which led the French cabinet, shortly after the fall of MacMahon had
destroyed the alliance between church and state, to commence an attack
on the clerical schools. The measure proposed in what were known as
the Ferry laws was certainly not a sweeping one, for the seventh
article, on which the struggle took place, simply provided that “no
man can be allowed to direct an establishment of public or private
teaching, of whatever order this establishment may be, if he belongs
to a _non-authorized_ religious congregation;” and an official list of
the non-authorized congregations showed them to consist merely of 1502
Jesuits, 327 Dominicans, 222 Marists, 230 Benedictines, 193 Eudists, 65
Basilians, 22 Barnabites, 14 Oratorians, 91 members of the Congregation
of St. Bertin, and 105 of the Congregation of the _Sacré Cœur de
Jésus_. The measure, in fact, was aimed rather at the Jesuits than at
the others; but clerical influence was as yet too strong, and after a
discussion, which lasted for about nine months, this section of the law
was rejected by the Senate. Jules Ferry accepted the defeat, but at
once announced that the existing statutes against the Jesuits and other
unauthorized orders would be enforced—a declaration which received the
approval of the Chamber of Deputies. Within a fortnight, on March 31st,
1880, accordingly, two decrees were issued. The first of these expelled
the order of the Jesuits from France, giving them until June 30th
to dissolve, and allowing a further delay until August 30th for the
closing of their schools and colleges, in order not to inconvenience
the students by dispersing them before the usual period of vacation.
The other decree called upon all non-authorized congregations within
three months to take the necessary steps to obtain the verification
and ratification of their statutes and regulations, and the legal
recognition of their establishments, and promising that when this was
done provisions for the male congregations should be made by special
acts, while those for female communities should be by either special
acts or by simple decrees. The enforcement of the existing laws was
threatened against all which should neglect within the given period
to apply for authorization with all the prescribed details. Now, the
laws required that the superiors of all orders should be residents of
France, and that all congregations should submit in spiritual matters
to the jurisdiction of the episcopal ordinaries, while, in fact, the
more important orders have foreign superiors and are independent of
episcopal jurisdiction. It was distasteful in the last degree to
submit to this, and the indisposition to do so was strengthened by
the prospect that each congregation would come before the Chambers
as the subject of a special debate, in which their regulations would
be discussed, with very slender prospect of ultimately obtaining the
desired permission, since a special act would confer on them the right
to hold real-estate—a right which many members, even of the Catholic
Right, were not prepared to grant them.
The result of the first decree was that at the dates appointed the
Jesuit establishments and colleges were closed, with but a faint show
of passive resistance; but, as the members were not personally exiled,
a large portion of them remained, and their colleges were continued by
placing over them as nominal principals influential laymen under their
control.
The second decree struck at 5917 members of unauthorized congregations.
Its execution was postponed in hopes that the bodies thus threatened
would endeavor to comply with the law, but the only concession they
were willing to make was by putting forth a declaration containing a
public act of submission to the constitution and a resolution to take
no part whatever in public or political matters. At last, in November,
1880, the government found itself obliged to employ force, and the
establishments were closed by the police, aided where necessary by the
military. A general system of passive resistance had been organized;
doors had to be violently broken open, and the inmates carried out
through jeering or sympathizing crowds. The popular feeling, in fact,
had been worked upon as far as possible, and at some places, as at
Lyons, civil conflict seemed for a moment to be imminent, while at
Turquoing (Nord) even blood was shed; but on the whole the crisis
passed away with much less disturbance than had been anticipated.
Since then the growing strength of republicanism throughout France,
unimpeded by clerical and reactionary efforts, shows how much slighter
a hold the religious orders had on the popular mind than had been
supposed, and how mistaken had been Napoleon III. in regarding an
alliance with the church as a necessity for the preservation of his
dynasty. In fact, there has been no banishment of individuals nor
expropriation of property. Though the unauthorized congregations
have been dissolved, in accordance with laws which date back to the
_Ancien Régime_, the members retain their property, enjoy all the
rights of citizenship, and can perform Mass in the churches near their
convents—indeed, the aristocracy, which naturally affiliates with them,
has rather made a point of offering them ostentatious hospitality.
