Read this excerpt of the popes’ encyclicals on purity and the sanctity of marriage, taken from The Popes Against Modern Errors.
Defending Celibacy
We want you to rally to combat the abominable conspiracy against clerical celibacy. This conspiracy spreads daily and is promoted by profligate philosophers, some even from the clerical order. They have forgotten their person and office, and have been carried away by the enticements of pleasure. They have even dared to make repeated public demands to the princes for the abolition of that most holy discipline. But it is disgusting to dwell on these evil attempts at length. Rather, We ask that you strive with all your might to justify and to defend the law of clerical celibacy as prescribed by the sacred canons, against which the arrows of the lascivious are directed from every side.
Indissolubility of Marriage
Now the honorable marriage of Christians, which Paul calls “a great sacrament . . . in Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5:32;cf. Heb. 13:4), demands our shared concern lest anything contrary to its sanctity and indissolubility is proposed. Our Predecessor Pius VIII would recommend to you his own letters on the subject. However, troublesome efforts against this Sacrament still continue to be made. The people therefore must be zealously taught that a marriage rightly entered upon cannot be dissolved; for those joined in Matrimony God has ordained a perpetual companionship for life and a knot of necessity which cannot be loosed except by death. Recalling that Matrimony is a Sacrament and therefore subject to the Church, let them consider and observe the laws of the Church concerning it. Let them take care lest for any reason they permit that which is an obstruction to the teachings of the canons and the decrees of the councils. They should be aware that those marriages will have an unhappy end which are entered upon contrary to the discipline of the Church or without God’s favor or because of concupiscence alone, with no thought of the Sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it.
The Virgin Mary Is Our Hope
That all of this may come to pass prosperously and happily, let Us raise Our eyes and hands to the most holy Virgin Mary, who alone crushes all heresies, and is Our greatest reliance and the whole reason for Our hope. May she implore by her patronage a successful outcome for Our plans and actions. Let Us humbly ask of the Prince of the Apostles, Peter and his co-Apostle Paul, that all of you may stand as a wall, lest a foundation be laid other than that which has already been laid. Relying on this happy hope, We trust that the Author and Crown of Our faith, Jesus Christ, will console Us in all these Our tribulations. We lovingly impart the Apostolic Benediction to you, Venerable Brethren, and to the sheep committed to your care, as a sign of heavenly aid.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Popes Against Modern Errors which is available from TAN Books.
