The church against marriage...

Study:

"Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women..." Daniel 11:37 "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry..." 1 Timothy 4:1-3

Is the Roman Catholic against marriage? Does it disregard the desire of women? Does it disregard this God inbuilt desire for the binding of man and wife... and hence disregard marriage? Indeed it does! And what a price the church and the world has paid for this dishonour. It is written in countless books and upon the lives of countless individuals. This is just another sign of the church's contempt for the Creator. The other sign is its disregard of the Sabbath. Both institutions, the seventh-day Sabbath and marriage, were established by the Creator at Creation, in our first home, Eden, in a world without sin. Both were established in perfection in a perfect sinless world and both have been trampled on by the church. For God established in the beginning that "It is not good that the man should be alone;" (Gen. 2:18). And then he made Eve and instituted marriage to fill the lack. And yet the Catholic church presumed to undo God's creation and command and do away with marriage. Oh, the horrific results of this audacity which may still be seen, even in our times, in the rampant sexual abuse scandals of the clergy. In the sources that will be examined, first, its own statements against marriage will be examined then, one of its satanic inspired tools for the destruction of marriage, the confessional, will be briefly examined, and then, finally, the historical record of its destruction of the priesthood, marriage, and of morals.

A. Against Marriage:

The Popish "...Doctrine doth not forbid all Marriage; and yet this I may truly say, that Popish Writers speak so disgracefully and contemptuously of Marriage in their Argumentations against the Marriage of some, that if all were true which they affirm, it would be unlawful for any as they hope for Salvation to link themselves in the bonds of Matrimony."

Vincent, Nathanael, The morning-exercise against popery; or, The principal errors of the Church of Rome detected and confuted, in a morning-lecture preached lately in Southwark: by several ministers of the Gospel in or near London, London: Printed by A. Maxwell for Tho: Parkhurst, 1675, p. 581.

Examples of this negative attitude against marriage from within the Roman Catholic church from amongst its clergy and theologians.

Jean Charlier de Gerson (1363 – 1429):

"...it is better to tolerate incontinent priests than to have no priests at all."

Mathias Cremerius Peltzer (German: Matthias Kremer) (or Matthias von Zittardt) (1465 – 1557):

"...such who marry after their Vow of Continency, do offend more than such a one as through Humane frailty doth deviate, (as he terms it) which in plain English is, who through the power of burning lust is unclean with a hundred divers persons."

Lorenzo Campeggio (1474 – 1539):

"...for Priests to become Husbands, is by far a more heinous crime than if they should keep many Whores in their houses."

Albert Pighius (Pigghe) (c. 1490 – 1542):
Stanislaus Hosius (Polish: Stanisław Hozjusz) (1504 – 1579):

"...Hosius, who doth defend the saying of Pighius as not only true, but pious, that a Priest through the infirmity of the flesh falling into the sin of Fornication, doth sin less than if he should marry; and telleth us, that although this Assertion seem foul, yet the Catholicks account it most honest."

Francis Coster (or Frans de Costere) (1532 (1531) – 1619):

"...a Priest who doth fornicate or nourish a Concubine at home in his house, although he be guilty of great Sacriledge, yet he doth more heinously offend if he contract Matrimony."

Robert Bellarmine (Italian: Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino) (1542 – 1621):

"It cannot be denied, that some Impurity and Pollution intervenes in the Act of Marriage; not what is a Sin, but what ariseth from Sin."

Martín de Azpilcueta (1491 – 1586), or Doctor Navarrus:
Pierre Du Moulin (1568 – 1658):

"...by the Rules of the Roman Church, a Sodomist may exercise the Priesthood, and by that abominable vice doth not run into irregularity; whereas Marriage is judged altogether incompatible with Sacred Orders: and he quotes Navarrus, saying, The crime of Sodomy is not comprehended amongst the crimes that bring irregularity, and giveth several reasons for it."

Giovanni della Casa (1503 – 1556):

Sleidan saith that he wrote a Sodomitical Book, then which nothing more foul could have been thought upon by man; neither did he blush to celebrate with praises that most filthy sin, too much known in Italy and Greece.

B. Destructive Nature of the Celibate Priest:

"Now, when the vast multitude of the clergy, secular and regular, of all degrees, were probibited from marriage, that preservative allowed them by that infinite Wisdom who created them, and that all classes of people must come to these private confessions, and so frequently too, and open up their (even indecent) secrets, as above: and when the well-fed pastor is celibate, and when he can lay on penance, and when he can loose and absolve from the guilt confessed, what on earth, I ask,―I appeal to every breast―can be conceived more calculated to produce general pollution, and fill the world with fornications and adulteries on every hand?"

