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040 - 9 The Gregorian Reform · Short History of the Christian Church

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  Speaker 1: Part two, Chapter nine of Short History of the Christian
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  Speaker 1: Church by John Fletcher Hurst. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter nine, the Gregorian Reform. The moral
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  Speaker 1: decline of the tenth century was so great that not
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  Speaker 1: even the most extreme apologists for the papacy have been
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  Speaker 1: able to present a defense of it. When the Carolingian
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  Speaker 1: dynasty died out in eight eighty seven and a new
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  Speaker 1: one took its place, this decline began in full force.
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  Speaker 1: The papacy had been gaining strength with every year, and
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  Speaker 1: when the tenth century began, such evils prevailed in the
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  Speaker 1: Church as to threaten its very life. The most far
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  Speaker 1: sighted of the leaders saw the danger, and that the
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  Speaker 1: church itself had become only a vast piece of political machinery,
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  Speaker 1: using unholy measures to advance its end. Even so, warm
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  Speaker 1: a eulogist of Rome, as Baronius, said that in that
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  Speaker 1: period Christ was as if asleep in the vessel of
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  Speaker 1: the church Rome. The very heart of the church presented
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  Speaker 1: a repulsive picture. The churches were neglected, and a dissolute
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  Speaker 1: life distinguished the priesthood. Cardinal Newman makes the following admissions.
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  Speaker 1: When Hildebrand was appointed to the monastery of Saint Paul
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  Speaker 1: in Rome, he found offices of devotion neglected, sheep and
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  Speaker 1: cattle defiling, the house of prayer, and monks attended by women.
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  Speaker 1: The excuse was that there were predatory bands from the Campagna,
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  Speaker 1: which gave trouble. But in Germany, where there was no
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  Speaker 1: such apology, things were even worse. In France, the same
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  Speaker 1: evils of spiritual decline were apparent. The offices of the
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  Speaker 1: church were sold almost as at an auction. An archbishop
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  Speaker 1: of France, who tried to silence the powerful witnesses against
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  Speaker 1: him when a rate for simony, confessed his guilt, and
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  Speaker 1: forty five bishops and twenty seven other dignitaries or governors
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  Speaker 1: of churches came forward and confessed the criminal mode by
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  Speaker 1: which they had obtained their offices. Heinemar thought it necessary
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  Speaker 1: to issue a decree against the pawning by the clergy
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  Speaker 1: of the vestments and the communion plate. The nobles had
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  Speaker 1: their younger sons and relatives ordained for the sole purpose
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  Speaker 1: that they might be put in charge of lucrative benefices.
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  Speaker 1: Others had their dependents ordained that they might be willing
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  Speaker 1: instruments for any service in the household. The domestic priests
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  Speaker 1: served the tables, mixed the strained wine, led out the
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  Speaker 1: dogs for the chase, looked after the ladies horses, and
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  Speaker 1: superintended the tilling of the land. Hildebrand, when he became
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  Speaker 1: pope bearing the name of Gregory the seventh, addressed himself
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  Speaker 1: to remedy the evils. He, more than any man of
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  Speaker 1: his times, saw the necessity of a thorough moral awakening.
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  Speaker 1: The long experience through which he had passed, and his
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  Speaker 1: intimate acquaintance with the clergy and the laity in Rome
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  Speaker 1: and throughout the Church, had given him rare opportunity for
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  Speaker 1: learning the real life of the time. Hence, when the
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  Speaker 1: power was once in his hands, he wielded it with
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  Speaker 1: great vigor. He strove in every possible way to eradicate
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  Speaker 1: simony and all the other ecclesiastical crimes from Latin Christendom.
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  Speaker 1: He looked after the conduct of the clergy and attempted
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  Speaker 1: to bring it up to a loftier moral plane. There
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  Speaker 1: was no department of discipline which he did not observe
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  Speaker 1: with a keen eye, and which he did not attempt
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  Speaker 1: with vigorous hand to improve the marriage of the clergy
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  Speaker 1: was almost universal. The canons of the Roman Church had
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  Speaker 1: long before enforced the celibacy of the clergy in the
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  Speaker 1: Reply of Pope Nicholas the First to the Bulgarians eight
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  Speaker 1: hundred sixty, in the Conclusions of the Senate of Worms
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  Speaker 1: eight sixty eight, in Leo the Seventh Epistle to the
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  Speaker 1: Gauls and Germans nine thirty eight, in the Councils of
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  Speaker 1: Mentz and Metz in eight eighty eight, in the Decrees
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  Speaker 1: of Augsburg nine fifty two, and in Benedict the Eighth's
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  Speaker 1: Speech and the Decrees at Pavia in ten twenty. The
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  Speaker 1: practice of clerical marriage was severely condemned. The entire official
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  Speaker 1: record of the Church for two centuries, but not before,
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  Speaker 1: had been against the marriage of the clergy. Gregory before
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  Speaker 1: anything else engaged his attention, set himself to work to
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  Speaker 1: correct the custom, but he little dreamed of the opposition
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  Speaker 1: which he had to encounter. His cannons were met with
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  Speaker 1: the bitterest opposition In Germany, the opposition was intense in France.
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  Speaker 1: The Archbishop of Ruan was pelted with rand stones when
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  Speaker 1: attempting to enforce the new Gregorian reform. In Normandy, many
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  Speaker 1: churches had become heritable property to the sons and daughters
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  Speaker 1: of priests. In Rome, the antagonism to the canons of
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  Speaker 1: Gregory was even more violent, if possible, than elsewhere. Many
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  Speaker 1: of the churches had become scenes of wild nocturnal revelry.
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  Speaker 1: Priests and even cardinals celebrated the Lord's Supper at irregular
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  Speaker 1: hours for the sake of gain. Clerical immorality was universal.
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  Speaker 1: The enemies of the Gregorian canons, under the very eyes
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  Speaker 1: of Gregory himself, met his reformatory measures with relentless fury.
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  Speaker 1: It was not so much a rebellion against the war
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  Speaker 1: made on the marriage of the clergy, but of rebellion
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  Speaker 1: against the whole system of reform in the life of
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  Speaker 1: the clergy, from bishops up or down, as one may think,
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  Speaker 1: through all the clerical strata. The clergies saw that they
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  Speaker 1: were watched as by the eye of an eagle. They
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  Speaker 1: knew too the vigor of Gregory's hand, but he received
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  Speaker 1: only threats for his pains. With undaunted courage and perseverance,
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  Speaker 1: he labored for the independence and purity of the church
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  Speaker 1: until his death. He affected but little, except that he
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  Speaker 1: sowed some good seed for later times. Gregory was now
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  Speaker 1: sixty years of age, and was afflicted by an illness
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  Speaker 1: so severe that he thought himself dying, but he recovered.
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  Speaker 1: These were his words. We were reserved to our accustomed toils,
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  Speaker 1: our infinite anxieties, reserved to suffer, as it were, each
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  Speaker 1: hour the pangs of travail, while we feel ourselves unable
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  Speaker 1: to save by any steermanship, the church, which seems almost
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  Speaker 1: foundering before our eyes. End in the midst of his sorrows,
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  Speaker 1: on witnessing the violent opposition on every quarter at home
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  Speaker 1: and north of the Alps, he cried, aloud, I live
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  Speaker 1: as it were in death, shaken by a thousand storms.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter nine.