Priestcraft

“ We have now to go a step farther in our contrast of our Catholic belief with the Reformation principles. This morning I propose to speak of the sacred priesthood. The Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass imples a sacrificing priesthood. To us a priest in the first place is a man chosen, set aside and consecrated for the service of the altar. He is a man and, alas! sometimes, in spite of the dignity of his calling, he shows himself to be very human ”

“ In a more advanced stage of religious culture, the position of the priest is no less powerful and important. When incantations yield to prayers in the proper sense, or are combined with prayers, it is only the priests who can make the prayers effective by their interceding in some way with the gods, whether by adding their appeal to that of the supplicant, or by the performance of the rites accompanying prayer, or by their aid in leading the worshipper into the presence of the deity and standing with him before the throne of grace. ”

“ And therefore with fear and reverence is this work to be approached. Take heed therefore and see what it is of which the ministry is committed to thee by the laying on of the Bishop’s hand. Behold thou art made a priest and art consecrated to celebrate. See now that thou do it before God faithfully and devoutly at due time, and shew thyself without blame. Thou hast not lightened thy burden, but art now bound with a straiter bond of discipline, and art pledged to a higher degree of holiness. A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and to afford to others an example of good life. ”

“ For neither may we address ourselves to Almighty God, but only by Christ. In the same manner, therefore, let the laity make known all their desires to the bishop by the deacon, and accordingly let them act as he shall direct them. For there was no holy thing offered or done in the temple formerly without the priest. “For the priest’s lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth,” as the prophet somewhere says, “for he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.” ”

“ Then, in the first place, we say that it is by the power and keys of the holy Priesthood, and the ordinances and spirit thereof.
This people, composed of diverse nations, tongues, habits and religions, have all been baptized by one Spirit into one body. So far as they have, in all honesty repented, and been baptized, they have all received a portion of the Holy Spirit of promise by the laying on of the hands of the Priesthood, in the name of Jesus, and they have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Holy Spirit, and one God and Father of all. ”

“ And we have a Priest who, 'in all things, is made like unto His brethren,' having taken part of their flesh and blood, and being 'in all points tempted like as we are.' The next requisite is that these men, who minister at earth's altars, should, by some lustration, or abstinence, or white robe, or other external sign, be separated from the profane crowd, and possess, at all events, a symbolic purity—expression of the conviction that a priest must be cleaner and closer to God than his fellows. ”

“ God's body in flesh and blood to make,
And handleth his maker between his hands.
The priest bindeth and unbindeth all bands
Both in earth and in heaven.
Thou ministers all the sacraments seven—
Though we kiss thy feet thou were worthy—
Thou art surgeon that cureth sin deadly.
No remedy we find under God
But all only priesthood.
Everyman, God gave priests that dignity,
And setteth them in his stead, among us to be;
Thus be they above angels in degree.
Knowledge. If priests be good, it is so surely ”

“ A noble and worthy priesthood, according to his first encyclical, was to be one of the means towards that restoring of all things in Christ "which was to heal the wounds of the world." "The priest is the representative of Christ on earth," he said on one occasion to the students of the French College in Rome; "he must think the thoughts of Christ and speak His words. He must be tender as Christ was tender, pure and holy like his Lord; he must shine like a star in the world." This was not easy, he acknowledged; it needed a long preparation of study, of self-discipline and of prayer. ”

“ Through purity of life and most ascetic habits this Most High Priest has to an unusual degree developed the Senses of Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, and when he shall come to understand their real meaning he will become a powerful force in the introduction of the new religion. Perhaps you are aware that all humans possess these senses, and that under favorable conditions all may exercise them. No, the case of this Priest is not exceptional. All high Priests are chosen for the position because of their supposed ability to hold converse with the Deific Ones. ”

“ To fall upon one's knees before the relics of a saint, and beg his prayers, as if he could see and hear? To implore the Blessed Virgin to succor and defend, as if she were not a creature, but omnipotent and divine? To reverence the priest as a being immaculate, an angel with hidden wings walking upon earth, unto whose feet you must kneel, and unveil, as unto God, all the thoughts and interests of your heart? ”

“ And thus the priest joins the line of his predecessors and successors, in the circle of those anointed with him, representing the highest source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not he, the priest, whom we reverence, but his office; it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and to come the more immediately from heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, nay, wicked, nature. ”

“ It is the behind-the-scenes of the temple, and it stretches from the sacristy to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the Palace. The profane world suspects nothing; it passes unconcernedly by without dreaming that tempests are rumbling by its side. But, like the revolutions raised by the eunuchs of the Seraglio, the intrigues of the sacristy have been known to change the face of nations.
The priest is the spy upon the priest.
Misfortune to the cassock which unbuttons itself before another cassock. ”

“ Nay, in virtue of his peculiar status, the priest is able to superinduce a physical sanctity in solid and liquid substances, like bread and wine, and quite independently of his own belief, or the belief of the bystanders, or even the recipients, cause those substances to be no longer what to every conceivable physical test they still continue to be, but the body and blood of a man who lived more than 1800 years ago. In a word, a ritual may be described as "a system of consecrated charms or spells, and the priest is the great magician who dispenses them". ”

“ Bishop Hall’s remarks on this doctrine are as follows:—It sounds not more prodigiously that a priest should every day make his God, than that he should sacrifice him.
Antiquity would have as much abhorred the sense, as it hath allowed the word. Nothing is more ordinary with the Fathers than to call God’s table an altar; the holy elements, an oblation; the act of celebration, an immolation; the actor, a priest. ”