Ouseley, Gideon, Old Christianity against papal novelties, 1st Am. from 5th Dub. ed., Philadelphia: Sorin and Ball, [1842] 1844, p. 322.

How does the confessional destroy society?

View some typical questions that the priest is supposed to ask in the confessional.

Burchard of Worms (c. 950/965 – 1025):

Peter Dens (1690 – 1775):

"Hence let the wife accusing herself in confession of having denied the marriage duty, be asked whether the husband demanded it with the full rigor of his right;..."

"The wives sin, who prevent the conception of the fœtus with potions, or eject or endeavor to eject the seed received from the man."

Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696–1787):

Pierre Jean Corneille Debreyne (1786-1867):

Francis Patrick Kenrick (1796 – 1863):

Add to the logic of this protestant (Gideon Ouseley) the judgment of a Catholic church council.

"On account of the crime of concubinage, with which multitudes of the clergy and monks are infected, the church of God and the whole clergy are held in derision, abomination, and dishonor among all nations; and that abominable crime has so prevailed in the house of God that Christians do not now consider mere fornication a mortal sin."---Council of Paris 1429, c. xxiii.; Mansi, xxviii. p. 1107.

And lastly the judgment of a church historian.

Now let us take a quick glance at the historical record... at the fruits of celibacy...

Prior to Nicene (AD 325):

Dionysius of Corinth (c. 171):

"Lay not that heavy burden of the necessity of chaste life upon the brethren;" meaning thereby, that it was too heavy a burden for all men to carry.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253):

"Not only they do not that they teach, but also cruelly and without mercy they lay their injunctions upon others, not considering each man's ability. Such be they that forbid men to marry, and from that thing that is lawful to be done drive and force men to an unreasonable purity. They bind and lay on heavy burdens, and cause men to fall under them. And oftentimes we see them that teach such things themselves to do contrary to their own sayings. They teach chastity, and yet keep not chastity, &c. They do all things for the commendation of men and vain-glory, that they may be seen and noted of the people. And commonly they be such as love the highest places at feasts and banquets, and to be saluted and honoured in the market-places, and of the people to be called rabbi; that will be called bishops, priests, and deacons."

Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200 – 258):

"Wherefore took he a woman unto him, that disdained to marry a wife? To live a continent life with reproach is worse than advoutry [adultry]."

"What have the virgins of the Church to do at promiscuous baths . . . and there to violate the commonest dictates of feminine modesty! The places (baths) you frequent, are more filthy than the theatre itself—all modesty is there laid aside, and with your robes, your personal honour and reserve are cast off. . . . Thus it is that the Church so often has to weep for her virgins; so does she bewail their infamy, and the horrid tales which get abroad."

Prior to Pope Siricius (384 – 399):

Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403):

"They refuse marriage, but not lust or pleasure. For they esteem not chastity, but hypocrisy; and yet the same hypocrisy they will have to be called chastity."

Jerome (Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) (c. 342-347 – 420):

"The ill name and report of some that behave not themselves well disgraceth and dishonoureth the holy purpose of virgins, and obscureth and blemisheth the glory of the heavenly and angel-like family; who must be plainly and peremptorily urged and required either to marry if they cannot contain, or to contain if they will not marry."

"The euil name of some which behaue not them-selues well, doth slander the holy purpose of virgines."

John Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407):

"We may say that marriage is a great deal better (than such virginity). Hereafter it were better there were no virgins at all. The name (of virginity) continueth still; but virginity itself in their body is quite gone. They live more in pleasure than harlots in the stews. There is often and daily running of midwives to virgins' houses. This manner of virginity, of women amongst men, is more reproved of all men than fornication itself."

Sulpicius Severus (c. 363 – c. 425):

"How truly and how stoutly hath St Hierome written of the familiarity that these virgins have with monks and priests! And therefore it is said that of some men, whom I will not name, he is the less beloved."

Prior to Pope Gregory VII (1074):

Salvian (or Salvianus) (5th century):

"Under the colour of religion and holiness they are made slaves to worldly vices."

"A very strange kind of conversion: that they may do they do not, and do that they may not do."