The effort to separate education from clericalism still continues.
The execution of the decrees was accompanied by the adoption of laws
establishing government colleges for women and providing free primary
education, and, March 24th, 1882, there was passed an act rendering
education compulsory. For nearly nine months there had been hot debate
between the Deputies and the Senators over an amendment of Jules
Simon’s, that instruction should be given in the public schools on the
duties of the pupils “towards God and towards their country,” but the
elections of January, 1882, deprived the clericals of their power, the
Senate receded from the amendment, and the education provided for by
the act is to be purely secular.
It may safely be assumed that France will not abandon the institutions
thus established to attacks by the priesthood such as the Belgian
clergy habitually make upon the public schools of that kingdom. In
a parliamentary debate, February 22, 1881, on this subject, it was
stated, without contradiction, that the curés were in the habit of
refusing communion not only to the children who attend these schools,
but also to their parents and grandparents, uncles, and aunts—in fact,
admission to communion under the circumstances is the exception and
refusal is the rule. Even threats are made to withhold baptism from
future infants, the sacrament is denied to dying parents, and wives
are urged to withdraw from all sexual relations with their husbands.
When spiritual weapons are insufficient, more carnal means are employed
by efforts to ruin the business of the disobedient by a system of
“Boycotting,” which is sometimes successful; and the enthusiastic curé
of Virginal admitted that he had pronounced it to be a less offence
to commit murder than to vote for a Liberal, because Liberalism is
heresy.[1602] When such is the spirit of the church at the present day,
French republicanism may be pardoned for desiring to limit its control
over popular education.
* * * * *
It only remains for us to consider what is the present effect of
celibacy on the moral condition of the church, and whether it has
succeeded, after fifteen centuries of fruitless effort, in at last
obtaining a priesthood whose chastity is more than nominal. At the
commencement of the struggle, the great apostle of asceticism,
St. Jerome, calmed the fears of those who dreaded a diminution of
population from the spread of vows of continence, by assuring them that
few would be found to persevere to the end in a task so difficult as
the maintenance of virginity.[1603] Has, then, human nature changed
during the interval, and has the church been justified in its assertion
at the council of Trent that God would not withhold the gift of
chastity from those who rightly seek it, or permit us to be tempted
beyond our strength?[1604] It is certainly not so easy to answer this
question now, as we have seen it in former ages, when men were more
plain-spoken and less decent, when offences against morality were
committed more openly, and when they were denounced both by the church
and its enemies with a distinctness of utterance unfit for modern ears.
Yet it is not impossible to find some evidence bearing on the question
which may enable the impartial inquirer to arrive at a conclusion.
The church is unquestionably violating the precept “Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God” when, in its reliance that the gift of
chastity will accompany ordination, it confers the subdiaconate at
the age of 22 and the priesthood at 25[1605]—or even earlier by
special dispensation—and then turns loose young men, at the age when
the passions are the strongest, trained in the seminary and unused
to female companionship, to occupy a position in which they are
brought into the closest and most dangerous relations with women who
regard them as beings gifted with supernatural powers and holding
in their hands the keys of heaven and hell. Whatever may have been
the ardor with which the vows were taken, the youth thus exposed to
temptations hitherto unknown, finds his virtue rudely assailed when
in the confessional female lips repeat to him the story of sins and
transgressions, and he recognizes in himself instincts and passions
which are only the stronger by reason of their whilom repression.
That a youthful spiritual director, before whom are thrown down all
the barriers with which the prudent reserve of society surrounds the
social intercourse of the sexes, should too often find that he has
over-estimated his self-control, is more than probable.
