Untitled - Saints' Books

"
"
[PART
1 44 Material for Sermons. ,
i.
fountain, all are poisoned. This may be said with
greater truth of the bad example of priests; hence
Eugene III. has said that bad Superiors are the prin
1
cipal causes of the sins of inferiors.
Priests are called by St. Gregory 2
Patres Christianorum
The Fathers of Christians. Thus also are they called
by St. John Chrysostom, who says that a priest as the
representative of God is bound to take care of all men,
because he is the Father of the whole world. 3 As a
parent, then, sins doubly when he gives bad example to
his children, so a priest is also guilty of a double sin
when he gives bad example to seculars, says Peter de
Blois. 4 St. Jerome made the same remark in a letter to
a certain bishop: Whatever you do, all will think they
they sin at the sight of the bad
may also 5
When do."
example of a
priest, seculars, as Cesarius has observed,
6
say, Do not also priests do such things
?" St.
Augus
tine puts the following words into the mouth of a secu
lar: "Why
do you reproach me ? are not priests doing
the same? and you wish to force me not to do so ?"
Gregory says that when, instead of edifying the people,
a priest gives scandal, he renders sin, in a certain man
ner, honorable rather than an object of horror. 3
7
St.
1 "
Inferiorum culpae ad nullos magis referenda? sunt, quam ad desides
rectores." 6". Bernard.
De Consid. 1. 3, c. 5.
2
In Evang. horn. 17.
3 "
Quasi totius orbis pater Sacerdos est; dignum igitur est ut
omnium curam agat, sicut ut Deus, vice."
cujus fungitur In i J im.
horn. 6.
4 "
Quid faciet laicus, nisi quod patrem suum spiritualem viderit
5 "
7 "
facientem." Serm. 57.
Quidquid feceris, id sibi omnes faciendum putant." Ep. ad
Heliod.
6
Numquid "
clerici, etiam majoris ordinis, faciunt?" Serm.
15-
Quid mihi loqueris ? Ipsi clerici non illud faciunt, et me cogis
ut faciam ?" Serin. 137, E. B.
8 "
In exemplum culpa vehementer extenditur, quando, pro revereniia
Ordinis, peccator honoratur." Past. p. i,
c. 2.