"This is a new kind of religion. They do not things lawfull & commit things vnlawfull. They abstaine from copulation (although the abstaine not from that neither, but fro[m] that which is lawfull) and refraine not from rape. What doest thou O foolish perswasion? God hath forbidden sinne, and not mariage, your deeds agree not with your studies or profession. You ought not to bee fauorers of vices."

Bede (672/3 – 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable:

In a letter addressed to Ecgbert, who became Bishop of York in the year 732:—
   "It belongs to your office to provide that the devil do not establish his kingdom in places consecrated to God, that there be not discord instead of peace, strife instead of piety, drunkenness instead of sobriety, fornication and slaughter instead of charity and chastity."

Bede tells us that in the year 679 the Monastery at Coludon (Coldingham) was destroyed by fire, "which thing happened for the wickedness of them that dwelled therein." It is said of the nuns:—"The virgins vowed unto God contemning the reverence and regard of their profession as oft as they have any leisure thereto . . . set themselves forth like brides to the great danger of their estate and profession or else to get the love of strangers abroad." After a temporary reformation "they returned to their naughtiness and worse too," so the Monastery was burned down.

Saint Boniface (c. 675 – 754), born Winfrid:

In the year 745, Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, in a letter to Ethelbald, King of the Mercians, after censuring him for his evil conduct in connection with Convents, refers to the nuns in terms which I cannot quote, but amongst other enormities he charges them with murdering their illicit offspring. A serious charge it must be confessed to be preferred against so-called virgins, professing to be the spouses of Jesus Christ.

8th Century (according to Baronio):

"Through various parts of Italy and Lombardy priests dwell with nuns:"

Amongst the Gallic clergy "deacons have four or five concubines . . . . and when they come to priests' orders they continue in the same crimes."

10th Century (according to Baronio):

"The houses of the clergy were schools for harlots and assemblies of stage-players, where dice, dancing, and singing were to be witnessed, and where the patrimony of kings and the alms given by princes were lavishly squandered away."

Sigebert of Gembloux (c. 1030 – 1112): 

"This was done by him [Pope Gregory VII] nouo exemplo, after a new fashion, and as many conceiued, of an inconsiderate zeale, and that it caused a greeuous scandal in the Church: and how, few Priests after the enacting of this law liued continently; but some for lucre and vaine glorie feigned continency, and many did accumulate to incontinency periurie, manifold adulteries, &c."

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153):

"If according to Ezekiel his prophesie, we dig through the wall, we shall finde in the house of God an horrible abomination: for after and besides fornication, adulterie, and incest, the very passions of ignominie and workes of filthinesse, (Rom. 1.27.) are not wanting, for which the cities of Sodome and Gomorrha, the verie nurses of filthinesse were prædamned. Some of the Priests of the Church are besprinkled with the lothsome and matterie filth of this uncleannes, and abstaining from the remedie of wedlocke, they breake out into all flagitious wickednesse."

"The bishops and priests of this time, how do they endeavour to keep either in heart or in body the holiness of chastity, without which no man shall see God? They are given over into a reprobate mind, and do those things that are not convenient. For it were shame to utter what these bishops do in secret."

"Abstaining from the remedy of marriage, afterward they flow over into all kind of wickedness."

After Pope Gregory VII:

Matthew Paris (c. 1200 – 1259):

   In the same year [1251], at a season of festivity, the pope left Lyons, accompanied by his cardinals and a great many nobles, and under conduct of Philip, bishop elect of Lyons, attended by a large retinue of armed men, for fear of treachery from the friends of Frederick. When everything was ready for their departure, Brother Hugh, a cardinal, on behalf of the pope took leave of the citizens of Lyons and publicly preached a sermon to the people; and after he had given them all some good instruction and civilly taken leave of them on behalf of the pope and the whole court, he added a speech, which we think proper to insert in this book on account of the satirical rebuke contained in it:—"My friends," said he, "since we arrived in this city we have done much good and largely bestowed alms; for when we first came here, we found three or four brothels, and now at our departure we leave behind us only one; but that extends from the eastern gate of the city to the western one." This speech gave offence to the ears of all the women, of whom there was an immense number present to hear his discourse; for all the inhabitants of the city were convoked by the voice of the herald in the name of the pope now about to leave them; and this piece of irony passed from mouth to mouth amongst the many, because its cynicism affected all alike.

Hugh of Saint-Cher (c. 1200 – 1263):

"Priests in our daies are not the husbands of one wife, (see 1 Tim. 3) but fornicators with tenne or twentie harlots."