This, of course, is merely _a priori_ reasoning, and of itself proves
nothing, except the extreme imprudence of a system which applies fire
to straw and assumes that combustion will not follow. Doubtless there
are cases in which the assumption is justified by the result—whole
countries, indeed, where scandals are few. In Ireland, for instance, we
rarely hear of immoral priests, though such cases would be relentlessly
exposed by the interests adverse to Catholicism, and the proverbial
chastity of the Irish women may be both a cause and a consequence
of this. In the United States, also, troubles of the kind only come
occasionally to public view; but here, again, the church is surrounded
by antagonistic churches, the laborers are few and hardly worked,
and the position is not one to attract those who might seek a life
of sloth and indulgence. At the same time, it must be borne in mind
that the extreme care with which the church avoids scandal renders it
impossible for one not within the pale to ascertain what may really be
the relations between ecclesiastics and the female servants whom, as we
shall see, they are permitted to keep in their houses.
In lands where Catholicism is dominant I fear that there can be little
doubt as to this, although Ernest Renan, a witness of unquestionable
impartiality, whose clerical training gave him every opportunity
of observation, declares emphatically that he has known no priests
but good priests, and that he has never seen even the shadow of a
scandal.[1606] In spite of the Nicæan canon, on which the rule of
celibacy has virtually rested, the church, after a struggle of more
than a thousand years, was forced to admit the “subintroducta mulier”
as an inmate of the priest’s domicile. The order of Nature on this
point refused so obstinately to be set aside, that the Council of
Trent finally recognized women as a necessary evil, and only sought to
regulate the necessity by forbidding those in holy orders from keeping
in their houses or maintaining any relations with concubines or women
liable to suspicion.[1607] It is true that the severe virtue of St.
Charles Borromeo refused to grant to a septuagenary priest a license
for more than a year for the residence of a sister equally aged, and
forced him to apply annually for its renewal; it is also true that the
council of Rome, in 1725, allowed the residence of women only within
the first and second degrees of kindred;[1608] but in modern times
the Tridentine canon has been interpreted as allowing the residence
of female servants or house-keepers, in view of the hardship of doing
without domestics and the expense of employing men. In order to meet
the Tridentine caution to avoid suspicion, efforts have sometimes been
made to define a minimum “canonical” age for these women, varying from
thirty to fifty years, but usually placed at forty—a palliative which,
as might be expected, accomplishes little, even when, as is not always
the case, the rule is observed more scrupulously than by the device of
dividing the canonical age and keeping two girls of twenty.[1609]
Few priests, it may be assumed, have the self-denial to live without
this female companionship, which is permitted by the church as a matter
of course. Indeed, the census-paper officially filled in at the Vatican
and returned in January, 1882, stated the population of the palace to
be 500, of which one-third were women. While, of course, it does not
follow that the relations between these women and the grave dignitaries
of the papal court may not be perfectly virtuous, still, considering
the age at which ordination is permitted, it would be expecting too
much of human nature to believe that, in at least a large number of
cases among parish priests, the companionship is not as fertile of sin
as we have seen it to be in every previous age since the ecclesiastic
has been deprived of the natural institution of marriage. The “niece”
or other female inmate of the parsonage throughout Catholic Europe
still excites the smile of the heretic traveller, and is looked upon as
a matter of course by the parishioner, while the prelates, content if
open scandal be avoided, affect to regard the arrangement as harmless,
knowing that it serves as a preventive of more flagrant and more public
trouble, though the fact that this companionship is made the subject
of discussion and regulation at virtually every council or synod or
episcopal convention held by the church shows that privately it is
recognized as a necessary evil at best. Yet the old sophistry is not
forgotten, which proves that such sin is less than the infraction of
ecclesiastical laws. In a tract in favor of celibacy, published at
Warsaw in 1801, with the extravagant laudation of the authorities,
argument is gravely made that as priestly marriage is incestuous, such
