pp. 358-63.—Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 Sept. 1852.—Encyc. Incredibili afflictamur, 17 Sept. 1863.—Chavard, op. cit. p. 263.

1589 Panzini, pp. 596-7.

1590 Esaminatore, Firenze 15 Dic. 1867, p. 396.

1591 Encyc. Neminem latet, 19 Mar. 1857.—Panzini, pp. 535-6.

1592 Panzini, p. 123. An example of this is to be seen in the case of Saurin vs. Starr and Kennedy, which excited so much interest in England in 1869 by its curious revelations of the petty tyrannies and sordid miseries which sometimes at least form a feature of conventual life.

1593 Yet, to meet the spiritual wants of all classes, there are still congregations which practise the most severe ascetic austerities. Thus, in 1883, a description of the Barefooted Clares in Paris shows that, out of eighteen members, but four are more than twenty-two years of age, the severity of discipline causing nearly all who enter to die young. No fire is allowed, even that in the kitchen being arranged to prevent access; sleep is only had on a narrow board, meat is only eaten on Christmas Day, and silence is enforced until some of the nuns lose the power of forming connected sentences.

1594 The Pères de la Foi, also known as Adorateurs de Jésus and Paccanaristes, were Jesuits in disguise; the Société des Victimes de l’Amour de Dieu were Quietists. For the Report of M. Portalis, recommending their suppression, see Dutilleul, Hist. des Corporations Religieuses en France, Paris, 1846, pp. 411 sqq. For an exceedingly interesting sketch of modern French monachism, see also Ch. Sauvestre’s “Les Congrégations Religieuses” (Paris, 1867)—a work to which I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness for much that follows.

1595 Décret du 18 Fév. 1809 Sect. II. Art. 8 (Dupin, Droit Ecclés. p. 295). This regulation, I believe, is still in force, and the members of these bodies are accustomed to renew their engagements every five years. From the position taken by Bishop Fabre, of Montreal, in April, 1883, in the case of a young woman who desired to leave her convent, I presume that the same regulation is in force in the Dominion of Canada.

1596 For details, see Dupin, op. cit. pp. 285-298.

1597 Chabot, Encyclopédie Monastique, p. xi. (Paris, 1827).

1598 N. Y. Nation, May 29th, 1879. It is to the Paris correspondence of this journal that I am indebted for most of the details respecting the recent struggle between the religious orders and the state.

1599 “Règle 91.—Qu’il ne laisse entrevoir aucune opinion, soit politique, soit théologique ou religieuse, contraire aux opinions du saint-siége.”—Sauvestre, op. cit. 215.

1600 Le Pape et la Société Moderne, Paris, 1879, pp. 416-437.

1601 Sauvestre, op. cit. pp. 123-4.

1602 N. Y. Nation, April 21st, 1881.

1603 Noli metuere ne omnes virgines fiant; difficilis res est virginitas, et ideo rara quia difficilis. Incipere plurimorum est, perseverare paucorum.—Hieron. adv. Jovin. I. 36.

1604 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXIV. De Sacrament. Matrim. c. ix.

1605 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXIII. De Reform. c. xii. The Abbé Chavard relates (Le Célibat des Prêtres, p. 269) that he once asked the directors of a seminary whether the age for assuming the burdens of the priesthood ought not to be postponed to the fortieth year, and he was told that the church must have priests and that there were few indeed who would submit to its conditions after the age of illusions was passed.

1606 Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse, Paris, 1883, p. 139. “Le fait est que ce qu’on dit des mœurs cléricales est, selon mon expérience, dénué de tout fondement. J’ai passé treize ans de ma vie entre les mains des prêtres, je n’ai pas vu l’ombre d’un scandale; je n’ai connu que de bons prêtres. La confession peut avoir, dans certains pays, de graves inconvénients. Je n’en ai pas vu une trace dans mon jeunesse ecclésiastique.”

1607 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXV. De Reform. cap. xiv.

1608 Convent. Episcc. Mediolanenss. ann. 1849 Sess. III. No. 18 (Collect. Lacens. VI. 717).—Concil. Roman. ann. 1725 Tit. XVI. c. iii. (Ib. I. 372).