Constitutions Legantine (1220-1230):

"Clerks commonly hold and have such concubines in honest haviour, under the name of their sisters."

Roger of Wendover (d. 1236):

   A.D. 1125. John of Crema, cardinal of the apostolic see, came into England with the king's licence, and visited all the bishoprics and abbeys. He had large presents made to him, and held a solemn synod at London on the nativity of the virgin Mary; where he spoke severely of the concubines of the clergy, saying that it was a great sin to rise from their side, and to make Christ's body; but that very night he was surprised in company with a prostitute, though he had that same day consecrated Christ's body. The fact was so notorious that it could not be denied, and so his great honour turned the more signally into dishonour.

Álvaro Pelayo (Latin: Alvarus Pelagius) (c. 1280 – 1352):

"... many Priests, and other Persons in Holy Orders, especially in Spain, Austria, Gallicia, and other Places, publickly, and sometimes by publick Writing, promised and swore to Women, chiefly those who were well descended, that they would never put them away; and gave them Joyntures of the Goods and Possessions of the Church; and sometimes publickly married them, in presence of their Kindred and Friends, with a solemn Banquet, as if they were their lawful Wives."

Robert Holcot (c.1290-1349):

"The priests of our time by their lechery are like the spirits called incubi, the priests of Priapus, or Beelphegor, and the angels of the pit of hell."

"Our moderne Priests are like Satyres or incubi through letcherie: and as the incubi or night-mares are reported to haue begotten Giants: So the Priests of Priapus and Beelphegor by the vehemencie of lust, begat grosse and corpulent children."

John Acton (d. 1350):

See the Constitutions Legantine (1220-1230). John Acton provides the gloss or commentary to these constitutions.

Bridget of Sweden (c. 1303 – 1373):

"Not one [priest] among a hundred [live continently]."

"[Convents or nunneries] Such places are more like Brothelhouses and common Stewes, than holy Cells."

"The doors through which the sisters are pleased to afford an entrance to clergymen and laymen, are open even at night; and therefore such places resemble rather houses of bad fame than holy cloisters!"

John Wycliffe (c. 1320s – 1384):

"So great was the licence of sinning, that the priests and monks besides violating married women and nuns, slew virgins who refused to consent to their desires. They were in the habit of persuading women that it was a smaller crime to commit sin with priests than with laymen; boasting also that they could absolve them, and would be answerable to God for their sins;" with more that is unfit for publication.

Dietrich of Nieheim (Niem or Nyem) (Theodoricus de Niem) (c. 1345 – 1418):

"Many nuns commit fornication with bishops, and monks, and convents, and are delivered of sons and daughters within their monasteries, which were got by those persons, fornicator-like, if not incestuously. And, which is most pitiful, very many of these nuns kill, with saberdisauces, the fruit in their wombs; many kill them, after they be born."

Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges (or Clamanges) (c. 1360 – c. 1434 to 1440):

"What are nunneries, I pray you, now, save cursed stews, and places for meeting of wanton and shameless youths to satisfy their lusts in? So that now it is all one, to make a wench a nun, and to make her a whore."

"I say nought of your priests' fornications and adulteries, from which crimes, if any man be free, he is made a laughing-stock to the rest, and either called an eunuch or a sodomite."

"The lay-people are so conceited of the incontinence of all priests, that willingly they would not have a parish priest, unless he have a whore of his own, that so they might keep their own wives. And yet, for all that, they are scarce sure of their own by that course."

Jean Charlier de Gerson (1363 – 1429):

"...the letcherie of the Popish Cleargie, was a generall and a rooted euill: and many iudged it a smaller offence for Priests to liue with Concubines of their owne, then to commit more grieuous crimes with the wiues and daughters of their Parishioners, besides other more horrible abominations."

Nicolò de' Tudeschi (Panormitanus) (1386 – 1445):

Antonio Beccadelli (1394 – 1471), called Il Panormita:

"An unchaste laic is adjudged to sin more than an adulterous priest, for this reason, because a laic may use that remedy which is prohibited to an ecclesiastic."

Council of Constance (1414 – 1418):

"Look with your own eyes," cried a speaker at Constance [Petrus de Pulka], "at the clergy of the Roman Curia, who, since before the time of the Great Schism, have borne the reputation of being more than humanly depraved; look at the clergy of this diocese, who are no better; aye, look at the clergy of this very town, and of this very Council itself! Have they, from respect to this reverend synod, before whose eyes they live daily, even in the least amended their profligate lives? The clergy from Rome keep their mistresses here, openly and shamelessly, before all;   they sell justice publicly, and are foul with every kind of moral leprosy as hitherto."

