Celibacy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 47, 21 November 1907, Page 10

Celibacy

• According to Max O'Rell, 'it requires an ounce 'of , courage to get married, and^a toivref , it to remain'marned'. Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace, .Alexander the ~ Great, Hannibal, ana many."other great lights of the world -(adds he),- died bachelors.' < Socrates ' adds Max, 'was an exception, but his wife killed him 'before

the .cup jof hemlock did,' and '* Byron tried matrimony, hut was not more successful than Mdliere'. ' Max has much advice to give on the subject, but he has. not been able to improve on that of St. Paul. And the Apostle, of 7 the GentiLes, while exalting the marriefl state, makes the virginal state (for those who ■ are called - to it)" the- better one, and the- more suited to the Christian ministry. , - • The c Aye Maria \ does not attach ' any particular importance to non-^atltolic approval of Catholic doctrine or discipline. Yet it confesses to 'a certain interest in vhe statement of Uie grounds upon which such approval is based '. For this reason it reproduces the following extract from a paper on ' Clerical Celibacy and Reunion ' contributed to the Anglican ' Lamp ' :— ' The Catnolic Church is inspired by the Spirit of all wisdom. And in requiring her priests to be all celibates, she does it, not only because it is the higher state, but because that state' creates a certain psychological attitude to" the priest which is necessary to the effective accomplishment of the work of the Church. The conjugal state, ou the other hand, in aauition to its hampering responsibilities, brings about a conunion of mind which, more or less, unfits the man to sympathise" with the sacerdotal life and to enter perfectly into its spiritual responsibilities. Compare the religious influence of the Church of iingland before the deformation with her influence now- Will any Catholic ' (Anglican) ' undertake to say that the " Church of iingland to-day, with only a fraction of the English-speak-ing people attached" to . her communion, is the spiritual power sKe was when all her clergy were unmarried, and unreservedly devoted to the exercise of .their priesthood ? No' doubt her married ministry has produced many great men from among the children they ha^e begotten according to the flesh. But, oh, at what a price ! where is the flock that was given thee by Pope Gregory tft'e Great— thy beautiful - flock of the English race ? Alas !, ft is scattered among a thousand heretical sects, wnich have sprung up because of the neglect of thy married who fed themselves and their families and fea not their flocks '.