He was sensible that so long as the monks were indulged
in marriage, and were permitted to rear families, they never could be
subjected to strict discipline, or reduced to that slavery, under their
superiors, which was requisite to procure to the mandates, issued from
Rome, a ready and zealous obedience. Celibacy, therefore, began to be
extolled as the indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to
make all the clergy, throughout the western world, renounce at once
the privilege of marriage; a fortunate policy, but at the same time
an undertaking the most difficult of any, since he had the strongest
propensities of human nature to encounter, and found that the same
connections with the female sex, which generally encourage devotion,
were here unfavorable to the success of his project. It is no wonder,
therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome have
retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near
three centuries.
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