Roman Catholic clergy

“ Some English clergy come, therefore, into the jurisdiction of North and Central Europe from their own parishes, and though their own Church may have its services there, ostentatiously attend the services of the Roman Catholic Church. Young men coming out for business, girls taking positions as nurses and governesses, and others coming for health and enjoyment, are sometimes advised by their clergy not to go near the English Church, but [Pg 206] to attend Mass and “worship with the people of the country.” ”

“ We have no wish to speak ill of the Protestant clergy. Most of them are certainly honorable men, estimable husbands and good fathers; but we cannot help observing that they lack the sacerdotal character so conspicuous in the Catholic priest. Their ministry and their teaching cannot fully satisfy the soul; and whenever a calm and unprejudiced comparison is drawn between them and the Catholic clergy, it is strange if the former do not suffer by the contrast, and behold their flocks, little by little, passing over to the side of the Church. ”

“ Or what else is it, when he uproots respect for the clergy in the people—not only for the Catholic clergy!—The interests of all sects have always been common, and the sympathy which a maltreated Catholic clergy awakens in the Protestant will soon enough come to light. But without clerics there will be no God, and no king by divine right—that is to say, he cuts off the branch to which he clings. ”

“ It is for the present and future advantage and interest of this country that the influence of the Catholic clergy over their people should be as great as possible, and that of clerical agitators and demagogues reduced to nothing. ”

“ Orthodox Roman Catholics held fast to their faith in dogmas and sacraments and looked for spiritual guidance, correction, and comfort to the regular and secular clergy of their Church. The "secular" hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, did not cease its pious labor "in the world"; nor was there lack of zealous souls willing to forego the pleasures of this world, that they might live holier lives as monks, nuns, or begging friars,— the "regular" clergy. ”

“ Monks and secular clergy supplement each other.
The Church, ever anxious to maintain as far-reaching a control over its subjects as that of the Roman Empire, whose power it inherited, could hardly expect its busy officers, with their multiform duties and constant relations with men, to represent the ideal of contemplative Christianity which was then held in higher esteem than the active life. The secular clergy performed the ceremonies of the Church, administered its business, and guarded its property, while the regular clergy illustrated the necessity of personal piety and self-denial. ”

“ Finally, there were added a few wholesome admonitions on other subjects, which mark the turning of the tide from Catholic orthodoxy. The clergy were interdicted from indulging any longer in the polemics of theology. "To keep unity and quietness in the realm it" was "ordained that no preachers" should "contend openly in the pulpit one against another, nor uncharitably deprave one another in open audience. If any of them" were "grieved one with another," they were to "complain to the King's Highness or the archbishop or bishop of the diocese." ”

“ Not a portion of the Catholic creed, of Catholic habits, of Catholic institutions, of Catholic superstitions, but must be valiantly defended.—'It is our duty loudly to uphold reliques, the cult of saints, stations, pilgrimages indulgences, jubilees, the candles which are lighted before altars.' To criticise the clergy, even though notoriously corrupt, is a sin. ”

“ Is it not an important thing that the clergy themselves should have something to keep alive powerfully, amongst them the one, universal and everlasting faith? Will not all the faithful find strength in their strength, and light in their light? If they are kept right, the truth spread abroad by them will easily he preserved pure among the masses of the people. Almost all heresies—be it said to our shame—either had their source in the sanctuary, or could not have succeeded if they had not found support there. ”

“ When we compare the mediæval seculars with the modern clergy, we find that the modern clergy form a much more homogeneous body. In the mediæval seculars the bishop was often one who had been a monk or friar; the cathedral clergy in many dioceses were regulars. Then, besides the parsons and parochial chaplains, who answer to our incumbents and curates, there were the chantry and gild priests, and priests who “lived at rovers on trentals;” the great number of domestic chaplains must have considerably affected the relations of the parochial clergy to the gentry. ”

“ Profiting by the situation, it has wished to reduce the clergy into bondage after a precise fashion by the intrusion of all of the doctrines of the ultramontane church, and, to obtain its end, has employed all the powers of polemics, of spiritual administration, and of the regular clergy.
The clergy conquered, it has marched on to possess itself of all classes of society through the medium of educational institutions, of confraternities and congregations of every kind, and has established an organization as vast as it is formidable. ”

“ The Catholic clergy have not chosen to meddle with questions which were none of their business, or to parade and speechify on platforms or at anniversaries. They have enough to do in looking after the immediate and pressing spiritual and temporal wants of their own people. ”

“ The clergy were accused of indifference or hostility, the bishop of weakness and timidity.
Led by events and the natural bent of the human heart, this vast movement of men and ideas, so essentially religious in spirit, threatened to become opposed to the clergy. The multitude, so full of faith in the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin, seemed about to go where the divine power was plainly manifest, and to desert the sanctuary, where, under the priestly vestment, the weaknesses of men are too often to be found. ”

“ But against what has been said the objection is brought, that, if the pope and cardinals are not the true and manifest successors of the apostles, then for the same reason others are not, inasmuch as the power of discrimination cannot be based upon the fact that they may be clad in sheep's clothing, and yet may be inwardly ravening wolves, as stated, Matt. 7:15. Here it becomes us to consider the two sects of the clergy, namely, the clergy of Christ and the clergy of antichrist. Christ's clergy rests in its head, Christ, and in his laws ”

“ The priests influence the people to an extent Englishmen can never understand. The Protestant clergy do not intervene in mundane matters, but the Catholic clergy consider it their duty to guide the people in politics as well as in religion. ”

