Distinction LXI

GRATIAN. Part I. Likewise, laymen are not to be elected bishop, but are first to be tested through the individual orders. Hence Gregory to Brunhild, Queen of the Franks [Book VII of the Register, epistle 113]:

Priestly office in your regions has, as we have learned, been brought into such canvassing that, what is exceedingly grave, priests are suddenly ordained from laymen.

Likewise Pope Hormisdas to all the Bishops [established throughout Spain, epistle III, c. 1]. Care ought to be perspicacious in choosing or ordaining priests. For it is fitting that those who must preside over persons to be corrected be blameless. §1. One to whom the governance of the Church is entrusted ought to show his life by long testing.

We do not deny that there are morals pleasing to God among laymen, but the institutes of the faithful seek for themselves tested soldiers. One ought to learn before teaching and to furnish to others from oneself, rather than receive, an example of religious conduct. It is fitting that one who must pray for the people be more corrected than the people. Let religious worship be handed on after long observance, so that he may shine; and let one who is to be instructed serve in clerical services, so that, when brought to the summit of the venerable grade, he may show what is the fruit of humility. §1. Nor do we prohibit only the consecration of laymen; rather, let no profane violator from among penitents even aspire to a grade of this kind. Let it be enough for him when he petitions that pardon is granted. With what conscience can one absolve a guilty person who knows that he confessed his own sins with the people as witness? For who who sees one lying prostrate a little before would venerate him as bishop? Bearing the stain of a memorable crime, he does not possess the shining dignity of the priesthood.

Likewise Pope Innocent [to Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, epistle XII]. It is wretched for one who was never a disciple to be made a master, and for one who had never served a priest in any grade to be made high priest.

Likewise Bishop Leo [to the African Bishops, epistle LXXXV, otherwise LXXXVII, c. 1]. We marvel that, among you, either the presumption of those canvassing or popular tumult has prevailed so greatly by occasion of the disturbed time that the pastoral summit and governance of the Church were entrusted to all manner of unworthy persons established far outside priestly merit. This is not to take counsel for the people, but to harm them; not to furnish governance, but to increase peril. For the integrity of those presiding is the salvation of their subjects, and where obedience is unharmed, there the form of doctrine is sound. §1. But primacy, etc. And below. §2. But if in any grades of the Church care is to be taken providently and knowingly that in the house of the Lord nothing be disordered and nothing inverted, how much more must one labor that there be no error in the election of the one who is established above all grades? For the state and order of the Lord’s whole household will totter if what is required in the body is not found in the head. Where is that precept of the blessed Apostle Paul sent forth through the Spirit of God, by which in the person of Timothy the whole number of Christ’s priests is instructed and from there it is said to each one of us: “Impose hands hastily upon no one, nor communicate in the sins of others”? What is it to impose hands hastily? etc. And below. §3. For just as one who maintains right judgment in choosing a priest acquires for himself the fruit of a good work, so one who elevates an unworthy man into the college of his own dignity afflicts himself with grave loss. For what is contained in general institutes is not to be passed over in the person of anyone, nor is that honor to be thought lawful which was conferred contrary to the precepts of divine law. §4. Deservedly the venerable sanctions of the blessed Fathers, when they spoke of the election of priests, judged only those fit for sacred administrations whose whole age, from the beginnings of boyhood to more perfect years, had run through the periods of ecclesiastical discipline, so that prior life might furnish testimony for each one, and there can be no doubt concerning the advancement of one to whom the reward of a higher place is owed for many labors, chaste morals, and vigorous acts. §5. For if it is unworthy to attain the honors of the world without the support of time and without the merit of labor, and those whom proofs of probity do not aid are accustomed to be marked for canvassing, how diligent and how prudent must the dispensation of divine gifts and heavenly dignities be?

Likewise from the Council of Laodicea [c. 12]. A bishop ought not to be established in the primacy of a church apart from the judgment of the metropolitans and neighboring bishops. Nor shall any be elected except those whom a life long known and approved commends, and likewise if they have been proved in the word of faith and in right reason through their conduct.

