De Coniugio Sacerdotum
The Cry for Reform
The article opens by noting public scandal from priests' misconduct and cites Pope Pius's own admission that marriage should be restored to the clergy, supported by Platina's historical testimony.
There was a public outcry over the example of priests who weren't restraining themselves. For that reason, Pope Pius is even said to have remarked that there were some reasons why marriage was taken away from priests, but there were far stronger reasons why it should be restored. So Platina writes: since the priests among us wanted to avoid those public scandals, they married and taught that they were permitted to enter into marriage. First, because Paul says, "Each one should have his own wife because of fornication."✦ Likewise, "It is better to marry than to burn."✦ Second, Christ says, "Not everyone can accept this word," where he teaches that not all people are fit for celibacy, because God created humankind for procreation, Genesis.✦✦ 1. Nor is it within human power to change creation without a special gift and work of God.
God's Command and the Early Church
Because God's command and ordinance cannot be set aside by human law or vow, priests may marry, as shown by the practice of the early Church and Paul's requirement that bishops be married men.
So those who aren't suited for celibacy should marry. No human law and no vow can set aside God's command and God's ordinance. For these reasons, priests are taught that it's permissible for them to marry. It's also well established that in the early Church, priests were married. Paul also says that a bishop must be chosen who is a husband.✦ And in Germany, for the first time about four hundred years ago, priests were forced into celibacy — something they opposed so strongly that the Archbishop of Mainz was about to publish the pope's edict on the matter. But the pope was nearly driven to suppress the edict over this matter by angry priests in an uproar. And it was handled so recklessly that marriages weren't just forbidden going forward — existing ones were torn apart, contrary to all divine and human law, contrary even to the canons themselves, which were made not only by popes but by the most praiseworthy councils.
Human Weakness and the Remedy of Marriage
As human nature weakens over time, God instituted marriage as a remedy, and the canons themselves allow relaxation of strictness; forbidding marriage risks leaving churches without pastors.
And as the world grows older, human nature is gradually becoming weaker, so it's wise to take precautions lest more vices creep into Germany. What's more, God instituted marriage so that it might be a remedy for human weakness. The canons themselves say that the old strictness must sometimes be relaxed in later times because of human weakness — that this is to be wished for, and that it should happen in this matter too. And it seems that churches will sometimes be left without pastors if marriage is forbidden any longer.
The Cruelty of Enforced Celibacy
Despite God's command to honor marriage and the Church's own custom, enforced celibacy produces grave scandals and crimes, and Paul calls the forbidding of marriage a teaching of demons.
Although God's command stands, although the custom of the Church is well known, although impure celibacy produces very many scandals, adulteries, and other crimes worthy of a good magistrate's intervention — yet it's astonishing that in no other matter greater cruelty is exercised than against the marriage of priests. God commanded marriage to be honored. In all well-ordered public matters, the laws have honored marriage with the greatest distinctions — even among pagans. But now priests are being tormented with capital punishments — and indeed, against the will of the canons, for no other reason than marriage. Paul calls it a teaching of demons — this thing that forbids marriage.✦ 1 Timoth. 4.
The Weight of Punishment
The severity of punishments used to defend the prohibition of marriage reveals how deeply the practice is entrenched and how difficult reform becomes.
This can easily be understood now, since the prohibition of marriage is defended with such punishments.
Vows and the Call to Marriage
Since no vow can override God's commandment, Cyprian advises that those who cannot keep a vow of chastity should marry, and the canons themselves allow equity for those who vowed before the proper age.
But just as no human law can set aside God's commandment, neither can a vow set aside God's commandment. Therefore Cyprian also advises that women who do not keep the chastity they promised should marry. His words are these, from book 1. letter 11. But if they're unwilling to persevere, or can't, it's better to marry than to fall into the fire with their own lusts, at least causing no scandal to the brothers or sisters. And the canons themselves apply a certain equity toward those who vow before the proper age, as has generally been the custom until now.