“ A priest is a divinity among his people—a man around whom his parishioners throw a glamour of sanctity, and one who can do no wrong; albeit, his chief and growing characteristics are tyranny, arrogancy, self-conceit, deception, bigotry and superstition! Tyrannical do I call them? Most assuredly! Suppose, for example, the Methodist, or Presbyterian church had the power to decide whether you, or I, or any other man, should be a Methodist or Presbyterian, and we should decline to follow the path pointed out to us, or either of us, what I solemnly and candidly ask you, would be the result? ”

“ In answering this question let us bear in mind that a priest is ordained not only, as the Apostle says, to offer up gifts and sacrifices for sin, but is likewise sent to all who are living in ignorance and sin, 'qui condolere possit iis qui ignorant et errant.' Hence the main occupation of a priest in charge of souls is to prevent sin by instruction, and to absolve from sin in the Sacrament of Penance. In other words, to teach Christian doctrine and to hear Confessions may be said to be the sum of a priest's work in dealing with souls. ”

“ The former makes the priest a kind of god on earth, the latter proclaims the priesthood of all men; the former is guided by scriptures which man calls sacred, the latter knows of no sacred oracles but the still small voice in the heart of every man. ”

“ Conscious that Jesus left no priesthood behind him, that his teaching was anti-sacerdotal and non-sacramental, there was nothing for the writer but to suggest that the great prophet himself was the high priest, the solitary member of the caste in the new gospel, and that therewith men are to be satisfied, because more than compensated thereby for the absence of the altar and hierarchy of old. ”

“ The office of Priesthood is, indeed, performed on earth, but it should itself be referred to the class and order of things celestial. Wherefore it is necessary, that the Priest be pure, as if, placed in heaven, he stood among the celestial spirits.-For when you behold the Lord immolated, and the Priest presiding over the Sacrifice, and pouring out prayers, and then the surrounding multitude partaking of the sacred blood, (n) can you, at that moment, fancy, you are among mortals, and dwelling on the earth ? ”

“ Within the Catholic Church, in the mystery of the Lord's body and blood, nothing greater is done by a good priest, nothing less by an evil priest, because it is not by the merits of the consecrator that the sacrament is accomplished, but by the Creator's word, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ This lustration with holy-water so exactly continues the ancient classic rite, that its apologists are apt to explain the correspondence by arguing that Satan stole it for his own wicked ends. [1072] Catholic ritual follows ancient sacrificial usage in the priest’s ceremonial washing of hands before mass. The priest’s touching with his spittle the ears and nostrils of the infant or catechumen, saying, ‘Ephphatha,’ is obviously connected with passages in the Gospels; its adoption as a baptismal ceremony has been compared, perhaps justly, with the classical lustration by spittle. ”

“ Of two things, one: either Priesthood being a normal function of religion, like Veneration, Sacrifice, Sacrament, Shrines, Ritual, and the rest, will be found present in a true religion and is no argument against the truth of that religion; or, there being no true religion, Priesthood began as a man-made cheat, like all the other functions of religion—since (by this theory) —all religion and all its attendant functions are wholly illusion. ”

“ Where symbolic ritual is best suited for popular needs, there may be room for a similar priesthood to-day. Otherwise the Christian priesthood is required to represent the people not in symbol, but in reality, to carry not the blood of dead victims into a material Holy of holies, but living souls into the heavenly temple. ”

“ The candidate is likewise reminded of the excellence of the priestly office by virtue of which the Passion of Christ is daily celebrated on the altar.
In the course of the rite, the priest's hands are blessed, since he is to consecrate the sacrifice offered for the sins and offences of the people; and he is given the chalice, etc., to show forth and emphasise the power to offer sacrifice and celebrate the Mass; and in the final blessing God is asked to bless the newly ordained in the priestly order who is to offer Sacrifices pleasing to Him. ”

“ It is not wonderful that such a life produced a kind of religion which was restrained and below the surface, and that there was little inclination to show outward signs of devotion. The lifelong habit of concealing their priesthood from the knowledge of others could not but tend to blunt the esteem for it in themselves; and it engendered a form of Catholicity which was dry and undemonstrative, to say the least, and wanting in the warmth of devotion which we now rightly look upon as among the most valuable aids to piety. ”

“ That this High Priest, while enjoying all the comforts and privileges belonging to his high office, together with its honors and gorgeous trappings, does not attach any over-weening importance to ecclesiastical dignity, neither does he consider a "comedown" the step he has taken, but he gives the simple, yet convincing reason that he just follows the process of evolution in Christianity, doing the will of his Master who promised to all mankind one Lord—one Faith—one Baptism. ”

“ This position, we see, can be reached by various paths: the priest may become indispensable through the growth of ritual observances and precautions too complicated for a layman to master, or he may lay claim to special nearness to the gods on the ground, it may be, of his race, or, it may be, of habitual practices of purity and asceticism which cannot be combined with the duties of ordinary life, as, for example, celibacy was required of priestesses of Vesta at Rome. ”

“ When a priest preaches, which seems to be only rarely, and possibly only when he has the faculty, he mounts the pulpit, by his side in which a large crucifix is stuck, and addresses the people shortly but with great animation, his eloquence increasing like the Welsh preachers as he proceeds, till he reaches his climax in such a fervent heat that the perspiration will burst from his brow. ”

“ Finally, the chief priest himself emerges, attended by an acolyte, and kneels, facing the altar, at a large lectern placed between the two rows of sutra-readers. He confines himself at first to burning incense, and, as the fumes ascend denser and denser, the intonation of the reading priests grows more and more accelerated, until at last their words pour forth with bewildering volubility. ”