Likewise Celestine to all the orthodox [to the Bishops of Apulia and Calabria, epistle III, c. 2]. What will it profit clerics to have served through the individual periods of service and spent their whole life in the Lord’s camp, if those who are to be priests are sought from the laity—persons who, serving the world and knowing nothing of the whole ecclesiastical order, strive with immoderate cupidity to leap across into another’s honor by an excessively hasty leap and, with reverence for ecclesiastical discipline trampled, to pass into another kind of life? Therefore, dearest brothers, it is necessary that we oppose such persons, and by these decrees we admonish your fraternity that no one admit a layman to clerical order and permit that to be done by which he both deceives the layman and generates for himself causes by which he is made guilty under the established decretals.

Likewise Leo [I, epistle LXXXV, otherwise LXXXVII, c. 1, to the African Bishops]. We establish that apostolic and canonical decrees be violated in no respect, and that the Church of the Lord not be entrusted for governance to those who, ignorant of lawful institutes and knowing nothing of all humility, do not wish to take their increase from the lowest things but to have their beginning from the highest, since it is exceedingly unjust and absurd that the inexperienced be preferred to masters, the new to the ancient, and the untaught to the meritorious. GRATIAN. By all these authorities laymen are prohibited from being elected to the episcopate. Part II. §1. To the contrary, blessed Nicholas was elected bishop from the laity; blessed Severus was assumed from wool-working to the archiepiscopate; blessed Ambrose, when he was not yet baptized, was elected archbishop. §2. But it must be known that ecclesiastical prohibitions have their own causes, and when these cease, the prohibitions themselves also cease. For the cause why a layman should not be elected bishop was this: lay life, not instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines in order, does not know how to furnish others examples of religion that it has not learned in itself by experience. Therefore, when any layman by the merit of his perfection surpasses clerical life, his election can be held valid by the example of blessed Nicholas, Severus, and Ambrose.

to the people of Vercelli [says concerning himself]: “A neophyte is prohibited from being ordained, lest he be lifted up by pride. But if the humility fitting for the priesthood is not lacking, where the cause does not adhere, the vice is not imputed. Therefore, the western bishops approved my ordination by judgment, and the eastern bishops also by example.”

Likewise that statement of the Council of Sardica is objected [c. 13]. Bishop Hosius said: And I judge this also necessary, that it be treated most diligently: if perhaps either a rich man or a scholasticus from the forum or a man from an administration has been requested as bishop, let him not be ordained before he has first discharged the function of reader and the office of deacon or priest, and thus let him ascend through the individual grades, if he is worthy, to the summit of the episcopate. Part III. GRATIAN. But it is one thing to be requested, another to be elected. One bound by the obligations of the curia is requested from the emperor; a cleric of another city, from his own bishop. But no one is elected unless established in sacred orders. For an election is made with the solemnity of a decree strengthened by the subscriptions of all; but a request is made by a simple petition. Blessed Gregory indicates this distinction in the Register [Book II, epistle 19], writing to a certain Bishop:

When the bishop has been requested, let him come to us to be consecrated with the solemnity of a decree strengthened by the subscriptions of all and with the testimony of your Charity’s letters. GRATIAN. Thus blessed Ambrose, before receiving baptism, was requested by the emperor, not elected. Part IV. GRATIAN. Likewise, clerics of one church are not to be preferred in an election to those who serve well in their own church. Hence Pope Celestine [to the Bishops of Gaul, epistle II, c. 4]:

Nor shall outsiders, strangers, and those previously unknown be preferred to those who have merited well in their own churches, to the exclusion of those who worthily receive the testimony of their own citizens.

Likewise [the same epistle, c. 5]. Let no bishop be given to the unwilling. Only then let another be elected from another church, if from the clergy of that city for which a bishop is to be ordained no worthy person—which we do not believe will happen—can be found. For those men must first be rejected, so that some from other churches may deservedly be preferred. Let each person have the fruit of his service in the church in which he has spent his life through all the offices. Let another by no means creep into another’s periods of service, nor let one dare to claim for himself the reward owed to another. Let clerics have the faculty of resisting if they see themselves overburdened, and let them not fear to reject one whom they see thrust upon them from the side. For although they do not have a reward as their due, they ought to have free judgment concerning the one who is to rule them.

