§ I. On Holiness of Life

38. • How great the internal holiness and external edification of clerics ought to be needs neither demonstration nor exposition. For the very idea alone of the clerical state and of the priesthood manifestly argues this. Therefore in very few words we shall declare that clerics ought to be pious, holy, and modest, both from the nature of their state and from Scripture, the Fathers, and the Councils.

1º From the nature of the clerical state. Most holy is the ministry of clerics, since they are always applied, proximately or at least remotely, to sacred things, to the Sacraments to be conferred upon the faithful, to divine praises solemnly paid in the name of the Church, to instructing the Christian people about the way of eternal salvation, and also to celebrating the most holy sacrifice of the Mass. For why are clerics and priests constituted in the Church? That, with the Gospel as witness, they may be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But they cannot be such unless they shine forth with distinguished and splendid holiness of morals. Not only the sublimity and excellence of the duties to be fulfilled, but even the garments with which the cleric is clothed, cry out that he must profess holiness. Hence St. Jerome says, Epistle 58: “The garment cries out, the state cries out, the profession cries out holiness of soul.” 2º From Scripture. Thus concerning the priests of the old law the Lord said, Lev. 21:6: “They shall be holy to their God, and shall not pollute his name: for they offer the incense of the Lord and the loaves of their God, and therefore they shall be holy.” Likewise in Isa. 52:12 it is said: “Be cleansed, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” But if such holiness of life was required in priests who offered oxen and sheep and other animals to God, what must be required in those who sacrifice the divine Lamb himself? And if such cleanness was required in those who carried the vessels of the Lord, what purity of soul must be required in those who carry the Lord himself in their hands? Read also St. Paul to Titus, Timothy, etc.

3º From the Fathers. Thus St. Chrysostom, hom. 10 on the First Epistle to Timothy: “The priest ought to have an immaculate life, so that all may look upon him as upon some excellent example; for therefore God chose us, that we may be as luminaries and teachers of the rest, and live as Angels on earth.” St. Thomas teaches that greater holiness is required in a priest than in a simple religious, saying, 2.2, q. 184, art. 8: “Through Sacred Order someone is deputed to the most worthy ministries, by which Christ himself is served in the ministry of the Altar; therefore for this there is required greater interior holiness than the state of Religion also requires” ¹. And in the Supplement, q. 35, art. 4: “For the fitting execution of Orders, excellent goodness is not sufficient; but just as those who receive Order are constituted above the people by the grade of Order, so also they should be higher by merit of holiness.”

¹ ** In this place St. Thomas compares a priest with a lay religious, and merely contends that a priest, as to dignity, excels a lay religious because of the preeminence of Order.

4º From the Councils. Innumerable things are found in Canon Law about the holiness of clerics, which are also confirmed by very many Councils. But it is enough to report what the Council of Trent has by solemn Decree, sess. 22, ch. 1, De Reformat.: “It is altogether fitting that clerics called into the portion of the Lord so compose their whole life and morals that in habit, gesture, walk, speech, and all other things they bear before them nothing except what is grave, moderate, and full of religion.”