Bonnie:
Ask him which pope & the name of the edict.
Partial truth here. Of course, anti-Catholics have never been known to twist the truth…
It was Pope St. Gregory the VII, at the Lenten Synod of 1074. He was fighting two widespread abuses. First, people bought different Church positions, and also Churches themselves. For example, pay a certain amount of money to be the Bishop of XXX, or money to be the pastor of YYY. The practice was called “simony”. So he banned paying for offices or church property. Anyone who had paid for their office had the right to function as a priest revoked – they were “de-frocked”. Any Church property that had been sold was reclaimed…
Second, married clergy was considered a widespread abuse and scandal. In various parts of the Church, the position of Bishop or other church offices had become hereditary, This problem was interlinked with the simony problem. So he ruled any clergy that continued in their marriage should cease their ministry. If a priest continued to live with a wife, the people should reject receiving the sacraments from that priest.
During this time period, the Church also had various decrees that declared children of clergy banned from receiving Holy Orders, and thus not able to be their father’s hereditary successor. There were various decrees that made the wives, concubines, or children of clergy slaves of the Church or seized as slaves of whatever noble (Duke, King, whatever) happened to be their ruler.
Wars were fought over these decrees.
Bottom line, in the same time period that Europe as a whole was in complete turmoil during the “Dark Ages”, the Church was also engulfed in scandal, corruption, anti-popes, and all kinds of troubles in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The scandals and problems at that time made the problems of the last 40 years here look quite mild by comparison. And the just as the Holy Spirit enabled the Church to renew itself and survive those times, I have confidence in our future now.