e
mediaeval church. The Latin people of southern Europe are now horrified
at the notion of a married priest. The concubine of a priest is a wicked
woman, but she is not a social abomination. All protest and resistance
seems to have passed away and, since the sixteenth century, sacerdotal
celibacy has been accepted as a feature of the Romish Church, which all
its members are expected to accept. It is a grand triumph of social
selection.

+231. How the church operated selection.+ The church was a great
hierarchical organization for social power and control, which inherited
part of the intense integration of the Roman empire. Fra Paolo Sarpi
said of it, in the seventeenth century: "The interests of Rome demand
that there shall be no change by which the power of the pontiff would be
diminished, or by which the curia would lose any of the profits which it
wins from the states, but the novelties by which the profits of the
curia would be increased, or by which the authority of the states would
be diminished and that of the curia increased, are not abhorred, but are
favored. This we see every day."[504] The church decided all recognition
and promotion, and disposed of all rewards of ambition. The monarchical
and autocratic tendency in it was the correct process for attaining the
purposes by which it was animated. Its legitimacy as an organization for
realizing faiths and desires which prevailed in society is beyond
question. It drew towards itself all the talent of the age except what
was military. It crushed all dissenters and silenced all critics for
centuries. Its enginery was all planned for selection. It disposed of
the greatest prizes and the most dreadful penalties. All its methods
were positive and realistic, and whatever can be accomplished by
authority, tyranny, penalty, and repression it accomplished. In modern
times political parties offer the nearest parallels. They are
organizations for societal control, which distribute rewards and
penalties and coerce dissenters. The history of the papacy in the
fifteenth century reminds one of the history of Tammany Hall in the
nineteenth century. The strength of Tammany is due to the fact that it
fits the tastes and needs of a great modern city under democracy. When
Tammany won an election it was said that the people had put the city in
their hands and that they ought to profit by it. When Leo X was elected
pope he said, "God has given us the papacy; now let us enjoy it."[505