After celibacy had most effectively supported this endeavor—since a married priest would have had attachment to a narrower circle and thus would have engendered a closed opposition within the church, whereas as a celibate, a priest’s only recourse in his individual isolation would be to the unqualified totality—the Jesuits took it up with the greatest success. They fought the status aspirations of the clergy on all fronts, and they laid stress on the universal character of the priest that permitted him to feel at one with all believers, whatever their status. In opposition to all aristocratic systems of church rule, their goals were a thorough leveling of all believers, on the one hand, and papal absolutism, on the other.

XREF: This connects to Weber's broader analysis of how institutional arrangements shape individual loyalties and organizational cohesion. QUESTION: Worth probing how this dynamic of isolation fostering universal loyalty might apply to other organizations or communities.

XREF: Connects to Weber's broader argument about institutional structures shaping loyalty and how celibacy functions analogously to other organizational designs that sever local ties to bind members to the whole.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 679