adultery is vastly worse than simple licentiousness, the latter being
only a lapse of the flesh, while marriage would be schism and arrogant
disobedience, involving sin of a far deeper dye.[1610]
It would, of course, be vain to expect, at the present day, from the
rulers of the church, the outspoken candor 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 16th
and 17th centuries, 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 has
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 not in visiting fairs and 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_.[1611]
It is not often that we can obtain an inside view of these matters,
especially from a source that is at once well informed and not hostile,
but such a view, confirming the worst suspicions, is afforded by an
indignant remonstrance addressed, in 1832, to Monseigneur Sterckx,
Archbishop of Mechlin, by the Abbé Helsen, who for twenty-five years
had been a popular preacher in Brussels.[1612] The abbé calls upon
his prelate to enforce the Tridentine canon by banishing the women
who are universally inmates of the houses of priests, and thus put a
stop to the sin and the scandal which destroy the influence of the
church and spread immorality among the faithful. Even the bishops and
dignitaries of the church are not spared, and the archbishop himself
is summoned to dismiss the “Petronilla” who had accompanied him from
the curacy of Bouchout to the cathedral of Antwerp, and from Antwerp to
the metropolitan seat of Mechlin.[1613] Throughout this plain-spoken
epistle the author assumes as a matter of course not only that the
relations between the clergy and their servants are guilty, but that
they are so recognized by every one—so notorious, indeed, as to need
no proof—and, as a natural consequence, he regards the priesthood as
a source of infection destructive to public morals. The cure is to
be found in putting a stop to these irregular unions—“If women were
forever banished from the houses of ecclesiastics vowed to celibacy,
I think we should not see so great a number of prostitutes who ply
their trade at night in our great cities, nor so many illegitimate
children who curse their destiny as they multiply more and more around
us. We ridicule the Seraglio of the Grand Turk and the polygamy of
the Moslem, but they too, on their side, ridicule the infinite number
of strumpets with whom Christian Europe is deluged, and the custom
of keeping as many concubines as can be afforded. Whence comes to us
this shameful trade, so hurtful to society, which is found under our
religion more than under any other? We dare not doubt that it is the
result of our own misconduct; we dare not accuse only the heretics and
the philosophers of modern times; no, no! the most poisonous spring
is in us, among us, with us, and it will not dry up without us. Let
us blush to our eye-balls; let us hide ourselves from public sight!
Oh for the times and the virtues of the primitive church! Why come ye
not again?”[1614] That this sort of scarcely veiled concubinage is, in
fact, a fruitful source of prostitution can scarcely be doubted if,
as Helsen asserts, the ordinary custom is, when one of these priest’s
servants becomes pregnant and cannot be saved by a prudent absence,
to dismiss her and take another, perhaps younger and more attractive;
and that this may occur repeatedly without the ecclesiastic being
subjected to any special annoyance or supervision—unless, indeed, he is
so ill-advised as to take pity on the unfortunate girl and refuse to
send her away. In that case he becomes a public concubinarian, liable
to the canonical penalties, with which he is sometimes disciplined.
As Helsen indignantly exclaims, “Would the Mahometans tolerate such
infamy in their fakirs and dervishes? The Japanese, the Chinese, the
Hindus in their bonzes? The pagans in their Vestals? Our ancestors
in their Druids? Even the Jews and Protestants have blushed for it,
since they advise their Rabbis and ministers to marry rather than
thus to contaminate themselves.”[1615] Helsen does not fail to allude
to the public familiarity of these servants with their employers—the
familiarity condemned in almost the same words by many of the councils
cited above—and it would seem the extreme of Pyrrhonism to doubt that
almost universal concubinage is tolerated, even where on the surface
there are no public scandals to attract the attention of the malicious.
Testimony of the same nature exists as to Italy, where the upheaval
of the last quarter of a century has created discussion and brought
forth statements of facts and opinions which reveal to some extent the
internal condition of the church. That immorality should be prevalent
would seem to be inevitable, if only from the overgrown number of
the clergy, which has been fostered by the ambition of the church.
