Clerical Celibacy. By " A Missionary Priest." (Mowbray and Co.) —The
author of this pamphlet pleads for "a wider recognition of the Vocation." Part of what he says is certainly irrelevant, and part, it seems to us, not very sensible. Patristic authority in favour of celibacy need not have been quoted. The point is con- ceded. If the author had confined himself to his real subject—the profitableness of the celibate life for the clergy—it would have been better. The difficulty is this,—if we do not make celibacy com- pulsory, we have the perpetual recurring scandal of priests who, after making the highest professions on the subject, fall away from their ideal when their own feelings are aroused. One of the loudest preachers of the doctrine that ever came within our hearing, after twenty-five years of consistency, married a widow ! But one most serious complaint against the " Missionary Priest " is his extraordinary misstatement of fact about the Greek Church. "Of the great historical communions of Christendom, the two• largest and most ancient give the preference to a celibate condi- tion for the clergy." To prove this of the Eastern Church, he has to dwell on the fact that marriage after ordination is forbidden to Bishops, priests, and deacons. A fact it is, and the unwary reader
accustomed to see our own clergy marry after ordination, would conclude that the point is proved. But is the " Missionary Priest" ignorant of, or does he conceal, another fact,—viz., that the Eastern Church absolutely enjoins marriage on its parochial clergy ? True, they cannot marry after ordination, hut they must marry before, if they are to have a parish. The statement made in face of this, that the Greek Church gives " the preference to a celibate condi- tion for the clergy," is simply astounding.
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