"Attend and consider! Behold how the clergy of the Roman court, which, from the commencement of this schism, is regarded as depraved beyond human depravity, and in like manner the clergy of this diocese,—nay, more, of this city, and of the synod itself,—obey our injunctions! Consider, I pray you, whether from reverence to this sacred synod, in whose presence they daily are, they have even in the least degree amended their dissolute lives.   Undeniably the clergy of the Roman court are affirmed to retain their concubines without shame before all."

Johann Ebser (d. 1438):

"The Nunneries in his Time were as publickly prostituted as the common Stews."

John Morton (c. 1420 – 1500):

...the brethren of the abbey [of St. Alban's] were living in filth and lasciviousness with the inmates of the dependent sisterhoods; that the adjoining Nunnery of Pray was a common brothel; the prioress setting the example, by living in unrebuked adultery with one of the monks. ... [Froude]

... That the monks under him were leading a lascivious life, and, horrible to say, were polluting the holy places, and even the very house of God itself, by committing acts of incest with nuns, and sometimes, in their quarrels, by the shedding of blood. The abbot had admitted one Ellen Germyn, a notoriously adulterous woman, into the priory of Pray, which was under his jurisdiction, and made her prioress; and Thomas Sudbury, one of the monks, was in the habit of constantly going to her for immoral purposes, and others of the monks also went there to her and to other of the nuns as to a public brothel. ... [Perry]

"You have, a certain married woman, by name Elen Germyn, who lately quitted her husband wrongly, and for a considerable time lived in adultery with another man, as a sister and nun of the house or priory of Pray, which is, as you pretend, in your jurisdiction, and have advanced her next to the prioress, notwithstanding that her said husband was then alive, and is still living; and next, that Thomas Sudbury, your fellow-monk, has for a long time publickly, notoriously, and with impunity, proceeded to her, as an adulterer to an adulteress in the house or priory of Pray, and still does so, as do certain others your brethren and fellow-monks, both there and elsewhere, as to a public courtezan, or harlot; who have had continual access with impunity, and yet have. ..." [tr. Hook]

"... that he had made a loose woman, named Ellen Germyn, who had deserted her husband and long lived in a state of adultery, prioress of the nunnery at Pray; ..." [tr. Hart]

"So that many, of thy said fellow-monks and fellow-friars, giving themselves up to a reprobate mind, and putting away from them the fear of God, led, and still do lead a lascivious life, and horrible to relate, too often do not fear to profane the very holy places, even the temples of God, by the violation of nuns and other enormities.

"And thus, amongst other grave, enormous and most wicked crimes of which thou stoodest, and dost stand guilty, noted and disgraced, thou didst take a certain woman named Elen Germyn who had but lately basely quitted her husband, and had lived in adulterous embraces with another man, and didst place her in the Nunnery or Priory of Pray, under thine own jurisdiction, first as a nun, and afterwards as prioress, although her husband lived, and yet lives; and Sir Thomas Sudbury, one of thy fellow monks, did publicly, notoriously, and with impunity, visit her tanquam mæchus ad mæcham in the house or Priory of Pray aforesaid; and also others of thy fellow monks and fellow friars have continual access with impunity to her and to other women, both there and elsewhere tanquam ad publica prostibula sive lupanaria. ..." [tr. Tonna]

"... and not a few of your fellow-monks and brethren, as we most deeply grieve to learn, giving themselves over to a reprobate mind, laying aside the fear of God, do lead only a life of lasciviousness — nay, as is horrible to relate, be not afraid to defile the holy places, even the very churches of God, by infamous intercourse with nuns, &c., &c.

   "You yourself, moreover, among other grave enormities and abominable crimes whereof you are guilty, and for which you are noted and diffamed, have, in the first place, admitted a certain married woman, named Elena Germyn, who has separated herself without just cause from her husband, and for some time past has lived in adultery with another man, to be a nun or sister in the house or Priory of Bray, lying, as you pretend, within your jurisdiction. You have next appointed the same woman to be prioress of the said house, notwithstanding that her said husband was living at the time, and is still alive. And finally, Father Thomas Sudbury, one of your brother monks, publicly, notoriously, and without interference or punishment from you, has associated, and still associates, with this woman as an adulterer with his harlot.

