Can. IX. Si quis dixerit clericos in sacris ordinibus constitutos, vel regulares castitatem solemniter professos, posse matrimonium contrahere, contractumque validum esse, non obstante lege ecclesiastica vel voto; et oppositum nihil aliud esse quam damnare matrimonium; posseque omnes contrahere matrimonium, qui non sentiunt se castitatis, etiamsi eam voverint, habere donum; anathema sit; quum Deus id recte petentibus non deneget, nec patiatur nos supra id quod possumus tentari.
Can. X. Si quis dixerit statum conjugalem anteponendum esse statui virginitatis vel cœlibatus, et non esse melius ac beatius manere in virginitate aut cœlibatu, quam jungi matrimonio, anathema sit.
[1395] The feelings which the Council excited among the Protestants are expressed with more vigor than elegance by Alexander Nowell, at that time Dean of St. Paul’s—“No Sir, your Prelats sat not there about conning of Articles of Religion, or to Dispute with Hereticks to vanquish them. A few louzy Friars, whom no Man would fear but in his Pottage or Egg-py, did serve that Turn well enough. And your great Prelates devised the while by that long Consultation, how by Sword and Fire they might most cruelly murder all true Christians, whom they call Hereticks; and now do labour to put in Execution such their bloody Devices.”—Strype’s Annals, I. 377.
[1396] Concil. Trident. Sess. XXV. Decret. de Reformat. cap. 14,15.
[1397] Ma noi facciamo quello che ci si permette di fare, non quello che vorremmo.—Examinatore, Firenze, 1868, p. 15.
[1398] Lett. No. LXIX. (Ed. Amsterd. II. 299). This and the concluding letters are not in Mansi’s edition.
[1399] Pallavicini, Lib. XXII. c. 10.
[1400] Goldast. II. 380.—Le Plat, VI. 310, 312.
It is observable from this that many priests left the church and married without formally embracing the Lutheran faith, and a return of these was anticipated from a relaxation of the canons. Others, as may be gathered from various references above, married and still performed their regular duties. Of these, some no doubt acted in virtue of dispensations granted by the nuncios of Paul III., after the promulgation of the Interim, but many did so in utter contempt of discipline. An illustrative example of the latter class may be found in the well-known Stanislas Orzechowski, whose marriage, notwithstanding his prominent position, shows the laxity of opinion which prevailed on the subject. As priest and canon of Przemysl in Poland, his marriage naturally gave great offence to his colleagues, which was not diminished by a dissertation which he wrote in favor of priestly marriage. This, he subsequently claimed, had been prepared for the purpose of laying before the council of Trent, and its publication had arisen from the indiscretion of a friend to whom he had entrusted it. Somewhat contaminated with the new ideas by his education at Wittenberg, he sturdily refused to give up either his wife or his position. His consequent excommunication he disregarded, though according to his own account he gave up on marrying his benefices and the ministry (Lettera a Guilio III. trad. di B. Leoni, Milano, anno. VI.), and notwithstanding this he had a very narrow escape from the death-penalty, and his condemnation excited a commotion throughout Poland that was very favorable to the spread of the reformed opinions (Orichovii Annales, pp. 71-84, 108, Ed. 1854). At length the feeling against the pretensions of the church became so strong that the Diet of 1552 removed all the civil and temporal penalties of excommunication, so that he triumphed for the time. When in 1556, the legate Lippomani held a synod at Lovictz, he called to account those who had connived at so great an irregularity. They denied granting the dispensation, saying that they had only suspended the censures until the pleasure of the pope should be known; but at the same time many prelates used all their influence with Lippomani to obtain one. Lippomani declared that he had no power to grant it, nor would he do so if he could, seeing that Orzechowski defended himself on heretical grounds (Concil. Lovitiens.—Labbei et Coleti Supp. T. V. p. 702). In 1561 Orzechowski, in his address to the synod of Warsaw, admitted that he had sinned, but claimed that he had been punished sufficiently—“Si quis igitur a me quærat; Num uxorem sacerdos duxerim? Duxisse me fatebor. Peccasti igitur? Peccavi. Pœnas ergo peccati debes? Debui et persolvi” (Doctrina de Sacerd. Cœlibatu, Varsaviæ, 1801). He therefore complained of the persecutions to which he was exposed on account of his wife, and he petitioned both the pope and the council of Trent for a dispensation. While the Tridentine fathers refused it, some authors assert that it was granted by Pius IV. to him as an exceptional case “tibi soli Orichovio,” but careful investigation has failed to discover the Bull, and, according to Zaccaria the pope merely sent secret orders to his legate Commendone not to allow Orzechowski to be molested, but at the same time to give no publicity to an act of tolerance in contravention of the canons of the council of Trent (Grégoire, Hist du Mariage des Prêtres en France, pp. 51-55).
In his answer to Fricius, Orzechowski assumes that he was absolved from his excommunication by the Legate—“Præterea a sententia excommunicationis, qua eram a Joanne Episcopo Premisliensi, ob hanc eandem uxorem, ex ecclesia pulsus, a Legato Romani Petri absolutus cum sim, nihil feci contra ilium” (ap. Doctrin. de Sacerd. Cœlibat. p. 24). He also alleges the extraordinary excuse that he abandoned the priesthood before his marriage.