1609 For the varying legislation on this subject the reader may refer to C. Beneventan. ann. 1693 Tit. XVIII. c. iii. (Collect. Lacens. I. 44).—Synod. Bahiens. ann. 1707 Lib. III. (I. 854).—C. Tarracon. ann. 1717 c. XXXI. (I. 779).—C. Avenionens. ann. 1725 Tit. XXXVII. c. iii. (I. 554).—Synod. Firmanens. ann. 1726 Tit. IX. (I. 599).—C. Ebredunens. ann. 1727 c. v. No. 5 (I. 626).—Synod. Nat. Hungar. ann. 1822 De Discip. renov. 3 (V. 940).—C. Baltimor. IV. ann. 1840 Decr. X. (III. 72).—Conv. Episcc. Mediolan. ann. 1849 Sess. III. No. 18 (VI. 717).—C. Turon. ann. 1849 Decr. XI. i. (IV. 268-9).—C. Avenionens. ann. 1849 Tit. VI. c. v. No. 16 (IV. 348).—C. Remens. ann. 1849 Tit. XII. c. ii. (IV. 129).—C. Albiens. ann. 1850 Tit. I. Decr. v. No. 1 (IV. 411).—C. Burdigal. ann. 1850 T. IV. c. xii. No. 3 (IV. 588).—C. Bituricens. ann. 1850 Tit. VI. (IV. 1122).—C. Tolosan. ann. 1850 Tit. IV. c. iv. No. 126 (IV. 1069).—C. Senonens. ann. 1850 Tit. IV. c. iv. (IV. 904).—C. Aquens. ann. 1850 Tit. V. § 2. c. ix. No. 1 (IV. 985).—C. Rothomag. ann. 1850 Decr. XI. No. 3-5 (IV. 525).—C. Lugdunens. ann. 1850 Decr. XVIII. No. 1-3 (IV. 475).—Synod. Thurlesiens. ann. 1850 Decr. XVII. No. 14 (III. 785).—Conv. Epp. Lauretan. ann. 1850 Sect. I. v. (VI. 778).—Conv. Epp. Siciliæ Tit. II. c. i. No. 9 (VI. 815).—C. Auscitan. ann. 1851 Tit. IV. c. i. No. 147 (IV. 1200).—C. Quebecens. I. ann. 1851 Decr. XIV. (III. 615).—C. Westmonasteriens. I. ann. 1852 Decr. XXIV. No. 4 (III. 939).—C. Quebecens. II. ann. 1854 Decr. XIV. No. 20 (III. 652).—C. Armacens. ann. 1854 Decr. XXIII. (III. 852).—C. Portus Hispaniæ ann. 1854 Sect. II. No. 5 (III. 1100-1).—C. Ravennat. ann. 1855 P. IV. c. iv. No. 3 (VI. 198).—C. Seti. Ludovici II. ann. 1858 Decr. VII. (III. 318).—C. Viennens. ann. 1858 Tit. V. c. vi. (V. 197).—C. Strigonens. ann. 1858 Tit. VI. No. 9 (V. 53).—C. Venetic. ann. 1859 P. II. c. xvii. No. 10-11 (VI. 317).—C. Urbinatens. ann. 1859 P. II. Tit. vii. No. 148 (VI. 51).—C. Pragens. ann. 1860 Tit. I. c. vi. No. 1 (V. 426).—C. Coloniens. ann. 1860 Tit. II. c. xxxiv., xxxviii. (V. 378-80).—C. Cincinnatiens. III. ann. 1861 Decr. IX. (III. 226).—C. Coloniens. ann. 1863 Tit. IV. c. iv. (V. 670).—C. Quitens. ann. 1869 Decr. IV. No. 2 (VI. 403).—C. Ultrajectens. ann 1865 Tit. VIII. c. iv. (V. 905).—C. Pl. Baltimor. II. ann. 1866 Tit. III. c. vi. No. 164 (III. 446).—C. Halifaxiens. ann. 1868 Decr. XVIII. (III. 751).

1610 De Sacerdotum Cœlibatu Doctrina Varsoviæ, 1801 pp. 62-3.

1611 See previous note for warnings of this kind. The council of Ausch, in 1851, even ventures to allude to the grave inconveniences which may arise from the residence of a sister or aunt, if young, and if there is not also the mother or a female servant in the house.

1612 Helsen, Avis à l’Archevêque de Malines, Monseigneur Sterckx, sur les abus du Célibat des Prêtres, 4to. Bruxelles, 1833.

1613 Helsen, pp. 19-20.

1614 Ibid. pp. 74-5.

1615 Helsen, pp. 13, 16, 18, 100.

1616 The comparative strength of the ecclesiastical militia is an important element in considering the condition of the church and its influence on the laity. I have already quoted statistics with regard to France, Belgium, and Austria, and will here append those for some of the other states and cities of Europe as given by Prof. von Schulte in his work on the Newer Catholic Orders (N. Y. Nation, Aug. 1st, 1872, p. 75).

Prussia, one ecclesiastic for every 584 Catholics, of all ages.

Bavaria, one for every 300 Catholics.

Germany at large, one for every 481.

Aix-la-Chapelle, one for every 110.

Cologne, one for every 313.

Münster, one for every 61.

Trèves, one for every 56.

Paderborn, one for every 33.

