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Show CELIBACY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. An Ogden preacher, a few Sundays ago, went out, of his course to deliver a broadside at the celibacy celi-bacy of the priesthood of the Catholic church. Xow what can this good man, who, all his life time has been answering the call of his animal appetites, know of virginity or celibacy? Time was when a Presbyterian minister was a conscientious and educated bigot. Today we re gret for even a Protestant Christianity to have to admit, that outside of our large eastern cities he is neither educated nor conscientious. He has no iaith in the divine character of his own religion, in the inspiration of the Scriptures, or, indeed, in a revelation from God to the human race. Like the sharks that follow in the wake of Pacific ships to swallow the offal and garbage thrown overboard by the cook's boy,' the ministers of our rural districts, inland towns and villages are feeding on the scraps of science thrown out from Harvard. Yale and the infidel Northwestern University of Chicago. His only revelation today is the unfolding of the se- -crets of geology, biology and kindred subjects. What, then, can this flippant and sensational pulpiteer pul-piteer know of celibacy? Fifty years ago St. Paul stood in the repute of Protestants next to our Divine Lord in honor and dignity in the Apostolic congress. The only fault, they found in him was that he laid too much stress On Vl'rC-inltv. AVtlon Tin 1.-q.!-- nn.l i' li-.T,f nnnirn. cation declared that '"he who giveth his daughter in marriage, doeth well; he that giveth her not doeth better," they explained that the apostle, "chosen out of due time,'' was writing for other times and other people. Xow, what are the facts about celibacy? Those who feel themselves called to the divine vocation or work of the priesthood, with their eyes open, with a full knowledge of the responsibilities of the high and holy office deliberately deliber-ately make their choice. There is no obedience forced upon them, there is no compulsion, they enter en-ter and like Mary, the sister of Lazarus, "choose the better part." The priest, who day by day ascends the altar'of God to offer up sacrifice for the living and the dead, who stands, interceding, between God and the people, who hears the sins of penitents and absolves ab-solves them, who, in the language of St. Paul to Timothy, is charged before God and Jesus Christ "to preach the word in season and out of season, to reprove, entreat and rebuke with all patience and doctrine," and who ought to be an example to those redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, ought also to bo a celibate. Xo one is compelled to enlist in the army of the Catholic clergy, the church compels no man to become a priest, she forces no man's will, and if the man of 24 years of age "makes himself him-self a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake," what right has any man to censure him for his choice f The mission intrusted to the Catholic church is j so holy and of such transcendent importance that it demands superior men, men masters of themselves them-selves and lifted above a worldly atmosphere. The ministers and coadjutors assisting the church in her supreme mission, must be men generous enough and magnanimous enough to yield to a call of pity and give their whole time and energies to the incomparable in-comparable work of saving human souls. And if the candidate for the high and most honorable office of-fice of the priesthood is not prepared to follow in the footprints of his Divine Master, to bid goodbye good-bye to the delights of conjugal life and to the possibility pos-sibility and solace of a wife and children, then his church tells him he does not measure up to the standard set for the men of her army and to step down from the block. When our Divine Lord said to his -nriests. "Go ye therefore and teach all nations," and warned them that they were going as sheep among wolves; when he foretold that they would be imprisoned, beaten and murdered, did he speak to men with wives in tears clinging to them and with children bawling and crying for the departing fathers? Does the Ogden preacher profess to be wiser than Jesus Christ or to proclaim St. Paul to be a fool when he exclaimed, "I would that all men were even as myself," my-self," that is, a celibate priest. |