Forbidding to Marry

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 17.

"Forbidding to Marry."

A CORRESPONDENT of the Pall Mall Gazette having advocated the abolition of celibacy among the Roman Catholic clergy, H. Musgrave Wilkins, a Fellow of Merton, Oxford, thus replied to the letter: 'Many years ago, on my remarking to the late Lord Lytton that such an intention was attributed to the then Pope, Pius IX., he replied: "He will never do that. The influence of the Roman Catholic clergy depends on confession, and confession depends on clerical celibacy. People will be slow to confess to married men." The fate of Molinos, the Quietist, in the sixteenth century, illustrates the dependence of clerical influence on confession. He urged people to consult their own consciences and to take the sacrament without confession and absolution, contrary to the practice of the Roman Church. This did not suit the clergy, whose influence waned when confession was dispensed with. Molinos was imprisoned for life and the old regime restored. Pope Gregory VII., when he had enacted the celibacy, found himself obliged to permit the concubinage of his clergy.'—Sel.