[print edition page 36]
have been for its leading ministers to live in great continence, and that it has always worked to establish the law of continence. Nonetheless, the practice of ordaining married persons as priests has existed and still exists in the Greek Church, and has never been explicitly disapproved of by the Latin church.
Some believe that the third canon of the first Council of Nicaea imposes on major clerics—that is, on bishops, priests, and deacons—the obligation of celibacy.11 But Fr. Alexander12 proves in a special dissertation that the council did not mean to prevent clerics from the company of women that they had wedded before their ordination; that what the canon put forth concerns only wives called subintroductae & agapetae,13 not legitimate wives; and that it is not only major clerics but also inferior clerics that the council prohibits from cohabiting with agapetes. Whence that learned theologian concludes that it was concubinage that the council was prohibiting, not the practice of marriage legitimately contracted before ordination. He also draws advantage from the well-known story of Paphnutius, which other authors seem to have rejected as a myth only because it is in no way favorable to clerical celibacy.14
Thus, by all appearances, the Council of Nicaea spoke only of marriages contracted since ordination, and of concubinage. But the Council of Ancyra expressly permits those ordained as deacons, and unmarried, to contract marriage afterward, provided they had protested against the obligation of celibacy during the time of ordination. It is true that this indulgence was not extended to either bishops or priests, and that the Council of Neocaesarea, held shortly after that of Ancyra, pronounced explicitly: presbyterum, si uxorem acceperit, ab ordine deponendum,15 although the
[print edition page 37]
marriage was not null, according to the remark by Fr. Thomassin.16 The Council in Trullo, held in the year 692, confirmed the practice of the Greek church in its 13th canon, and the Latin church did not demand at the Council of Florence that it renounce this. Nonetheless, it must not be concealed that many of the Greek priests are monks and observe celibacy, and that the patriarchs and bishops are normally obliged to make a public commitment to the monastic life before being ordained. It is also germane to say that in the Occident, celibacy was prescribed to clerics by the decrees of popes Siricius and Innocent; that the first is from the year 385; that St. Leo extended this law to subdeacons; that St. Gregory had imposed it on the deacons of Sicily; and that it was confirmed by: the Councils of Elvira toward the end of the third century; canon XXXIII of Toledo in the year 400, of Carthage in 419; canon III and IV of Orange in 441, canon XXII and XXIII of Arles in 452; of Tours in 461; of Agde in 506; of Orleans in 538; by our kings’ capitularies and various councils held in the Occident, but mainly by the Council of Trent—although via the respectful remonstrances17 of the emperor, the Duke of Bavaria, the Germans, and even the king of France, people didn’t stop proposing the marriage of priests, and urging this on the pope after the holding of the council. Clerical celibacy had had adversaries for a long time beforehand: Vigilantius and Jovinian rose up in opposition under St. Jerome; Wycliff, the Hussites, the Bohemians, Luther, Calvin, and the Anglicans threw off its yoke; and in the period of our wars of religion, Cardinal Chatillon, Spifame the Bishop of Nevers, and some ecclesiastics of the second order dared to marry publicly. But these examples had no sequel.
When the obligation of celibacy was general in the Catholic church, those among the ecclesiastics who violated it were immediately banned for life from the functions of their order and placed in the ranks of the laity. Justinian, leg. 45. cod. de episcop. & cler.18 then made their children illegitimate and incapable of succeeding and of receiving bequests. Finally, it was
[print edition page 38]
ordained that those marriages would be annulled and the parties subjected to punishment, whence it is seen how the infraction became more serious as the law became more deeply rooted. In the beginning, if a priest happened to get married, he was deposed and the marriage remained. Over time, orders were considered as a nullifying obstacle19 to marriage. Today, a simple tonsured cleric who marries no longer enjoys the ecclesiastical privileges concerning jurisdiction and exemption from public burdens.20 By his marriage, he is considered to have renounced the clerical estate and its rights. Fleury, Institutes of Ecclesiastical Law. Tom. I. Anc. & nouv. Discipline of the Church by Fr. Thomassin.
It follows from this review, says the late abbé St. Pierre (speaking not as a religious polemicist, but as a simple Christian man of politics and a simple citizen of a Christian society), that priestly celibacy is merely a point of discipline; that it is not essential to the Christian religion; that it has never been regarded as one of the foundations of the schism we have with the Greeks and the Protestants; that it has been voluntary in the Latin church; that since the church has the power to change all points of discipline that are of human origin, then if the estates of the Catholic church got big benefits from returning to that ancient liberty, without undergoing any real harm, it would be desirable for that to happen; and that the question of these benefits is less theological than political, and concerns more the sovereigns than the church, which would have nothing more to do than pronounce upon it.21
But are there benefits in restoring22 ecclesiastics to the ancient liberty of marriage? This is a phenomenon that the czar found so striking when he traveled throughout France incognito23 that he couldn’t understand how, in a state where he encountered such good laws and such wise establishments, a practice had been allowed to last for so many centuries which, on the one hand, was of no importance to religion, and on the other hand, was so
[print edition page 39]
harmful to Christian society. We will not render a verdict on whether the czar’s astonishment was well-founded, but it is not useless to summarize abbé St. Pierre’s memoir, and that is what we are going to do.
Benefits of priestly marriage: (1) If forty thousand parish priests in France had eighty thousand children, since those children would unquestionably be better raised, the state would gain subjects and good people, and the church would gain faithful. (2) Ecclesiastics being by their status better husbands than other men, there would be forty thousand women happier and more virtuous. (3) There are few men for whom celibacy is not difficult to observe, which is how it can happen that the church suffers a great scandal from a priest who falls short of continence, whereas no utility redounds to other Christians from the man who lives continently. (4) A priest would scarcely be less meritorious before God in putting up with the shortcomings of his wife and children than in resisting the temptations of the flesh. (5) The problems of marriage are useful to the man who puts up with them; the difficulties of celibacy are useful to no one. (6) The parish priest who is a virtuous head of household would be useful to more people than the one who practices celibacy. (7) Some ecclesiastics for whom the observation of celibacy is very difficult would believe they had not fully met its conditions, when they have nothing to blame themselves for in this regard. (8) A hundred thousand married priests would form a hundred thousand families, which would provide more than ten thousand inhabitants per year; even if you counted only five thousand, this reckoning would still produce a million Frenchmen in two hundred years. Whence it follows that without priestly celibacy, we would have today four million more Catholics (counting only since Francis I), which would form a substantial sum of money if it is true, as an Englishman has calculated, that one man is worth nine pounds sterling to the state. (9) Noble houses would find in the bishops’ families offshoots to prolong their existence, &c. See the polit. works of abbé St. Pierre, vol. II, p. 146.
Means of returning freedom of marriage to ecclesiastics. We must: (1) form a body to meditate on the obstacles and to work on removing them; (2) negotiate with the princes of the Roman communion and form a confederation with them; (3) negotiate with the court of Rome. For abbé St. Pierre claims it is better to use the pope’s intervention than the authority