are united with God. Union with God, therefore, is not enough for the priesthood. Union with God—that is, a freedom from mortal sin—is, indeed, enough for Communion. No such Communion is bad; but such a Communion is not therefore devout, and may be on the brink of danger. If such, without sin, may be the state of faithful, such cannot be the state of a priest who consecrates and consumes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and distributes the Bread of Life to others. The world has sunk so low that some think that only a more than common goodness is required as a sufficient condition for a priest: that is, that a priest, who has the priesthood and character of the Son of God, and is surrounded by all the supernatural relations of which we have spoken, must, indeed, be more than commonly good, but may be on the common level of all other men, of whom not one of these divine and pre-eminent obligations can be affirmed. Such perfunctory and professional goodness is hardly the mark of the disciple of a Lord who was crucified.
The Episcopate has been defined as "the order which has spiritual power to rule and to propagate the Church of God by the perpetuity of sacred ordination."[1] The chief office, therefore, of the Bishop
- ↑ Ferrante, Elementa Juris Can. p. 89.
