24 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



We will not overlook those instances of the 

 lustful movements of the flesh which are not re- 

 strained, and those sexual relations which are ad- 

 mittedly sinful. Of such improper relations there 

 are two classes: (1) Those which are physically 

 forbidden; (2) those which are morally forbid- 

 den. Social science is making a careful study of 

 the first class and denouncing marriage or sexual 

 relations between certain classes of people : those 

 who are so physically diseased or defective that 

 they can not transmit to their offspring sound 

 minds or healthy bodies. The known law of he- 

 redity out of such violation of physical laws brings 

 to children its fearful penalty of a debilitated or 



could be saved. St. Chrysostom declared in the fifth century that if man had not sinned 

 the world would have been peopled by other means. Any married woman who desired 

 to be a nun was allowed to leave her husband, and he was forbidden to take another 

 wife. Marriage was forbidden during Lent and at sundry other specified seasons, until, 

 as an old writer quietly remarks, "There were but few weeks or days in the year in 

 which people could get married at all." "In the fifth century priests were expected 

 at least to abstain from the privileges of marriage, if not from marriage itself. Pope 

 Innocent I. refused holy orders to any priest who had married a widow, and commanded 

 every priest to be deposed who should be guilty of the crime of having children by his 

 wife. It was not, however, until the twelfth century that the wives of the clergy were 

 driven forth for good, and that the Roman Catholic priesthood was firmly established 

 upon a celibate basis. . . . Marriage was restrained, but not indulgence. Some 

 of the popes led scandalous lives, and the clergy who did abstain from marriage kept 

 concubines, sometimes in large numbers. . . . Enactments had to be passed for- 

 bidding priests from living with their mothers and sisters, because of the prevalence of 

 incest; nunneries and monasteries were hotbeds of debauchery, and congregations who 

 had an unmarried priest to minister stipulated in some cases, with a view to the protec- 

 tion of their wives and daughters, that he should keep a concubine. In a similar spirit 

 it was decreed by a council that no priest should be allowed to go out at night without 

 a candle." (From Marriage and Heredity, by J. F. Nisbet, 40-45, who refers as his 

 authority to Lea's Sacerdotal Celibacy.) 



It is not at all remarkable that from centuries of such abhorrent doctrine and 

 more horrible practices that we should have as a heritage the doctrine of Original Sin. 

 We only affirm that it is high time that our age which has clear moral vision concerning 

 the practices, which are the root of this doctrine, should now turn away from the doc- 

 trine, which is its inevitable fruit. Humanity is disgraced by the doctrine aa really aa 

 by the practices. 



