Untitled - Saints' Books

CHAP, viii.] The Sin of Scandal. 141
be brought to ruin ? says St. Gregory. 1 The saint has
written the same to the bishops of France, whom he
exhorted to chastise the priest who is 2
guilty of scandal.
This is conformable to the words of the Prophet Osee:
And there shall be like people like priest? By the mouth of
Jeremias the Lord has said, And I will fill the soul of the
priest with fatness and My :
people shall be filled with good
things. Hence St. Charles Borromeo says that if the
priests be fat and rich in virtue, the people, too, shall be
rich; but if the priests be poor, the people
shall be in
still greater poverty. 5
Thomas de Cantimpre writes that in Paris a devil told
an ecclesiastic to preach to the clergy of that city, and
to say that the princes of hell saluted and thanked some
of them for having caused the damnation of an immense
multitude of souls. 6 Of this the Lord complained by
the Prophet Jeremias: My people, hath been a lost flock;
their shepherds have caused them to go astray} There is no
alternative, says St. Gregory; when the priest walks into
the precipice, the people, too, are dashed to ruin. 3
The
bad example of the priest necessarily produces im-
1 "
Laqueus ruinse populi mei, Sacerdotes mali." Fast. p. i, c, 2.
"
2
Ne paucorum facinus multorum possit esse perditio; nam causa
sunt ruinse populi Sacerdotes mali." Epist. 1. 9, ep. 64.
3 "
4 "
Et erit, sicut populus, sic Sacerdos." Os. iv. 9.
Et inebriabo animam Sacerdotum pinguedine, et populus meus
bonis meis adimplebitur." Jer. xxxi. 14.
5
Si pingues sint Sacerdotes, erunt itidern populi pingues; et
secus, si illi inanes erunt, magnum populis imminebit paupertatis periculum."
/;/ Synod, dicec. n, orat. I.
tenebrarum
""Principes principes Ecclesiae salutant. Laeti omnes
6
"
7
8 "
nos gratias eisdem referimus, quia, per eorum negligentiam, ad nos
devolvitur totus fere mundus." De Apib.
1. i, c. 20.
Grex perditus factus est populus meus; pastores eorum seduxerunt
eos." 1.
Jer. 6.
Unde fit ut, cum pastor per abrupta graditur, ad prsecipitium
grex sequatur." Past. p. i, c. 2.