[PALEA.

In the ordination of a provost, this principle shall always be considered: that the one be established whom the whole congregation in concord, according to the fear of God, or even a part of the congregation, although small, has chosen by sounder counsel. The one to be ordained shall be chosen by merit of life and wisdom, even if he was last in the order of the congregation. But if even the whole congregation—God forbid—by common counsel chooses a person consenting to its vices, and the vices themselves in any way become known to the bishop to whose diocese that place belongs, or to other neighboring provosts or Christians, let them prohibit the consent of the depraved from prevailing and establish a worthy steward for the house of God. ]

Likewise Gregory to the citizens of Naples [Book VIII of the Register, epistle 40]. Let it belong to your zeal to provide also another who is suitable, so that, if perhaps Peter, whom you assert was elected by you, does not appear fit for this order, there may be one to whom your election can turn. For it will be a grave reproach to that clergy if, should this man perhaps not be approved, they say that they have no other who ought to be elected.

Likewise Gregory in the Register [Book XI, epistle 16]. A report directed to us disclosed the death of Victor, bishop of the city of Palermo. Therefore we solemnly delegate the work of visitation of the destitute church to your fraternity. And so let your fraternity hasten to go to the aforesaid church and take care by continual exhortations to admonish the clergy and people of that same church that, with partisanship removed, by one and the same consent they should seek to have set over them as priest one who can be found worthy of so great a ministry and is by no means rejected by the venerable canons. §1. We also admonish your fraternity not to permit anyone from another church to be elected unless perhaps among the clerics of that city in which you exercise the office of visitation no one worthy of the episcopate—which we do not believe will happen—can be found. Before all things, you will provide that laypersons of whatever merit of conduct do not presume to aspire, lest they both fail to obtain the effect of their own will and you—God forbid—incur peril to your order. But whatever monasteries are established in that parish, we grant shall be under your care and ordering until its own bishop has been ordained there.

Likewise Pope Pelagius [II] to Eucarpus, Bishop of Messina. We enjoin upon you the visitation of the church of Catania, whose bishop we learned from a report received from the clergy to have passed from this light. For it is impossible for us to entrust the causes that pertain to the Lord to anyone else in that province, at least in the regions of Syracuse, unless perhaps through you God should now will to choose in the church of Catania such a one concerning whose conscience we can be secure, so that we may remove these labors a little from you. Therefore, let your Charity proceed immediately to the aforesaid church of Catania and, with God’s aid, compel and persuade them to elect a man from the clergy who has neither wife nor children nor any crime hostile to the canons; and immediately transmit him to the city of Rome with the decree and the testimony of your report.

Likewise Gregory to Bishop Passivus [Book X, epistle 13]. Your fraternity well knows for how long Aprutium has been destitute of pastoral solicitude; there we long sought who ought to be ordained and were by no means able to find anyone. But because Opportunus has been greatly praised to me in his morals, zeal for psalmody, and love of prayer, and is said to lead a religious life in every way, we wish your fraternity to cause him to come to you and to admonish him concerning his soul, so that he may grow in good pursuits. And if no crimes meet him that are to be punished by death according to the rule of sacred law, then he is to be exhorted either to become a monk or to be made a subdeacon by you; and after a little time, if it pleases God, he himself ought to be promoted to pastoral care. GRATIAN. One to whom a visitation is enjoined shall not permit anything concerning the property of that church to be presumed by anyone. Hence Gregory [to Bishop Gaudentius, Book IV, epistle 12]:

Since Festus, bishop of the church of Capua, passed from this light while situated in the city of Rome, it was our care—which is expended upon all churches—to direct the present writings to your fraternity, so that you may approach as visitor of the church mentioned, yet in such a way that you permit nothing concerning promotions of clerics, revenue, ornaments and ministries, or whatever can belong to the aforesaid place, to be presumed by anyone. Rather, it is fitting that you exhibit all vigilance and caution concerning the clergy and people of that church, so that they ought diligently and devoutly to serve in vigils and ecclesiastical service.