In 1549, Ernest, Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled the synod of his extensive province, but when his clergy understood that it was intended to confirm the reformatory edict of the emperor, they had the audacity to present a petition praying that the clause ordering the removal of their concubines should not be enforced. They declared that the attempt to do so would be attended with serious difficulty, and that it would lead to greater evils than it sought to remove, and they asked that the consideration of the matter should be referred to the general council, whose reassembling was no longer dreaded. The synod, with a proper sense of its dignity, refused to receive the shameless petition, and listened rather to those of its members who complained of the practice of the officials in receiving bribes for permitting illicit indulgences, and the representations of Duke William, of Bavaria, who asserted that the Lutheran heresy had been caused by the scandalous corruption of the church. A canon was accordingly adopted which renewed the regulations of Bâle and ordered the speedy removal of all recognized and notorious concubines.[1363]
In October and November, 1548, and April, 1549, the Bishops of Paderborn, Wurzburg, and Strassburg held synods which adopted the reformatory measures decreed at Augsburg.[1364] These were preparatory to the metropolitan synod of Mainz, assembled in May, 1549, which commanded that no one should be thereafter admitted to orders without a preliminary examination by his bishop on the subject of doctrine, and testimonials from the people as to purity of character. After thus wisely providing for the future, attention was directed to the present. It was declared intolerable that, in spite of the reiterated prohibitions of the fathers and councils, concubines should be universally kept; the Basilian canon was therefore revived, and its enforcement strictly enjoined on the ordinaries, who were forbidden in any manner to connive at these disorders for the sake of profit.[1365]
The pressure was continued, for when Cambrai, which owed temporal obedience to the emperor, while ecclesiastically it formed part of the province of Rheims, neglected to adopt the Formula of Augsburg for two years, it was not allowed to escape. In October, 1550, a synod was finally assembled there under stringent orders from Charles, and the Formula was published, together with an elaborate series of canons, which would have been well adapted to correct abuses that were not incorrigible.[1366]
Charles had thus exerted all the resources of his imperial supremacy, and, whether willingly or not, the powerful prelates who ruled the German church had united in carrying out his views. The temporal and spiritual authorities had thus been concentrated upon the vices of the church, and if its reformation had been possible, in the existing condition of its organization, some improvement must have resulted from these combined and persistent efforts. How nugatory were the results may be guessed from a memorial presented in 1558, by the University of Louvain, to Philip II., exhorting him to grant no toleration to the heretics, but, at the same time, urging upon him the absolute necessity of some comprehensive system of reform to purify the church, all the orders of which were given over utterly to the twin vices of avarice and licentiousness.[1367] The same testimony is borne by a consultation drawn up in 1562 by order of the Emperor Ferdinand. After alluding to the efforts at reform made by Paul III. and Charles V., it declares that their only result has been to make the condition of clerical morality worse than before, exciting the hatred of the people for their priests to an incredible pitch, and doing more to inflame the ardor of heresy than all the teaching of Christian truth can do to restrain it.[1368]
As the failure of all efforts to improve clerical morality under the existing rules of discipline was thus found to be complete, there arose in the minds of thinking men a conviction, such as Erasmus had already declared, that, since all other measures had proved fruitless, the only mode of securing a virtuous clergy was to remove the prohibition of marriage. At the Polish Diet of 1552 petitions praying for sacerdotal matrimony were presented, and, though they failed in their object, the Diet of 1556 authorized King Sigismund Augustus to address Paul IV. with a request, in the name of the nation, to grant it as well as communion in both elements.[1369]
The dissension thus existing within the church is exhibited in a volume published in 1558 by Stanislas Hosius, Bishop of Ermeland, earnestly arguing against communion in both elements, clerical marriage, and the use of the vulgar tongue in worship. As regards celibacy, he assumes that it had been maintained unbrokenly for fifteen hundred years, and was not now to be abandoned to gratify a few disorderly monks. The example of the Greek church he meets by pointing out that the Greeks were suffered to be persecuted by the Turks; the argument that marriage would purify the church he silences with the observation that many married men are adulterers; and he holds it to be a doubting of God to suppose that the gift of continence would be denied to those who properly seek it.[1370] In spite of the logic of polemics such as Hosius, the opinions of the innovators continued to gain ground, until at length they won even the highest dignitaries of the empire, and in 1560 the Emperor Ferdinand himself undertook their advocacy with the pope, after having for some years countenanced the practice within his own territories.
Almost immediately on the consecration of Pius IV., in addressing to him an argument for the reassembling of the council of Trent, or the convocation of a new council, Ferdinand seized the opportunity to ask especially for the communication of the cup to the laity, and permission for the clergy to marry. The latter of these points he considered to be the only remedy for the fearful immorality of the church, for, though all flesh was corrupt, the corruption of the priesthood surpassed that of all other men.[1371] That he had not waited for the papal assent to favor these innovations within his own dominions is shown by his statement that the Archbishop of Salzburg had recently, in a synod, earnestly called upon him to put a stop to the progress which they were making, but, he added, his long experience in such matters had shown him what was possible, and what impossible, and he had accordingly set forth the difficulties of the task in a paper addressed to the archbishop, a copy of which he inclosed to the pope.[1372]
The nuncio Commendone, in transmitting this document to Rome, accompanied it with a letter from the Cardinal Bishop of Augsburg, recommending the postponement of the question until the reassembling of the council of Trent, and, as Pius answered it in this sense, no further action was taken, though Ferdinand made haste to repeat his demand, in view of the impatience of both clergy and people, who could ill brook the delays inseparable from the discussion of the subject in so unwieldy a body.[1373] When Commendone, moreover, passed through Cleves on his way to the council, then about to be reopened, the Duke of Cleves earnestly besought him to lend his influence to the accomplishment of the measure, urging as a reason that in the whole of his dominions—and he was sovereign of three populous duchies—there could not be found five priests who did not keep concubines. In order to secure his favor for the approaching council, Commendone did not scruple to hold out expectations that the concessions would be granted.[1374]
During the progress of the Reformation, when the fate of the Catholic church of Germany had sometimes seemed to hang in the balance, no princes had earned a larger title to the gratitude of Rome than the powerful Dukes of Bavaria, who were the leaders of the reaction. Yet now the influence of that important region was thrown in favor of the abrogation of celibacy, and Duke Albert was the first who boldly brought the matter before the council by a demand for ecclesiastical marriage, presented on the 27th of June, 1562. To this the evasive answer was returned that the council would take such action as would be found to redound to the glory of God and to the benefit of the church.[1375] During the same year the Emperor Ferdinand also repeatedly urged its consideration. A plan for the reform of the church presented by his delegates not only called attention to the necessity of purifying the morals of the regular and secular clergy, but demanded that, to some nations at least, the privilege of sacerdotal marriage should be conceded.[1376] Another elaborate paper argued the question with much temperate force, and declared that many priests had already married for the purpose of escaping the corruptions of celibacy, while studiously preserving themselves from the errors of Lutheranism. Out of a hundred parish priests scarcely one could be found who was not either openly or secretly married, and it was necessary to tolerate them to prevent the utter destruction of the church.[1377]