Secular priest

“ Monks, nuns, and priests receive grace and are bound by their vocation to practise these counsels in a high degree, and yet not even all these in the same manner. A secular priest, for instance, is not called to practise poverty in the same manner as a priest of a religious order, although he or even a layman living in the world may practise that counsel, as he may the other counsels, too, just as perfectly as any monk ever heard of. ”

“ In contrast to the Protestant, take the European Catholic missionary in the East, as apart from the native-born priest. He is invariably a volunteer for the work, either a monk or a secular priest, who aspiring to more severe labor in his Master's vineyard, has chosen the hard and rugged path of a preacher of the gospel in pagan lands. ”

“ The obedience of a secular priest, on the other hand, is more like that of an inferior officer, who while he is leading others, is also in contact with one in supreme command, helping him, advising him, and sharing in part his responsibilities. ”

“ It is so arranged by the secular priests, that whenever they fail in seducing their penitents, and are detected by them, that one of these friars shall immediately be at hand to hear the confessions of all such females, and forgive them their sins on condition that they shall never reveal to mortal being the thoughtless peccadillo of their parish priest, who for the moment forgot himself and whose tears of repentance now moisten the ground on which he walks! ”

“ Missions and Retreats are fitly given by religious not only because they have more leisure to give to a proper preparation, but also because the holiness of their lives will often react upon the success of their work. The very fact of their being outside the ordinary parochial life is often an advantage for a mission. People confess to them more readily. But the idea that a secular priest is by his state unfit for such work may be said to be dead, and from time to time, as occasion offers, we find them bearing their share of it. ”

“ No alteration or repairs, or any movement connected with changes in matters pertaining to the interests of the church, can be undertaken without their approval. They are the defenders of the secular interests, as the priest is exclusively of the spiritual direction, but most generally harmonize with their curé in any plans of improvement he may suggest. ”

“ Between these two great classes stood the secular clergy, upon whom the practical pastoral work of the country fell. A numerous body, but disorganized; diocesan bishops acting as statesmen, and devolving their ecclesiastical duties on suffragans; rectors refusing to take priests’ orders, and living like laymen; the majority of the parishes practically served by parochial chaplains; every gentleman having his own chaplain dependent on his own pleasure; hundreds of priests engaged in secular occupations.
Between the secular priests and the friars, as we have seen, pp. ”

“ The ecclesiastics have separated themselves from the common people—whom they call the laity—and are themselves variously divided. Some are called monks and nuns; who vow, not to marry; to submit to voluntary poverty; to observe human institutions, such as, to have nothing to do with money; to wear a gray, white, or black cap; to eat no flesh; to be dumb at times; and other similar false and invented forms of holiness. Others are called secular priests; who also may not marry, but like the others, have to do a great amount of muttering and reading. ”

“ How is it we hear of milk-and-water Catholics going to be married before magistrates, or, what is worse, before ministers of a false religion? How is it that we find Catholics denying their faith and going to a Protestant place of worship for the sake of a little food and clothing? The priest has God's own authority; you are the sheep. The priest has you in charge. God does not come and ask you if you would like a shepherd; he places one over you, and that he may guide you, and not that you may guide him. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The clergy claim for themselves the prerogatives, relations and authority of the Jewish priesthood. Such claims, advanced in the third century by Cyprian, were a great departure from the original spirit and model of the Church derived from Christ and the apostles. It was falling back from the New to the Old Testament, and substituting the outward for the inward spirit. It presented the priesthood again as a mediating office between man and his God. It sought to invest the propitiating priest with awful sanctity, as the appointed medium by which grace is imparted to man. ”

“ He must hear your confessions, give you Holy Communion, come to you when you are ill, administer the sacraments to you, advise you, preach to you, instruct you, shield you from the wolves and seek you when you are lost, and often serve you at the risk of his own life. Now, the priest does all these things, not because he is paid, not because the people hire him and pay him a salary, but simply and solely because he is the good shepherd ”

“ It is a curious fact, but one which has struck many even of those who have not yet found courage to knock and ask for admittance into the Catholic Church, that in proportion has a sect, or people, or nation, stray far from unity of the one true fold, so to their pastors and teachers neglect and despise that visiting and looking after their flocks, which forms with us such a prominent part of every parish priest's or missionary's duty. The High-Church Anglican Protestant clergymen—although still very far short of what is done by our clergy—come next to the Catholic priest in this work ”

“ It is easy to conceive the abuse that may be made by the clergy of the credulity of a nation in which such ridiculous and absurd practices prevail as those to which we have already alluded. The priest is considered, in Roman Catholic countries, as the representative of Jesus Christ, the only depositary of true doctrine, the only dispenser of celestial favours, the agent of the supreme authority of the Pope,—in a word, the infallible oracle, to whose teachings the faith cannot be opposed, and whose mandates must not be resisted under penalty of incurring a mortal sin. ”

