“According to the holy Fathers, the vow of celibacy is like a strong, high tower, from the top of which we can fight our enemies, and be perfectly safe from their darts and weapons.
“I will be happy to answer your other objections, if you have any more,” said Mr. Leprohon.
“We are much obliged to you for your answers,” I replied, “and we will avail ourselves of your kindness to present you with some other observations.
“And, firstly, we thank you for having told us that we find nothing in the Word of God to support the vows of celibacy, and that it is only by the traditions of the Church that we can prove their necessity and holiness. It was our impression that you desired us to believe that the necessity of that vow was founded on the Holy Scriptures. If you will allow it, we will discuss the traditions another time, and will confine ourselves to-day to the different texts to which you referred in favor of celibacy.
“When Peter says, ‘We have given up everything,’ it seems to us that he had no intention of saying that he had forever given up his wife by a vow. For St. Paul positively says, many years after, that Peter had his wife; that he was not only living with her in his own house, but was traveling with her when preaching the gospel. The words of Scripture are of such evidence on that subject that they can neither be obscured by any shrewd explanation nor by any tradition, however respectable it may appear.
“Though you know the words of Paul on that subject, you will allow us to read them: ‘Have we not power to eat and drink? have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?’ (1 Cor. ix., 4, 5). St. Peter saying, ‘We have forsaken everything’ could not mean then that he had made a vow of celibacy, and that he would not live with his wife as a married man. Evidently the words of Peter mean only that Jesus had the first place in his heart—that everything else, even the dearest objects of his love, as father, mother, wife, were only secondary in his affections and thoughts.
“Your other text about the angels who do not marry, from which you infer the obligation and law of the vow of celibacy, does not seem to us to bear on that subject as much as you have told us. For, be kind enough to again read the text: ‘Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven’ (Matt. xxii. 29, 30). You see that when our Saviour speaks of men who are like angels, and who do not marry, He takes care to observe that he speaks of the state of men after the resurrection. If the Church had the same rule for us that Christ mentioned for the angelic men to whom He refers, and would allow us to make a vow never to marry after the resurrection, we would not have the slightest objection to such a vow.
“You see that our Saviour speaks of a state of celibacy; but He does not intimate that that state is to begin on this side of the grave. Why does not our Church imitate and follow the teachings of our Saviour? Why does she enforce a state of celibacy before the resurrection, while Christ postpones the promulgation of this law till after that great day?
“Christ speaks of a perpetual celibacy only in heaven! On what authority, then, does our Church enforce that celibacy on this side of the grave, when we still carry our souls in earthly vessels?
“You tell us that the vow of celibacy is the best remedy against the inclinations of our corrupt nature; but do you not fear that your remedy makes war against the great one which God prepared in His wisdom? Do we not read in our own vulgate: ‘Propter fornicationem autem quisque suam uxorem habeat, et unaquaquæ virum suum’? ‘To avoid fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband’ (2 Cor. vii. 2.)