   "Moreover, divers other of your brethren and fellow-monks have resorted, and do resort, continually to her and other women at the same place, as to a public brothel or receiving-house, and have received no correction therefor."

"... The brethren of the abbey, some of whom, as is reported, are given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect the service of God altogether. They live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continuously, within the precincts of the monastery and without. ..." [tr. Froude]

Baptista Spagnuoli Mantuanus (Italian: Battista Mantovano, English: Battista the Mantuan or simply Mantuan; also known as Johannes Baptista Spagnolo) (1447 – 1516):

"Packe modestie to townes, vnlesse (no newes)
Townes haue some sores, the citie [Rome] 's now all stewes."

"Depart honestie into villages, if they be not also infected with the like filthie impostumes. The Cittie (meaning Rome) is wholy become a Stewes."

"Neglecting the worship of God, they serue Bacchus and Venus."

Peter of Ravenna (c. 1448 – 1508):

"Oh how many wretched Priests in Italy, France, Spaine, and other Regions, doe by incontinency flye more swiftly then an arrow to the region of hell!"

Berthold Pürstinger (Berthold of Chiemsee) (1465 –  1543):

See Johann Ebser (d. 1438).

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1469 – 1536):

Erasmus adds to these observations that, in his youth, he had known harlots applaud their own irregularities, because they had heard a curate say that priests had confessed, at the time of the jubilee, of having seduced their penitents.

"Penitents often fall into the hands of priests who, under the pretence of confession, commit acts which are not fit to be mentioned; they who ought to correct morals become the accomplices—the teachers and disciples of debauchery. Would to God that my warnings were unfounded, and that there did not exist everywhere so many examples of these irregularities, of which I speak only in sorrow, and cannot mention without blushing."

Polydore Vergil or Virgil (c. 1470 – 1555):

"Yet this I will say, that this enforced chastitie is so far from excelling that chastitie of marriage, that no crime and sin hath brought more shame to ye order of Priesthood, more euill to religion, nor more griefe to all good men, than that blot of the filthines of Priests. Wherefore peraduenture it were expedient, both for the Christian common wealth, and the estate of that order of Priesthood, that at the last the right of publike marriage were restored to Priests, which they might holyly vse without infamie, rather then most filthily defile themselues with such a natural vice."

"And here Polidore protesteth. That the single life of Priests doth more harm to the Religion, shame to the Order, and grief to honest men, then their constrained chastity profiteth: If they were restored to the liberty and choice, it were no prejudice to the Christian Commonwealth, and honesty for the Order."

Jean Lemaire de Belges (c. 1473 – c. 1525):

"Having relinquished matrimony, the ecclesiastics gratify every unlawful lust; and transform lawful marriage into adultery."

Johann Georg Turmair (or Thurmayr) (pen name Johannes Aventinus) (1477 – 1534):

"And thou, O vigilant Gregorie, what wouldest thou haue done if fortune had reserued thee vntill our daies, in which to dally with women, to whore, drinke, to rauish and deflowre virgins, to adulterate wiues, is become the principall studie of Priests, in so much, that cauda salax sacrificulorum in prouerbium abijt."

Lorenzo Campeggio (1474 – 1539):

See section Against Marriage.

Albert Pighius (Pigghe) (c. 1490 – 1542):

See section Against Marriage.

Stanislaus Hosius (Polish: Stanisław Hozjusz) (1504 – 1579):

Quotes Albert Pighius (Pigghe) (c. 1490 – 1542).

Martin (Peresius) Pérez de Ayala (1504-1566):

Claude D'Espence (1511 – 1571):

George Cassander (or Cassant) (1513 – 1566):

"...all the best and most religious Priests, perceiving their Infirmity, and detesting the Foulness of Fornication, if they dare not publickly, at least privately, enter into Marriage."

The Tripartitum or Opus Tripartitum (1514):

"Such notorious filthiness of lechery there is in many parts of the world, not only in the inferior clerks, but also in priests, yea, and in the greater prelates too: which thing is horrible to be heard," &c.

Francis Coster (or Frans de Costere) (1532 (1531) – 1619):

See section Against Marriage.

Council of Treuers (1548):

"To this sinne (of drunkennesse) is ioyned another more grieuous staine of offence; to wit, the vnlawfull societie of Priests and Deacons with women, which how intollerable enuy and hatred of all the professors of Catholike faith against sacred persons, it hath procured from the first beginning untill now, can hardly be expressed. And we must ingenuously confesse, that no staine of wickednesse hath more grieuously offended the eyes of the vulgar, and ministred greater occasion to their rage and crueltie against the Ecclesiasticall state then this."

