[1624] Helsen, Abus du Celibat, p. 85.
[1625] C. Tuamens. ann. 1817 Decr. XVII. (Collect. Lacens. III. 765).—C. Australiens. I. ann. 1844 Decr. XII. (III. 1052-3).—C. Remens. ann. 1857 c. VI. No. 27 (IV. 211).
[1626] Instruct. S. Inquisit. Roman. Feb. 20, 1867, No. 7, 11-14 (Collect. Lacens. III. 553-6).
[1627] For an extract from a modern manual of the confessional “de agendi ratione confessarii erga conjugatos et conjugendos,” see Bouvet, De la Confession et du Célibat des Prêtres, Paris, 1845, pp. 290-6. It will be remembered what excitement was aroused in the British House of Commons a few years since, when a member produced and read a very much less objectionable form prepared for use by “Anglican priests.”
[1628] Bouvet, p. 516.
[1629] Lasteyrie, Hist. of Auricular Confession, II. 38-45.
[1630] Wahu, op. cit. p. 423.
[1631] Sauvestre, op. cit. p. 144. It is by this policy that the church renders itself responsible for the evil committed by its members. No human organization is without its share of the weak or vicious, and there is no lack of scandals in the Protestant denominations; but in these there is a wholesome jealousy which usually seeks at once to cast out and punish the offender. Thus, when, in July, 1867, the Rev. Mr. Wendt, at an orphan institution near Philadelphia, was discovered to be tampering with the virtue of the children under his charge, those who were most nearly connected with the management of the asylum were the first to take steps for his prosecution, and, as soon as the necessary legal proceedings could be had, he was undergoing a sentence of fifteen years’ solitary confinement, without a voice being raised in palliation of his crime.
[1632] Op. cit. pp. 138-44.
[1633] One result of this is that there is a large number of priests, summarily deprived by their bishops of the ministry, who seek the great cities to hide their poverty or find some miserable means of support. As all requests for dispensation to marry are refused, they mostly live in concubinage and their offspring go to swell the ranks of the dangerous classes. See Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 542-48.