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however , did not suit with the reigning fashion oC legitimacy ; and , for ther time , ( though certainly only for a season , ) the old system has been adhered to , under more or less of modification , as each state was found by the Pope to be more or less difficult to make terms with , A curious book has lately been published , by a Roman Catholic priest of
Silesia , whose object is to point out the abuses of the establishment of his religion , particularly in the diocese of Breslau , and to sketch out remedies , which certainly are sweeping enough , though the writer has no disposition to separate himself from the Catholic communion . He is , in short , a disciple of the Leopold and Ricci school ; and the measures approved by the synod of Pistoia would , as nearly as possible , meet his views of necessary reform .
The first point to which he directs his attention , and in which he shews the necessity of some alterations , relates to the education of the clergy . We should apprehend that the regulations on this head in Bavaria and Austria would meet the evil complained of . According to the author , the prevailing plan in Silesia teems with defects and abuses , and the fruits of a defective education are manifest in the disorderly lives and the ignorance of the clergy .
The enforcement of celibacy is another regulation against which this Ger- » man priest complains , particularly as a fruitful cause of scandalous profligacy ; and he enters largely into the abuses arising from a class of officiating priests called chaplains who are not beneficed , and from the practice with which the functions of those personages are most connected—that of celebrating private masses and establishing foundations for that purpose , and of course masses for pay , a source of immense gain to the church *
The disposal of benefices in Silesia is another subject of great complaint * The regulations of the church require merit to be regarded in the choice . In Austria and Bavaria we have seen this diligently enforced ; but in Silesia , where the government , where it interferes , is on no very intimate relations with the church of another faith , leaves the matter with the bishops , and the bishop looks , as might be expected , first to his pocket , and next to his ease .
Equally strong objections are made to the books of instruction , and especially the catechism for the young . In this age of education , we have often wondered that the Catholic authorities do not exert themselves to find credit * able aliment for the appetite which cannot now be restrained ; and , in parti * cular , it is strange that their popular books should be almost exclusively confined to topics which , in fact , the church itself does not teach , which the best informed among themselves disavow , and which only furnish subjects of ridicule and reproach when they fall into the hands of the irreverent heretic The good priest , whose work is under consideration , laments also the state of the liturgy , which contains much that is good , blended with a great deal at which men of cultivated taste and refinement must often blush : which is
only tolerable as veiled by music ; and which , by being in a foreign tongue , ( which is now becoming the grand source of discontent throughout Germany , ) can be no practical help to the devotional and pious feelings of the multitude . The Council of Trent directs the priests to explain the sacraments , if they conveniently can , in the vernacular tongues . If so , why not save the explanation by giving the thing itself at once in an intelligible
shape ? It would far exceed our limits to enter into the many particulars in which it would appear that the Silesian church exceeds others in irregularity , deformity , or absurdity . The objectionable character of its practices or pror fessors is doubtless the more observed from the immediate contact of the
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 157, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/13/