Inquisition (Llorente) (2nd half 16th century):

Individual cases:

1. seduced thirteen of seventeen's story. thirteen-out-of-seventeen-seduced.html

John Stock (c. 1564):

John Stock, Notary of the Apostolick Rota, relates, in a Letter written at Rome, October 8, 1564. to J. Hensberg, a Divine of Cologn, a remarkable Instance of this. These Wretches of ours are not so holy as they appear. They walk in the Likeness of Sheep, but within are ravening Wolves, and their pretended Sanctity is a double Iniquity. They are under the Influence of a strong Ambition. The Venetians ordered one of them to be burnt alive, by Command of the Pope. He had been Father Confesor to some Nuns in the Dominions of Venice, and had got twelve of them with Child, amongst whom the Abbess and two otbers had Children in one Year. As he was confessing them, he agreed with them about the Place, Manner, and Time of lying with them. All were filled with Admiration and Astonishment, taking the Man for a perfect Saint, he had so great a Shew of Sanctity in his very Face.

Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy (1618 – 1693):

Scipione de' Ricci (1741 – 1810) (bishop of Pistoia: 1780 – 1791):

[...] It will be sufficient to give here the letter written from Rome the 25th October, 1781, by the Advocate Zanobetti to Bishop Ricci: the autograph is in the archives of the family of the latter.

   The advocate hopes, that it will end with the general adoption of withdrawing the nuns from the spiritual direction of the monks, "especially in those states, where some years ago it was necessary to raze from the foundations one of men belonging to the barefooted Carmelites, the other of women of the same order, which were joined, and in which, by means of subterranean passages, they led the ordinary life of men and women." Zanobetti had been five years employed in the office of assessor of the Inquisition, and he knew, he says, much more about monks and nuns than the Bishop of Pistoia possibly could.

William Hogan (ex-Catholic priest) (d. 1848):

[...] It is not more than five or six years, since a number of Jesuits, in Baltimore, petitioned the legislature of Maryland for leave to run a subterraneous passage from one of their chapels to a nunnery, distant only about five hundred yards. The object of the petitioners was too plain. It was the most daring outrage ever offered any deliberative body of men; but, much to the credit of the legislature of Maryland, they rejected the petition with undisguised marks of indignant scorn.

Individual cases:

1. First story. priesthood-and-fornication-hogan-popery.html
2. Hogan's friend's story. another-story-hogan-popery-as-it-was.html
3. Two daughters' story. the-two-daughters-story-hogan-popery-as.html
4. Impotent husband's story. the-impotent-husbands-story-hogan.html
5. Unfortunate husband's story. the-unfortunate-husbands-story-hogan.html

Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi (1807 – 1882):

"... Let them remember that in the year 1848, when a Republican Government was established in France—which was the signal of a general revolutionary movement throughout Europe—and the present Pope was forced to escape in the disguise of a menial, while a National Government granted, for the first time in Rome, religious toleration, one of the first orders of the Roman republic was that the nuns should be liberated, and the convents searched. Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1849, then recently arrived in Rome,   visited in person every convent, and was present during the whole of the investigations. In all, without an exception, he found instruments of cruelty; and in all, without an exception, were vaults, plainly dedicated to the reception of the bones of infants. Statistics prove that in no city is there so great a number of children born out of wedlock as in Rome; and it is in Rome also that the greatest number of infanticides take place.

   "This must ever be the case with a wealthy unmarried priesthood and a poor and ignorant population."

Luigi Giustiniani (c. 1843):

   "In the family where I boarded in Florence, was a young lady, about seventeen years of age. Her parents gave her a good, but above all, a religious education. One day the mother told her daughter to prepare to go with her to-morrow to confess and to commune. The mother unfortunately, feeling unwell the next morning, the young lady had to go by herself; when she returned, her eyes showed that she had wept, and her countenance indicated that something unusual had happened. The mother, as a matter of course, inquired the cause, but she wept bitterly, and said she was ashamed to tell it. Then the mother insisted; so the daughter told her that the parish priest to whom she constantly confessed, asked her questions this time which she could not repeat without a blush. She, however, repeated some of them, which were of the most licentious and corrupting tendency, which were better suited to the lowest sink of debauchery than the confessional. Then he gave her some instructions, which decency forbids me to repeat; gave her absolution, and told her before she communed, she must come into his house, which was contiguous to the church; the unsuspecting young creature did as the father confessor told her. The rest, the reader can imagine. The parents furious, would, immediately have gone to the arch-bishop, and laid before him the complaint; but I advised them to let it be as it was, because they would injure the character of their daughter more than the priest. All the punishment he would have received, is a suspension for a month or two, and then be placed in another parish, or even remain where he is. With such brutal acts, the history of the confessional is full."