In the old Kingdom of Naples, by the census of 1842, there were 55,167 ecclesiastics in a population of 6,145,492, making a proportion of one to 112 (Penka, Uberior Cœlibatus Sacerdotalis Expositio, Cracoviæ, 1846).

1617 In Italia libido non est probrosa.—P. Dens Theolog. No. 100 de jure et justitia. (ap. Helsen, p. 10). Dens died in 1775.

1618 L’Esaminatore, Firenze, 15 Settemb. 1867.

1619 Prota, Matrimonio Civile, Napoli, 1864, p. 44.

1620 L’Esaminatore, 15 Oct. 1867.

1621 Panzini, Pubblica Confessione, pp. 101, 357.

1622 Report to the Italian Committee of the American Episcopal Church (The Episcopalian, Phila., Sept. 11th, 1867).

1623 C. Baltimor. I. ann. 1829 Decr. XXV. (Collect. Lacens. III. 30-1).—C. Baltimor. V. ann. 1843 Decr. IX. (III. 90).—C. Australiens. I. ann. 1844 Decr. XII. (III. 1051).—C. Thurlesens. ann. 1850 Decr. XII. 41 (III. 782).—C. Rothomagens. ann. 1850 Decr. XVII. 3 (IV. 530).—C. Tolosan. ann. 1850 Tit. III. c. i. No. 70 (IV. 1054).—C. Casseliens. ann. 1853 Tit. III. (III. 837).—C. Tuamens. ann. 1854 Decr. VIII. (III. 860).—C. Quebecens. II. ann. 1854 Decr. IX. § 7 (III. 639).—C. Port. Hispaniæ ann. 1854 Art. IV. No. 1, 2 (III. 1098).—C. Halifaxiens. I. ann. 1857 Decr. XIV. (III. 745).—C. Viennens. ann. 1858 Tit. III. c. vii. (V. 169).—C. Coloniens. ann. 1860 Tit. II. c. XV. (V. 351).—C. Pragens. ann. 1860 Tit. IV. c. vii.; Tit. V. c. viii. (V. 508, 543).—Synod. Ultraject. ann. 1865 Tit. IV. c. viii. (V. 830).—C. Plen. Baltimor. II. ann. 1866 App. X. (III. 553).

1624 Helsen, Abus du Celibat, p. 85.

1625 C. Tuamens. ann. 1817 Decr. XVII. (Collect. Lacens. III. 765).—C. Australiens. I. ann. 1844 Decr. XII. (III. 1052-3).—C. Remens. ann. 1857 c. VI. No. 27 (IV. 211).

1626 Instruct. S. Inquisit. Roman. Feb. 20, 1867, No. 7, 11-14 (Collect. Lacens. III. 553-6).

1627 For an extract from a modern manual of the confessional “de agendi ratione confessarii erga conjugatos et conjugendos,” see Bouvet, De la Confession et du Célibat des Prêtres, Paris, 1845, pp. 290-6. It will be remembered what excitement was aroused in the British House of Commons a few years since, when a member produced and read a very much less objectionable form prepared for use by “Anglican priests.”

1628 Bouvet, p. 516.

1629 Lasteyrie, Hist. of Auricular Confession, II. 38-45.

1630 Wahu, op. cit. p. 423.

1631 Sauvestre, op. cit. p. 144. It is by this policy that the church renders itself responsible for the evil committed by its members. No human organization is without its share of the weak or vicious, and there is no lack of scandals in the Protestant denominations; but in these there is a wholesome jealousy which usually seeks at once to cast out and punish the offender. Thus, when, in July, 1867, the Rev. Mr. Wendt, at an orphan institution near Philadelphia, was discovered to be tampering with the virtue of the children under his charge, those who were most nearly connected with the management of the asylum were the first to take steps for his prosecution, and, as soon as the necessary legal proceedings could be had, he was undergoing a sentence of fifteen years’ solitary confinement, without a voice being raised in palliation of his crime.

1632 Op. cit. pp. 138-44.

1633 One result of this is that there is a large number of priests, summarily deprived by their bishops of the ministry, who seek the great cities to hide their poverty or find some miserable means of support. As all requests for dispensation to marry are refused, they mostly live in concubinage and their offspring go to swell the ranks of the dangerous classes. See Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 542-48.

1634 Wahu, op. cit. pp. 154-55.

1635 Syllab. Dec. 1864 No. xix., xlii., liv., lv.

1636 Clement. PP. VIII. Instruct. super aliquibus ritibus Græcorum, A. D. 1595, § V. No. 27.—Benedict. PP. XIV. Bull. Etsi Pastoralis, A.D. 1742, § VII. No. 16, 27, 28 (Concil. Collect. Lacens. II. 449, 517).