The Catholic church thus definitely accepted the ancient canons, erected them into an article of faith, and resolved to meet whatever consequences might flow from their maintenance. In the existing condition of clerical morals, we are almost justified in saying that it assumed the position attributed by St. Bernard to the Manichæans of the twelfth century—that they took vows of continence in order to cover their incontinence, and that marriage was the only sexual relation which they regarded as a sin.[1411] We shall see hereafter what were the results of this abnormal position.
[XXIX.]
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH.
The great council, on which so long had hung the hopes of the Christian world, had at last been held. The reformation of the church, postponed by the skilful policy of the popes, had been reached in the closing sessions, and had been hurriedly provided for. As we have seen, the regulations which concerned the morals of the clergy were sufficient for their purpose, if only they could be enforced, yet as they were but the hundredth repetition of an endeavor to conquer human nature, which had always previously failed, even those who enacted them could have felt little faith in their efficacy. August Baumgartner, the Bavarian ambassador, in his address to the council, June 27th, 1562, had alluded to the prevailing belief that any comprehensive effort to enforce the chastity required by the canons would result in driving the mass of the Catholic clergy over to Protestantism.[1412] Since continence was held by them to be impossible, it was thought that they would prefer to marry their concubines as Lutherans rather than give them up as Catholics. Possibly the fear of such untoward result may explain the slender effect which can be discerned from a scheme of reform so laboriously reached and so pompously heralded as the panacea for the woes which were destroying the church.
Although Catherine de Medicis and her sons refused to allow the council to be formally published in France, yet she permitted its decrees to be freely circulated, and her bishops were at liberty to adopt them as the code of discipline in their dioceses.[1413] The difficulties raised by the Emperor Maximilian on the score of priestly celibacy were met with a vigor on the part of Pius IV. which savored of the thirteenth rather than the sixteenth century. Philip II., after some hesitation, ordered the reception of the council in all his dominions, which extended from Naples to the North Sea;[1414] and Poland, despite some opposition from an ambitious prelate, submitted to it before the year 1564 was ended.[1415]
As an authoritative exposition of the law of the church of Christ, conceived and elaborated under the influence of the Holy Ghost, and commanded for implicit observance by the Vicegerent of God; as the expression of the needs and wants of the Catholic faith, wrought by the concentrated energy and wisdom of the leading doctors of Christendom, and transmitted for practical application through the wondrous machinery of the Catholic hierarchy, it should have had an immediate influence on the evils which it was intended to eradicate. Those evils had confessedly done much to create and foster the schism under which the church was reeling; their magnitude was admitted by all, and no one ventured to defend or to palliate them. Their removal was acknowledged to be a necessity of the gravest character, and every adherent of Catholicism was bound to lend his aid to the good work. What, then, was accomplished by the Council which had for so long a period labored ostensibly with the object of restoring Latin Christianity to its primitive purity?
Pius IV. rested satisfied with promulgating and confirming the decrees of the council, and waited to see them produce their destined effect. In 1566, however, he was succeeded by Pius V., whose experience as grand inquisitor had doubtless rendered him familiar with the prevailing neglect of ecclesiastical discipline, while his unbending temper made him rigorous in his determination to restore it. One of the earliest acts of his pontificate was the publication of a Bull commanding the ordinaries of all churches to put in force the Tridentine canons respecting concubinary priests, thus showing that already they were treated with contempt,[1416] while a special mandate on the subject, addressed to the Archbishop of Salzburg, describes the unchecked corruption of the German priesthood as threatening the speedy destruction of the Catholic religion there.[1417] Two years later he found it necessary to issue another Bull, directed against darker crimes, the deplorable prevalence of which can hardly be attributed to any additional and unaccustomed vigor in removing the female companions of the clergy,[1418] for the Archbishop of Salzburg, in reply to a fresh command to reform his church, had replied that he and his suffragans had never ceased to attempt it, but that all their efforts had been fruitless and that he despaired of success.[1419] Even a worse experience befell Bernardt Rasfeldt, Bishop of Munster, who, in his synod of 1566, published a papal brief commanding the dismissal of clerical concubines, for his action roused the fury of his canons to such a degree that they forced him to resign his bishopric and spend the rest of his days in obscurity. He was succeeded by Johann von Hoya, Bishop of Osnabruck and President of the Imperial Chamber, a man distinguished by his birth and learning, but who speedily wearied of the conflict and sought peace by imitating the example of his subordinates.[1420]
In 1571 Pius undertook another subject of reform. Notwithstanding the decree of the council that any action of clerical fathers for the benefit of their offspring should be considered as fraudulent, the transmission of ecclesiastical property to such illegitimate heirs continued almost unchecked, and Pius recognized the necessity of further legislation to diminish the abuse. His Bull on the subject is drawn up with a care and minuteness which show the magnitude of the evil and the extreme difficulty of preventing it.[1421] Nor was there only the need of preserving the possessions of the church; the scandal of sacerdotal families required repression, and all other means having apparently failed, in 1572 another decretal declared that such children were incapable of receiving even the private and patrimonial property of their fathers.[1422] These successive edicts are a full confession that the long-promised reformation was a failure, and that, while the council might regulate doctrine, it was utterly powerless to enforce discipline. The papal fulminations proved equally powerless, and Rome itself apparently winked at contraventions of the rule, which could be rendered profitable by the prerogative of issuing dispensations. In 1610 the Synod of Augsburg found it necessary to declare that it would enforce the Tridentine canons prohibiting the illegitimate sons of priests from holding preferment in their father’s benefices, notwithstanding what dispensations they might produce to the contrary.[1423]
Yet even these legislative labors of the pope are less instructive than the war which he commenced against the courtesans of Rome. If the new enactments could have been expected to command respect, the example should have been set in the Holy City itself, but Pius IV. had allowed the most public and scandalous immorality to flourish unchecked under his immediate supervision. In 1538 the “Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia” had animadverted upon the cynical licentiousness of the Roman clergy in terms which show that not much improvement had taken place since Petrarch’s description of the papal court,[1424] and the thirty years which had intervened had not served to purify it. Pius V. felt the disgrace keenly, and resolved on its suppression. He at first proposed to put an end to the nefarious trade, and to banish all the public women who would not give a pledge of reformation by an immediate marriage. Forced to relinquish this measure as impracticably harsh, he contented himself by restricting their residence to certain houses, and forbade their plying their vocation in the streets by day or night. Although he thus admitted the necessity of the evil, and endeavored to restrain only its public manifestation, even this moderate attempt at reform was deemed insufferable. The clergy were ashamed to offer opposition openly, but found no difficulty in urging the Senate to strenuous resistance. The remonstrance made by that body shows not only the frightful extent of the prevalent immorality, but also the settled conviction that immorality was inseparable from celibacy. It was represented that if the proposed rules were enforced, the prosperity of the city would be destroyed and the rents of houses be reduced to nothing; moreover, it was urged that, amid so vast a number of men condemned to celibacy, if any such restrictions were put in force, it would be impossible to preserve the virtue of the wives and daughters of the citizens. The contest was stubbornly continued until at length Pius was driven to declare that, if any further difficulty were interposed, he would abandon the city.[1425]
In spite of these well-meant but nugatory efforts of Pius, the immorality of the papal court itself and of its highest dignitaries was admitted by a Bull which Sixtus V. promulgated in 1586. In decreeing that no one who had children, even if they were legitimate, should be eligible to the cardinalate, he took care to let the world understand the cause of the restriction by declaring that in no other way could evidence be had of the observance of their vows.[1426]