CHARLES G. FINNEY'S

PASTORAL THEOLOGY

 

XVI. EVILS OF CLERICAL CELIBACY.

1. It is a war with nature.

2. It is a bad example, and encourages it in laymen.

3. It tends to licentiousness. This is a notorious fact.

4. Celibates cannot rebuke celibacy in laymen.

5. It is unjust to women.

6. Reproaches God, and implies a denial of his wisdom.

7. It is a constant temptation to unchastity.

8. It makes chaste women afraid of them.

9. It makes them a temptation to many women.

10. Makes them the terror of husbands.

11. Creates much jealousy in families.

12. Many do have and will have mistresses notorious.

13. Make the clergy generally odious.

14. Also, objects of suspicion.

15. Expose them to endless female intrigues.

16. Makes them selfish and unsocial.

17. Begets a contempt for women.

18. Corrupts society. This is a fact, see Catholic Europe.

19. It embarrasses them in their work in many ways.

20. Renders them incompetent to be a spiritual guide to females.

21. It embarrasses their spiritual development.

22. It is an error of the same class as nunneries and monasteries. It grew out of the idea that sin has its root in matter, and that the body is essentially impure, that its appetites must be annihilated.

23. Trial has demonstrated that the celibacy of the clergy is only evil continually.

24. Never justifiable except for the most cogent reasons.

25. As the reasons can't be generally made public, it falls under the rule, "do nothing that needs explanation when such explanation is impracticable."

 

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