Read the original Latin
Publica querela fuit de exemplis Sacerdotum, qui non continebant. Quam ob causam et Pius Papa dixisse fertur, fuisse aliquas causas cur ademptum sit Sacerdotibus coniugium, sed multo maiores esse causas cur reddi debeat. Sic enim scribit Platina, Cum igitur Sacerdotes apud nos publica illa scandala vitare vellent, duxerunt uxores ac docuerunt, quod liceat ipsis contrahere matrimonium. Primum, quia Paulus dicit, Unusquisque habeat uxorem suam propter fornicationem. Item, Melius est nubere, quam uri. Secundo, Christus inquit, Non omnes capiunt verbum hoc, ubi docet non omnes homines ad coelibatum idoneos esse, quia Deus creavit hominem ad procreationem, Genes. 1. Nec est humanae potestatis, sine singulari dono et opere Dei creationem mutare.
Igitur qui non sunt idonei ad coelibatum, debent contrahere matrimonium. Nam mandatum Dei et ordinationem Dei, nulla lex humana, nullum votum tollere potest. Ex his causis docent Sacerdotes sibi licere uxores ducere. Constat etiam in Ecclesia veteri, Sacerdotes fuisse maritos. Nam et Paulus ait Episcopum eligendum esse, qui sit maritus. Et in Germania primum ante annos quadringentos, Sacerdotes vi coacti sunt ad coelibatum, qui quidem adeo adversati sunt, ut Archiepiscopus Moguntinus publicaturus edictum Rom. Pontificis de ea re, pene ab iratis Sacerdotibus per tumultum oppressus sit. Et res gesta est tam inciviliter, ut non solum in posterum coniugia prohiberentur, sed etiam praesentia, contra omnia iura divina et humana, contra ipsos etiam Canones factos, non solum a Pontificibus, sed a laudatissimis Synodis, distraherentur.
Et cum senescente mundo, paulatim natura humana fiat imbecillior, convenit prospicere, ne plura vitia serpant in Germaniam. Porro Deus instituit coniugium, ut esset remedium humanae infirmitatis. Ipsi Canones veterem rigorem interdum posterioribus temporibus propter imbecillitatem hominum laxandum esse dicunt, quod optandum est ut fiat et in hoc negotio. Ac videntur Ecclesiis aliquando defuturi pastores, si diutius prohibeatur coniugium.
Cum autem exstet mandatum Dei, cum mos Ecclesiae notus sit, cum impurus coelibatus plurima pariat scandala, adulteria, et alia scelera digna animadversione boni magistratus: tamen mirum est, nulla in re maiorem exerceri saevitiam quam adversus coniugium Sacerdotum. Deus praecepit honore afficere coniugium. Leges in omnibus rebus publicis bene constitutis, etiam apud Ethnicos maximis honoribus ornaverunt. At nunc capitalibus poenis excruciantur, et quidem Sacerdotes contra Canonum voluntatem, nullam aliam ob causam, nisi propter coniugium. Paulus vocat doctrinam daemoniorum, quae prohibet coniugium. 1. Timoth. 4.
Id facile nunc intelligi potest, cum talibus suppliciis prohibitio coniugii defenditur.
Sicut autem nulla lex humana potest mandatum Dei tollere, ita nec votum potest tollere mandatum Dei. Proinde etiam Cyprianus suadet, ut mulieres nubant, quae non servant promissam castitatem. Verba eius sunt haec, lib. 1. epistola XI. Si autem perseverare nolunt, aut non possunt, melius est ut nubant, quam ut in ignem deliciis suis cadant, certe nullum fratribus aut sororibus scandalum faciant. Et aequitate quadam utuntur ipsi Canones erga hos, qui ante iustam aetatem voverunt, quomodo fere hactenus fieri consuevit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.7.2 — But because of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.
- ↩1Cor.7.9 — But if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.
- ↩Matt.19.11 — But he said to them, 'Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.
- ↩Gen.1.28 — And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'
- ↩1Tim.3.2;Titus.1.6 — Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, Titus.1.6 — if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who are believers, not accused of dissipation or insubordinate.
- ↩1Tim.4.3 — who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
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