“Bad priests are the greatest punishment with which God chastises the people”.--St. Anthony Maria Claret
Among the faithful, including
traditionalists, there is a worship of priests as though they are God’s. Going
far beyond the due respect owed to their elevated mission, some Catholics
consider priests as infallible and morally perfect. Such worship (sometimes) lacks
any good sense.
In an effort to correct this unsound
position, here is a text in which Our Lord Himself speaks to the Servant of God
Marie des Vallées, a 17th century French mystic whose spiritual
director was St. John Eudes, the apostle of the Devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
The source of these words is the well-documented book La Vie Admirable et les Révélations de Marie des Vallees, written by Emile Dermenghem, Paris: Plon, 1926, pp. 136-138.
Marie des Vallées was afflicted by the disagreements that too often appear among the pious. "The envy, the jealousies and the divisions that reign in the cloisters are a stumbling block for the faithful." The mockery appeared to her as a great sin. Many of her visions are a very severe satire of the diverse defects of the religious. About the heavy responsibility that weighs over ecclesiastics who are in charge of our souls, Our Lord Jesus Christ told Marie des Vallées:
"They (priests) will be judged more severely than others. Those who fall in their mission will be punished for the faults of all: that is, for those of the people [they directed] and for those of the nobles and the magistrates [or officials of justice]. The nobles and the officials of justice will be punished for the faults of the people; the latter will be judged just for their own faults”.
Nothing chases a person
out of the Catholic Church and away from Christ faster than a bad priest. The
priest does not have to be a child molester. He may simply be arrogant,
patriarchal, insensitive or just stupid. More people leave the church because
of bad priests than because of their failure to believe dogma.
When
you finish reading about the many instances of priests and bishops entering
Hell, ponder on what St. Catherine of Siena had to say about the reverence due to Priests.
“The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.” –ST. ATHANASIUS, COUNCIL OF
NICAEA, AD 325.
St. Athanasius was not
the only one to say this. Many other great saints have echoed similar prophetic
words.”
“The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of
erring priests, with bishops as their signposts– ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.
“The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of
bishops.”–
ST. JOHN EUDES
JOHN
CHRYSOSTOM:
The road to hell is paved with the bones of priests and
monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lampposts that light the path.
In his commentary on Acts of the Apostles he
writes, “The soul of a bishop is for all
the world like a vessel in a storm: lashed from every side, by friends, by
foes, by one’s own people, by strangers . . . I do not think there are many
among bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish.”
JEREMIAH
23:11
For the
prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I have found their
wickedness, saith the Lord…
Here’s
what St.
Catherine of Siena had to say about the
reverence due to Priests in The Dialogue.
St. Catherine wrote The
Dialogue in the fourteenth century, after having a profound mystical
experience. In the book, a soul (St. Catherine) has a conversation with God and
asks Him several questions, which He answers in great depth. One of St.
Catherine’s requests is that God would reveal to her the sins of the clergy, so
that she might intensify her “sorrow and compassion and restless longing for
their salvation.” (108)
God grants her request
and reveals to her the evil that His ministers are doing. First, though, He
reminds St. Catherine of the sublime dignity of the priesthood, and the
reverence due to priests, by virtue of the sacrament of the altar which they
alone have received the power to celebrate. He says:
“The reverence you pay
to [priests] is not actually paid to them but to me, in virtue of the blood I
have entrusted to their ministry. If this were not so, you should pay them as
much reverence as to anyone else, and no more. It is this ministry of theirs
that dictates that you should reverence them and come to them, not for what
they are in themselves but for the power I have entrusted to them, if you would
receive the sacraments of the Church….”
“So the reverence
belongs not to the ministers, but to me and to this glorious blood made one
thing with me because of the union of divinity with humanity. And just as the
reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told
you that you must not reverence them for themselves, but for the authority I
have entrusted to them. Therefore you must not sin against them, because if you
do, you are really sinning not against them but against me. This I have
forbidden, and I have said that it is my will that no one should touch them”.
(116)
“By not paying me
reverence in the persons of my ministers, they have lost respect for the latter
and persecuted them because of the many sins and faults they saw in them. If in
truth the reverence they had for them had been for my sake, they would not have
cut it off on account of any sin in them. For no sin can lessen the power of
this sacrament, and therefore their reverence should not lessen either. When it
does, it is against me they sin.” (116)
That does not mean God
is letting priests off the hook. On the contrary, He tells St. Catherine that
priests who do evil and lead their flocks astray are devils.
“Their dignity in
being my ministers will not save them from my punishment. Indeed, unless they
change their ways, they will be punished more severely than all the others,
because they have received more from my kindness. Having sinned so miserably,
they are deserving of greater punishment. So you see how they are devils, just
as I told you that my chosen ones are angels on earth and do the work of the
angels”. (121)
As you can see from
God’s own Words, that even in sin, a priest will always be a priest and still maintain
the ability to consecrate the Holy Sacraments.
