Note 1549 — XXX. THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION.
Reading edition
This view of the competence of the temporal power to regulate the question seems to have been widely received at this period. An anonymous work published in 1769 under the title of “Recherches sur l’État Monastique et Ecclésiastique,” written by a good Catholic, asserts (p. 204), “Si le cas de donner des citoyens à la pàtrie devenoit urgent, le législateur, en autorisant le mariage des prêtres, n’entreprendroit rien sur le sacrement de l’Ordre.”