Lecky finds evidence of the most hideous immorality in these restrictions, which forbade the presence even of a mother or sister in a priest’s house.

Lea says it is somewhat significant that when in France the rule of celibacy was completely enforced churchmen should find it necessary to revive the hideously suggestive restriction which denied the priest the society of his mother and sister.--Sacerdotal Celibacy, p. 344.