“ Does an earthly priesthood, vested with alleged powers to interpose between God and man, always originate an ecclesiastical tyranny, which has the effect, in the end, of shutting up the mass of men from their Maker?—here is there a High Priest passed into the heavens—the only Priest whom the evangelistic Protestant recognises as really such—to whom, in his character of Mediator between God and man, all may apply, and before whom there need be felt none of that abject prostration of the spirit and understanding which man always experiences when he bends before the merely human priest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would, indeed, be wholly out of proportion with the cold creed of the Unitarian or the Sectary: it might lead those to fall down and worship at the feet of a servant who did not behold in that servant the one image of the Lord, the seal and impress of the only Begotten, which claims all glory for the Lord of glory.
And a concomitant of the true doctrine of the priesthood is that system of confession which is the nerve and sinew of religion in Catholic countries. The English prayer-book says of every individual priest, "whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ”

“ If there is no change of ordinances, there is no change of Priesthood. Wherever the ordinances of the Gospel are administered, there is the Priesthood.
How have we come at the Priesthood in the last days? It came down, in regular succession. Peter, James, and John had it given to them, and they gave it to others. Christ is the great High Priest; Adam next. Paul speaks of The Church coming to an innumerable company of angels—to God, the Judge of all—the spirits of just men made perfect; to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, &c., (Heb. III, 23.) ”

“ Yet there is much to suggest itself of special interest, for the sacrament involves the whole history of mankind. The child arrives not a member of the Church, even in positive enmity—though unconsciously—to Almighty God, and in the power of the enemy of mankind. As a result of the priest's ministration, the devil is expelled, and the child acquires the state of one of the faithful. The command "Exi ab eo, immunde spiritus, et da locum Spiritui Sancto Paraclito" should surely bring home to one the power of the priesthood. ”

“ To-day we find men of the highest intelligence and good faith claiming to have the same Christian sacrifice and the same sacrificing priests as the Catholic Church, and they are using a Communion Service from which of set purpose every notion of Oblation and Sacrifice has been ruthlessly removed, and their ministers are ordained by an Ordinal, which designedly was composed to express the rejection of the sacrificial character of the Christian priest. ”

“ For Baptism and the sacraments of the dying are only other forms of loosing souls from the bonds of sin. The question then is, does reserve with women create any hindrance in this essential work of a priest? Unquestionably not. Protestant writers, indeed, looking at the Church from outside, and not understanding the real feeling of Catholics, have sometimes supposed that they prefer going to Confession to an easy-going, self-indulgent priest, rather than one who leads a mortified, unworldly life. But all practical Catholics well know there cannot be a greater mistake. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, the office of a priest is to stand between God and man. He mediates, and this Jesus did both by propitiation and continues to do, forever, by intercession. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” He “offered one sacrifice for sins forever.” If He has an unchangeable priesthood, and has already offered Himself as a sacrifice, sufficient for the sins of all mankind, the benefits of which each and every one may obtain on the simple condition of repentance and faith, what possible need can there be of any human priesthood to come between God and the sinner? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have invariably rejected the idea, whenever it has been suggested to me, as unworthy of a minister of the Gospel. Priests, above all people, are naturally inclined to sectarianism; they are accustomed to regard the Church as of higher importance than the Bible; according to them, Religion is not the work of God alone, but of God and man together. Hence it is that the Priesthood, in every Christian sect, is that which divides, opposes, denounces, and excommunicates. ”

“ As for the spiritual and priestly power: wherever religion recognizes the priest in his true character—i.e., not simply as the preacher and promulgator, but also as the living channel for dispensing and communicating the divine grace, he is, in so far as his office is concerned, and in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions, a vicegerent of God—not so much, perhaps, of the everlasting Father, the Creator and Lawgiver of nature, as of the Son who came down into the world to ransom and redeem the human race. ”

“ This being the case, it necessarily follows that those holding the Priesthood on the earth continue in the exercise of that Priesthood in the heavens, their operations being changed from this to another state of existence; and when the dead, small and great, shall be judged, while God stands at the head, and Jesus is the great High Priest of our profession, all those who have ever lived who are worthy will stand in their proper positions, according to their callings, Priesthood, ordinations or quorums. ”

“ So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made a high priest." Fundamental to Christian faith and life is this thought: priesthood is not of man, but of God. In particular, in all that Christ has done and is still doing as the High Priest, in the true holiest, He is acting under Divine appointment.
And we are hereby pointed to the truth of which some may need to be reminded, that the work of our Lord in our behalf, and that of the whole universe into which sin has entered, has its cause and origin in the mind and gracious will of the Father. ”

“ The Roman Catholic priest is debarred by celibacy from the family tie, bound by his vow of blind obedience, by the tenets of his faith, as well as by external interest, to the Bishop of Rome, and thus withdrawn and estranged from the interests of his fatherland. Instead of awakening and strengthening patriotism and community of feeling, the Catholic priest, as teacher of the people, is engaged, by the statutes of his Church, to stifle both. ”