Ferdinand,
having failed entirely in inducing the council to submit to any reform,
opened direct communication with the pope to obtain for his subjects
indulgence in respect to these two articles. In advocacy of this measure
he wrote:
"In Bohemia no persuasion, no argument, no violence, not even arms and
war, have succeeded in abolishing the use of the cup as well as the
bread in the sacrament. In fact the Church itself permitted it, although
the popes revoked it by a breach of the conditions on which it was
granted. In the other States, Hungary, Austria, Silesia, Styria,
Carinthia, Carniola, Bavaria and other parts of Germany, many desire
with ardor the same indulgence. If this concession is granted they may
be reunited to the Church, but if refused they will be driven into the
party of the Protestants. So many of the priests have been degraded by
their diocesans for administering the sacrament in both kinds, that the
country is almost deprived of priests. Hence children die or grow up to
maturity without baptism; and men and women, of all ages and of all
ranks, live like the brutes, in the grossest ignorance of God and of
religion."
In reference to the marriage of the clergy he wrote: "If a permission to
the clergy to marry can not be granted, may not married men of learning
and probity be ordained, according to the custom of the eastern church;
or married priests be tolerated for a time, provided they act according
to the Catholic and Christian faith? And it may be justly asked whether
such concessions would not be far preferable to tolerating, as has
unfortunately been done, fornication and concubinage? I can not avoid
adding, what is a common observation, that priests who live in
concubinage are guilty of greater sin than those who are married; for
the last only transgress a law which is capable of being changed,
whereas the first sin against a divine law, which is capable of neither
change nor dispensation.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259