James Aitken Wylie (1808 – 1890):

   "Last summer the wife of a rich merchant was taken by her confessor to the Convent della Suore Grigè; for, be it remembered, the convent is never far from the confessional-box, the two being in fact twin institutions—halves of a great whole. The husband traced his wife to her refugio, and brought an action at law against the priest. The priest defended himself on the ground that his penitent had fled to the convent of her own accord, moved by the pious desire of enjoying less interruptedly the benefit of his spiritual instructions. The court, instead of gratifying the parties in their devout wishes, found them guilty of a flagrant breach of that commandment which is the sixth in order in Roman catechisms, but in Protestant ones is the seventh; and the public outside, despite the protestations of the priest, who appealed from the judgment of men to the judgment of God, who knew his motives, marked their sense of the transaction by affixing, over night, the following placard to the gates of the convent, Casa di tolleranza—Camere da affittarsi.

   "Two days after the publication of these facts in Il Temporale there appeared in the same journal a letter from a citizen of Parma, which was as follows:—'I have read in your spirited and most useful journal an account which shows the uses served by confessionals and convents, and I write these few lines to say that the inscription posted upon the gate of the convent Del Refugio e delle Suore Grigè might be affixed to a great many similar establishments. In Parma, for example, there was a convent of the Jesuits near to that of the nuns of St. Ursula. The one was divided from the other by a narrow street. When, in 1859, the just indignation of the populace drove the fathers from their buildings, it was discovered that there was an underground communication betwixt the two convents, which enabled the monks and nuns to hold converse with one another without restraint. In Lombardy, and in other places, subterranean passages have been discovered in these establishments, which allowed the religious of both sexes freely to mingle in each other's society. The conversion of these commodious asylums of dubious chastity into barracks and hospitals cannot be regarded but as a great good.'"

Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy (1809 – 1899):

Individual cases:

1. Mary's story. marys-story-chiniquy-priest-woman-and.html
2. Mary's story, part 2. marys-story-part-2-chiniquy-priest.html
3. Geneva/"Joseph" 's story. genevajoseph-s-story-chiniquy-priest.html
4. The merchant's wife's story. the-merchants-wifes-story-chiniquy.html
5. St. Antoine's story. st-antoines-story-chiniquy-priest-woman.html

Jeremiah J. Crowley (b. 1861):

Individual cases:

1. Reverend no. 2's story. reverend-no-2s-story-crowley-romanism.html
2. Reverend no. 3's story. reverend-no-3s-story-crowley-romanism.html
3. Reverend no. 6's story. reverend-no-6s-story-crowley-romanism.html
4. Reverend no. 7's story. reverend-no-7s-story-crowley-romanism.html
5. Reverend no. 10's story. reverend-no-10s-story-crowley-romanism.html
6. Reverend no. 11's story. reverend-no-11s-story-crowley-romanism.html
7. Reverend no. 12's story. reverend-no-12s-story-crowley-romanism.html
8. Reverend no. 13's story. reverend-no-13s-story-crowley-romanism.html
9. Reverend no. 14's story. reverend-no-14s-story-crowley-romanism.html
10. Reverend no. 15's story. reverend-no-15s-story-crowley-romanism.html
11. Reverend no. 16's story. reverend-no-16s-story-crowley-romanism.html
12. Reverend no. 17's story. reverend-no-17s-story-crowley-romanism.html
13. Reverend no. 18's story. reverend-no-18s-story-crowley-romanism.html
14. Reverend no. 19's story. reverend-no-19s-story-crowley-romanism.html
15. Reverend no. 20's story. reverend-no-20s-story-crowley-romanism.html
16. Reverend no. 22's story. reverend-no-22s-story-crowley-romanism.html
17. Reverend no. 23's story. reverend-no-23s-story-crowley-romanism.html
18. Reverend no. 24's story. reverend-no-24s-story-crowley-romanism.html
19. Reverend no. 27's story. reverend-no-27s-story-crowley-romanism.html