Today’s Readings Podcast Description

Should the clergy be under a stricter discipline than the people—and may the Church forbid pastors to marry? Calvin first recovers the ancient order: bishops watched their clergy by canons, visitations, and synods; the clergy were to be harder on themselves than on the flock. What remains in his day he treats as ape-like mimicry of those rites. Then he turns to mandatory priestly celibacy (*caelibatus*). God left marriage free; Paul requires a bishop to be the husband of one wife and warns that forbidding to marry is a doctrine of demons. Marriage is not pollution of the flesh. Christ made it an image of his union with the Church. The Levitical intervals of abstinence do not bind evangelical pastors, and Paphnutius at Nicaea called lawful marriage chastity (*castitas*). Later praise of v ...