In Rome itself, by the census of July 1st, 1867, there were no less
than 7404 ecclesiastics of both sexes, in a population of 215,573, or
one to every 29 inhabitants of all ages. In the Pontifical States,
prior to their absorption by the Kingdom of Italy, the proportion
was one to every 55 of the population. In Northern Italy, embracing
the Pontificate, the Duchies, Lombardo-Venetia and Piedmont, there
was one to every 140; while in the whole of Italy, exclusive of the
Pontificate, in 24,231,860 souls there were 174,001 ecclesiastics,
showing a proportion of one to 239. These numbers are so wholly
beyond the spiritual needs of the people that it is evident that an
ecclesiastical career must be sought by thousands who have no vocation
for a life of abstinence and self-denial; while even among those
who are induced in the fervor of youth to bind themselves by the
irrevocable vow of chastity, there must be other thousands who find too
late that they have over-estimated their strength. That passions thus
denied their appropriate relief in the institution of marriage should
degenerate often into brutal license, is too natural to excite special
wonder.[1616]
It would be difficult to restrain the appetites of so vast a body as
this even with the most determined vigilance on the part of prelates
and in the presence of the sternest popular feeling, but both of these
elements of repression may safely be assumed to be lacking. The scandal
of the Countess Lambertini, whose suit for a share of the estate of
her father, Cardinal Antonelli, has for ten years been before the
Roman courts, would seem to show that even the virtues of Pius IX.
were powerless to eradicate the license which has been traditional in
the papal court; and when a theological manual, which is still largely
used as a text-book in Catholic seminaries, coolly states that in Italy
lust is not regarded as disgraceful,[1617] though we may hope that the
standard of morality has improved since it was written, yet we cannot
expect to find in the people of which such a statement could be made,
the virtue that would hold to strict account a priesthood whose example
has been one of the efficient means of its degradation. That there is
no restraining influence would in fact appear from the consensus of
opinion of all who have had an opportunity of forming a judgment.
An address purporting to emanate from sixteen bishops to Cardinal
Catarini, begging for an enlargement of the questions to be discussed
in the Vatican Council, assumes the rule of celibacy to be the cause,
not only of heresy and schism, but of scandal to the people and of
disgrace to the church. It speaks of the disgusting trials which are
perpetually coming before the tribunals, making the priestly garb a
source of shame to its wearers, and leading the people to regard them,
not as the flower of the soldiers of Christ, but as a colony sprung
from Sodom.[1618] The Archbishop of Tarento, Giuseppe Capecelatro,
has had no scruple in urging the abrogation of the canon in order to
reduce the immense number of bastards whose existence disgraces the
church.[1619] In a similar mood, D. Marco Petronio, a priest of Pirano,
in Istria, declares that the boasted chastity of the priesthood has
filled the church with demons in place of angels, who lead their flocks
to ruin by their acts and example,[1620] and Panzini describes the
church as a brothel filled with men ruined by the attempt to deprive
them of marriage. When the latter, indeed, was on his trial before the
Inquisition, he asserted that in consequence of the canon, there were
daily committed in Rome itself more than twenty thousand mortal sins,
and the advocate of the Holy Office, D. Giuseppe Cipriani, contented
himself with quietly responding, “Perhaps not so many.”[1621] We may
therefore feel confident that there is no exaggeration in the remarks
of the Rev. William Chauncy Langdon, who had ample opportunities of
observation during his long residence in Italy as agent of the American
Episcopal Church—“I learned to regard a priest, who had lived all his
mature life, openly and faithfully with a woman to whom he had not of
course been married; by whom he had children now grown up, and for all
of whom he was faithfully providing—with a relative respect as one who
had greatly risen above the morality of his church, and of the society
around him, and whose life really might be considered, on the dark
moral background behind him, a source of relative light.”[1622]