Canon Law Quotes
This was a fairly radical constraint on what had been a traditional priestly prerogative throughout the ages. However, the penalty for such a sin and infraction was rather modest—a warning for the first offence, followed by reducing the cleric’s income. There were more serious punishments proscribed for repeated offenses, but typical of most reform efforts a newly prohibited activity carries a very light penalty. For example $20 fines for providing alcohol to a minor was the initial penalty in some states. A then current comparison can be made since elsewhere in this council dueling between Christians was also prohibited. But the penalty for even the first offence was excommunication.
Naples was an independent kingdom before the unification of Italy. This quotation illustrates one of the lowest periods of the Roman Catholic Church where the personal morality of the Pope and Cardinals was greatly at odds with the earlier and current positions of the Church. This hypocrisy, nepotism, and corruption was one of the major factors that led to the Reformation. Note that the Pope had an illegitimate son who he named a Cardinal and the Pope wanted his son to marry the daughter of the king. The king was not enthusiastic given the son’s status as a Cardinal of the Church.
At the time Islam was quite conflicted about the role of innovation, science and reform. Innovators were to many theologians as dangerous to society as heretics and had to be refuted. Al-Ashari’s school of thought has prevailed in much of the Muslim world to this day.
King Henry VIII had left the Roman Catholic church and taken England and Ireland out also. He replaced the Pope as the head of the English and Irish churches. There was much opposition in Ireland and the priests were the most assertive opponents to the change and were still loyal to the Pope. Queen Elizabeth continued to have problems with the Priests. James I, Elizabeth’s successor, became fed up by the Roman Catholic Priests and therefor issued this Proclamation.
This detestable accusation completely ignores the fact that when the American Catholic Church had a raft of homosexual priests in the early 21st century, the Pope condemned this in the most uncertain terms. Child homosexual molestation is vehemently condemned by both Catholicism and Islam alike—also by straights and homosexual groups.
