mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
Yet in southern Italy the tradition of women priests was not easily
uprooted. Pope Gelasius I (reigned 492–496) expressed his outrage to
Christian communities there. “We have heard,” he thundered, “that divine
affairs have come to such a low state that women are encouraged to
officiate at sacred altars and all matters reserved for the male sex.” 21
Not only were women prevented from becoming priests, there was a
growing movement afoot to prevent them from marrying priests. Pope
Siricius (reigned 384–399) issued the first decretal denying marriage to
the clergy. Yet the Bible makes clear that Saint Peter was married, and
for 350 years after him the church had no policy against clerical marriage.
Paul wrote in 1 Timothy, “A bishop must then be blameless, the
husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality,
apt to teach . . . one that ruleth well his own house, having his children
in subjection in all gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his
own house, how shall he care for the church of God?”
Later popes realized that a bachelor priest would not have family issues
distracting him from his work and could devote himself fully to
the prosperity of the church. But there was a more pressing problem.
For more than a thousand years after Constantine, married priests bequeathed
their churches, the lands around them, the silver sacrament
chalices, and their priestly incomes to their sons. If a priest had no sons,
he would give the church buildings to his daughters as dowries. Church
property became something owned not by the Vatican but by individual
families, passed from generation to generation. Priests’ wives, with a
position to maintain, paraded about town decked out in finery paid for
by alms intended for the poor.
Some forty popes up until the seventh century were the sons of
priests. Several popes were the sons of popes. The major attack on priestly
marriage did not occur until the late eleventh century, and even then,
most priests ignored it. Some married priests of the time were much
like Catholics today who practice birth control—otherwise good Catholics
ignoring a papal decree that proves so inconvenient to their personal
lives.
Married priests were unfazed by threats of fines or loss of income.
They might have to send their wives and children away if a visiting
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