The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

462 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.sible in those days always to select single men foithe Episcopal office. Hence the Church was oftencompelled to choose married persons, but alwayswith this restriction, that they had never contractednuptials a second time. They were obliged, moreover, if not widowers, to live separated from theirwives.Others adduce against clerical celibacy thesewords of St. Paul: "In the last times, some shalldepart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of1error, .... forbidding to marry."But this passage alludes to the Ebionites, Gnostics, and Manicheans,who positively taught that marriage issinful. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, holdsthat matrimony is not only a lawful state for thosewho are called to embrace it, but that it is also asacrament, and that the highest degree of holinessis attainable in conjugal life.Some go so far as to declare continency impracticable. Our dissenting brethren in the ministryare so uxoriously inclined, that, perhaps, for thisreason they dispute the possibility, as well as theprivilege, of Priests to remain single. But in makingthis assertion they impugn the wisdom of JesusChrist and His Apostle, who lived in this state andrecommended it to others ; they slander consecratedPriests and nuns, and they unwittingly question thepurity of their own unmarried sisters, daughters,and sons. How many men and women are there inlLTim.iv. 1-3.