“ We have already stated our belief that the fact of a clergyman holding High or Low Church views is not in any manner whatever necessarily connected with the increase of Catholicism among his congregation, but that such increase is owing either to the lack of a sufficient staff of the Protestant clergy to {704} repel its advances, or to the apathy or inefficiency of the incumbent, or, as may be especially shown in some wealthy districts, to that mysterious want of power in the clergy of the Church of England over the minds of the rich and influential of their parishioners. ”

“ In them, as throughout the Catholic system, the sadness of the condition into which they had fallen was enhanced by the contrast between the theory and the degenerate reality. Originally, and for many hundred years after their foundation, the regular clergy were the finest body of men of which mankind in their chequered history can boast. They lived to illustrate, in systematic simplicity, the universal law of sacrifice. In their three chief vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they surrendered everything which makes life delightful. ”

“ He accuses the clergy of avarice, though in Rome he compliments the priests for their personal merits, their 'seriousness, decorum, and fair intelligence.' He declares that 'the Catholic Church is an artful substitute for anything that a human soul ought to desire;' that she is 'the chief hinderance to progress;' that she has 'glorified the blessed Mother into the Almighty;' that she 'mutters spells and practises necromancy at her altars,' and all that kind of thing, which I need not repeat, because we have heard it in almost the very same words scores of times before. ”

“ But the declarations of the clergy, for the most part, are all in unison, in all the various churches--Catholic and Protestant, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist--which accept God Almighty as the moral governor of the universe, the great master of our destinies, whose eternal voice speaketh to the conscience of mankind. And hence their teachings, if they are true to their calling, have reference to interests and duties and aspirations and hopes as far removed in importance from mere temporal matters as the heaven is higher than the earth. ”

“ It is certainly true that in the eyes of the Catholic Church, and also of every ecclesiastical body which has the apostolic succession, the bishops of the Episcopal Church are no bishops, and the clergy are mere laymen. {829} It is also true that the extreme High-Churchmen are "playing at being a church." ”

“ In Rome there is a daily procession of the clergy from the Church of St. Lawrence in Damaso to St. Peter’s basilica (if the conclave be held in the Vatican) , chanting the litany of the saints and other prayers. When the procession arrives there a Mass de Spiritu Sancto is said by a papal chaplain in a temporary chapel fitted up near the main entrance to the conclave. The singing is by the papal choir. ”

“ Then the litany is chanted antiphonally, by one of the clergy and the choristers alternately; it is in the main a translation of that part of our litany of the saints in which we address Almighty God directly, without asking the intercession of his blessed. This over, the ministers and acolytes retire in the same order in which they entered, and the organist plays a voluntary, during which the other six altar-candles are lighted. When the clergy return the priest is seen in a green maniple and chasuble. ”

“ Bishops and priests had fallen into loose ways among them and lost the respect of the people; vassals of the great lords, they stood on much the same level as the secular clergy at present do in Russia, and the popes had long striven in vain to make 216them give up marriage when they took Holy Orders. The parish clergy were mostly ignorant men, often employed in common labor to support their families, while of teaching monasteries or any places where learning was imparted and respected there were very few. ”

“ Half way between a medieval estate and a modern calling stood the clergy. In Catholic countries they remained very numerous; there were 136 episcopal or archiepiscopal sees in France; there were 40,000 parish priests, with an equal number of secular clergy in subordinate positions, 24,000 canons, 34,000 friars, 2500 Jesuits (in 1600) , 12,000 monks and 80,000 nuns. Though there were doubtless many worthy men among them, it cannot honestly be said that the average were fitted either morally or intellectually for their positions. ”

“ The Catholic clergy alone possess a powerful and extensive religions sway over the masses of the people. The poor are emphatically here, as they have been always and everywhere, our inheritance. Nearly all that has been done, and is now doing, in an efficacious manner and on a large scale, for the religions welfare of the populace, is the work of our priesthood and their coadjutors. It is impossible to estimate the benefit to society in a political, social, and moral point of view, accruing from the influence and exertions of the Catholic clergy. ”

“ The apostolic courage with which the Catholic bishops, not fearing temporal loss, not even imprisonment and exile, defend the rights of God and of his holy church, as also the inalienable rights of Catholic conscience, and the priestly fidelity and firmness with which the Catholic clergy, not led astray by illusions and threats, remain true to the episcopate and the church, deserve the admiration and respect of all Catholics and of every right thinking man. ”

“ The homogeneous body of “the bishops and clergy” are the only representatives of a clergy in the eyes of modern English society; the relative position of the secular clergy in the eyes of the mediæval world was less exclusive and far inferior. The seculars were only one order of the clergy, sharing the title with monks and friars, and they were commonly held as inferior to the one in wealth and learning, and to the other in holiness and zeal.
Another difference between the mediæval seculars and the modern clergy is in the superior independence of the latter. ”

“ What a falling off from the teachings of the original clergy, when bishops were the companions of princes rather than preachers to the poor, and when the clergy could live without the offerings of the people, and were appointed from favor and not from merit. The spiritual mission of the church was lost sight of in a degrading alliance with the state and the world. "Make me bishop of Rome," said a pagan general, "and I too would become a Christian."
[Sidenote: The church conforms to the world.]
[Sidenote: Christianity produces witnesses, but is not all conquering.] ”

“ In Catholic countries the population is studded with religious houses, convents, and communities, and the priesthood is numerous, visible to the eye of the public, clothed in its own dress, affecting all classes of society, and holding a political and national status of its own. Their influence, therefore, is strong and ever present. It is otherwise with the English clergy, who have not one of the advantages alluded to, but are absorbed in begging and building with one hand, while with the other they hastily baptize, absolve, and anoint the new-born, the viator, and the dying. ”