1. "The writers of the Middle Ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels.... The inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their mothers or sisters.... An Italian bishop of the tenth century enigmatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except the boys."—Lecky.

2. In the middle of the sixteenth century ''the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices.—Hallam, "Const. Hist, of Eng."

3. "The clergy have ruined Italy."—Brougham, "Pol. Phil."

4. "It was a significant prudence of many of the lay Catholics, who were accustomed to insist that their priests should take a concubine for the protection of the families of the parishioners.... It can hardly be questioned that the extreme frequency of illicit connections among the clergy tended during many centuries most actively to lower the moral tone of the laity.... An impure chastity was fostered, which continually looked upon marriage in its coarsest light.... Another injurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism, was a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of woman."—Lecky.