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 CELIBACY

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CELIBACY

writing thus: "Celibacy was avowedly not practised by the northern clergy [in Anglo-Saxon England]. The law of the Northumbrian Priests declares 'if a priest, forsake a woman and take another let him be excommunicate'. A priest might therefore take a wife and cleave tn her without rebuke". (Hunt, The English Church to the Norman Conquest, 1S99, p. 383.) Now this piece of evidence is quite inconclu- sive; the word preost which is here used, may or may not mean a cleric in sacred orders. We have no right to assume that it refers to any other class of preost, i. e. cleric, than those in minor orders who were always entirely free to many. The second point which it is equally important to remember is that clerics in minor orders were a very numerous class in Saxon, Norman, and Angevin times. With us there are, practically speaking, no clerics but those who are immediately preparing for ordination to the priesthood, while such candidates now from their earliest years lead a life apart from the world in the seclusion of colleges and seminaries. In the medieval Church things were very different. Almost all young men with any little edu- cation preferred to enroll themselves in the ranks of the clergy by receiving the tonsure, hoping that some chance of employment or of a benefice might come their way. They were still .free to marry and some- times they married openly. But often, it seems, they entangled themselves in rather ambiguous relations which in the then state of the marriage law might easily lie legitimized afterwards, but which also might be repudiated and broken off if they desired to receive ordination.

All this, which up to a certain point was not incon- sistent with good faith, unfortunately prepared the way for easy relapses into incontinence, and generated a public opinion in which it was not accounted a re- proach to be known as the son of a priest. Undoubt- edly the sons of priests formed a large class. There was a natural tendency to bring them up also as clerics, ami there was no doubt an immense amount of scheming, not (infrequently successful, to secure their promotion to the benefices held by their fathers. But it would be a great mistake to regard these sons of priests as all necessarily born in flagrant violation of the canons. The situation was a very complicated one, and it is impossible to pronounce any sober opin- ion upon its moral aspects without a careful study, on the one hand, of the conditions of social, and par- ticularly of student, life, which in many respects con- tradict all the usages with which we are now familiar; and secondly, without an appreciation of the ambigui- ties of the marriage law, as regards which the difficul- ties raised by the sponsalia de prwsenti have long been the despair of canonists (see Freisen, Geschichte des kanonise hen Eherechts, 2nd ed., 1893). One of the- ( 'ou- st it utioris of the Legate Otho, issued in 12.37, is partic- ularly instructive in this connexion. He has learnt, he declares, on good authority that "many clerics [not yet priests, be it noted] forgetful of the salvation of their souls, after contracting a clandestine marriage, do not fear to retain the churches (to which they may pre- viously have I D appointed i without putting away

their wives, and to acquire fresh ecclesiastical benefices and to be promoted tn sacred orders contrary to the pro- visions of the sacred canons, and finally in clue course of time after children have been reared from this union, to prove at the proper moment, by means of witnesses and documents, whether they themselves be still living or have passed away, that a marriage had really been contracted between the parties".

(Wilkins, 'I, 653.) To meel this, Otho decrees that any married clerk in possession of a benefice, loses all title to it ipso jure, and secondly, that all property in possession of such clerks or priests who have been clandestinely married before their promotion to Holy orders, is to go to the Church and none of it to their children. But the whole legal aspect of the celibacy

question in England can best be studied in the pages of Lyndewode's " Provincial*' ". (See particularly pp. 1(3 sqq. and 12(3-130, of the standard edition of 1079.) The one thing which Lyndewode makes clear, contrary to the statement of Bishop Wordsworth, quoted above, is that the English Church in the fif- teenth century refused to recognize the existence of any such entity as a priest's "wife". It knew of nothing but concubintr and denii d I" these any legal right whatever or any claim upon the property of the partner of their guilt.

Present Position. — With regard to the law of celi- bacy and its canonical effects in the Western Church at the present day, only one or two points can be briefly touched upon. For the details the reader must be referred to such a work as that of Wernz, "Jus Deeretalium", II, 295-321. Clerks in minor orders, as already stated, are free to marry, and by such mar- riages they forfeit the privilegia canonis and the privi- legia fori only in part, provided they observe the re- quired conditions (cf. Decreta Cone. Trid., Sess XXIII, cap. vi); though in our day such observ- ance is practically impossible; but they are incapable of being promoted to sacred orders unless they separate from their wives, and make a vow of per- petual continence. Further, if as clerks they held any benefice or ecclesiastical pension, these are at once forfeited by marriage, and they become incapa- ble of acquiring any new benefice. Historically there has been some little variation of practice with regard to married clerks, and the severe measures enacted in their regard by Pope Alexander III were subsequently mitigated by "Boniface VIII and the Council of Trent. As regards ecclesiastics in sacred orders (i. e. the sub- diaeonate and those that follow), the teaching of both theologians and canonists alike, for many centuries past, has been unanimous as regards tin- facts, though some little divergence has existed regarding the man- ner of explaining them. All are agreed that the subdeacon in presenting himself of his own free will for ordination binds himself by a tacit vow of chastity (see Wernz, IV, n. 393), and that this even constitutes a diriment impediment in view of any subsequent marriage. The idea of this votum annexion seems to be traceable in one form or another as far back as the time of Gregory the Great. Although the opposition to the law of celibacy frequently took the form of open agitation, both in the earlier Middle Ages and again at the Reformation period, only one such move- ment calls for notice in modern times. This was an association formed principally in Wurtemberg and Baden in the early part of the nineteenth century to advocate the mitigation or repeal of the law of celi- bacy. The agitation was condemned by an Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI, on 15 August, 1832, and no more permanent harm seems to have resulted than the publication of a certain amount of disaffected litera- ture, such as the pretentious but extremely biassed ami inaccurate work on compulsory celibacy by the brothers Theiner, a book which was at once pro- hibited by authority and repudiated by Aug. Theiner before he was reconciled to the Church (see bibliogr.).

Law nj Celibacy in Oriental Churches. — Upon this head something has already been said above, and the general principle has been stated that in the Oriental Churches deacons and priests are free to retain the wives to whom tiny have been wedded before ordina- tion, but are not allowed to contract any new mar- riage when once they are ordained. A few details may here be added about the practice of the different Churches, taking first the Bchismatical communions and then those united to the Holy Set

In the Greek Churches acknowledging the jurisdic- tion of the schismatic Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, etc., lectors and cantors, who are clerics in minor orders, are still free to marry, but if they con- tract a second marriage they can be promoted to no