However, if a priest becomes a heretic he is outside the Catholic Church
and all his actions, including the
consecration of the Sacraments will be null and void.
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, ex
cathedra:
“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches
that all those who are outside the
Catholic Church, not only
pagans but also Jews, heretics and schismatic’s …”
We see here that Pope
Eugene IV defined infallibly that all heretics (including Popes) are
outside the Catholic Church. The dogmatic bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio
of Paul IV (1559) sets out an
attitude towards heretics: all
actions of a heretic – priest, bishop or pope – are null and void, and he must not be obeyed by anyone
As we have seen, people automatically
excommunicated in this way are majorly excommunicated, which means that
they must be shunned for religious purposes and the
sacraments:
St.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Suppl., Part, Q. 23, Art. 1:
“The other is major excommunication
which deprives a man of the sacraments of the Church and of the communion of
the faithful [prayers, religious gatherings, etc.]. WHEREFORE IT IS
NOT LAWFUL TO COMMUNICATE WITH ONE WHO LIES UNDER SUCH AN EXCOMMUNICATION.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the
Second Part, Q. 39, Art. 3: “ON THE OTHER HAND, THE POWER OF JURISDICTION...DOES
NOT REMAIN IN HERETICS AND SCHISMATICS; AND CONSEQUENTLY THEY NEITHER ABSOLVE NOR EXCOMMUNICATE, NOR GRANT
INDULGENCE, NOR DO ANYTHING OF THE KIND, AND IF THEY DO, IT IS INVALID.”
One needs to be aware that if a pope, bishop or priest becomes a heretic
he is no longer Catholic and is outside the Church. If they are in heresy, they
cannot consecrate bishops, ordain priests or provide the Sacraments. The
infallible cum ex apostolatus officio, must be
obeyed.
It is proper and important to confirm whether
or not your bishop and priest are properly consecrated and ordained. Ask who
consecrated and/or ordained them. If they are not properly sanctioned, you will
not be legally receiving the Holy Sacraments.
What can you do if they are not properly consecrated or ordained?
The remedy is to pray
a Perfect Act of Contrition (shown below) and keep in mind Hebrews 13:5…
“Let
your manners be without covetousness, contented with such things as you have;
for He hath said: I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee”.
Say the Rosary. Wear
the Brown Scapular. Make an act of Perfect Contrition.
THE ACT OF PERFECT CONTRITION
It
is important to understand that you cannot just recite the words of The Act of
Perfect Contrition prayer. It must be an interior act of mind and will. It must
also be Supernatural as it must be made under the influence of actual grace.
Only God can give us the grace of making an act of Perfect Contrition because
it flows from Charity, which is God’s own Love, infused by God into our souls. Thus,
it is important to pray frequently for God’s grace to make us perfectly
contrite for our sins, asking for His special grace prior to starting the act
of contrition.
Aside
from praying often to have Perfect Contrition, it is important to bring to mind
the seriousness of sin, and to meditate on the suffering sin has caused Our
Lord Jesus Christ. Kneeling or prostrating oneself before a crucifix
and questioning oneself about Who is on this Cross and why and what He has
suffered can help dispose the soul to receive this God given
grace. One must then recall the actual sins for which he is
sorry. The requirement is universal—it’s all or
nothing. You cannot omit any mortal sins that you have a particular
fondness for. You have to include all of your mortal sins as any
mortal sin is alone enough to condemn you to hell.
Our
desire to not sin is supreme, that it must be paramount to everything,
including death. Finally, we must detest sin in the most intense way
and our desire to not sin again must be intense.
The
key elements here are to both mean and express our hatred of sin for having
offended God who is all good, professing our perfect love of God, and promising
with God’s grace to confess these sins, avoid the occasions of sin, and sin no
more.
As
the Council of Trent points out, this desire to confess along with our sorrow
is what obtains forgiveness. That desire must be fulfilled, if
possible. Given that more and more people are without access to
priests nearby every day, this gift of God (grace of Perfect Contrition) may
save us from Hell, should we fall sick or die without a priest to bring us the
Last Sacraments.
One
final question…
How
do I know for sure I prayed an Act of Perfect Contrition and not an Act of
Imperfect Contrition?
The
answer…
You
don’t know. The most important element is God’s grace and that is
supernatural. So, pray for God’s grace before you pray the Act of
Perfect Contrition as follows…
THE ACT OF PERFECT CONTRITION
O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I
detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell;
but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and
deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins,
to do penance, and to amend my life.
Amen
