Take the following, for example, from our four-and-twenty elders: "Can a priest, who has received money to say a mass, take an additional sum upon the same mass? Yes, says Filiutius, he may, by applying that part of the sacrifice which belongs to himself as a priest to the person who paid him last; provided he does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass, but only a part, such as the third of a mass.'" "Surely, father," said I, "this must be one of those cases in which the pro and the con have both their share of probability.What you have now stated cannot fail, of course, to be probable, having the authority of such men as Filiutius and Escobar;and yet, leaving that within the sphere of probability, it strikes me that the contrary opinion might be made out to be probable too, and might be supported by such reasons as the following: That, while the Church allows priests who are in poor circumstances to take money for their masses, seeing it is but right that those who serve at the altar should live by the altar, she never intended that they should barter the sacrifice for money, and, still less, that they should deprive themselves of those benefits which they ought themselves, in the first place, to draw from it; to which Imight add that, according to St.Paul, the priests are to offer sacrifice first for themselves and then for the people; and that, accordingly, while permitted to participate with others in the benefit of the sacrifice, they are not at liberty to forego their share by transferring it to another for a third of a mass, or, in other words, for the matter of fourpence or fivepence.Verily, father, little as I pretend to be a grave man, Imight contrive to make this opinion probable." "It would cost you no great pains to do that, replied the monk; "it is visibly probable already.The difficulty lies in discovering probability in the converse of opinions manifestly good; and this is a feat which none but great men can achieve.
Father Bauny shines in this department.It is really delightful to see that learned casuist examining with characteristic ingenuity and subtlety the negative and affirmative of the same question, and proving both of them to be right! Thus in the matter of priests, he says in one place:
'No law can be made to oblige the curates to say mass every day; for such a law would unquestionably (haud dubie) expose them to the danger of saying it sometimes in mortal sin.' And yet, in another part of the same treatise, he says, 'that priests who have received money for saying mass every day ought to say it every day, and that they cannot excuse themselves on the ground that they are not always in a fit state for the service; because it is in their power at all times to do penance, and if they neglect this they have themselves to blame for it and not the person who made them say mass.' And to relieve their minds from all scruples on the subject, he thus resolves the question: 'May a priest say mass on the same day in which he has committed a mortal sin of the worst kind, in the way of confessing himself beforehand?' Villalobos says no, because of his impurity; but Sancius says: 'He may without any sin; and I hold his opinion to be safe, and one which may be followed in practice- et tuta et sequenda in praxi.'" "Follow this opinion in practice!" cried I."Will any priest who has fallen into such irregularities have the assurance on the same day to approach the altar, on the mere word of Father Bauny? Is he not bound to submit to the ancient laws of the Church, which debarred from the sacrifice forever, or at least for a long time, priests who had committed sins of that description-instead of following the modern opinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very day that witnessed his fall?" "You have a very short memory, returned the monk."Did I not inform you a little ago that, according to our fathers Cellot and Reginald, 'in matters of morality we are to follow, not the ancient fathers, but the modern casuists?'" "I remember it perfectly,"said I; "but we have something more here: we have the laws of the Church.""True," he replied; "but this shows you do not know another capital maxim of our fathers, 'that the laws of the Church lose their authority when they have gone into desuetude- cum jam desuetudine abierunt- as Filiutius says.We know the present exigencies of the Church much better than the ancients could do.Were we to be so strict in excluding priests from the altar, you can understand there would not be such a great number of masses.
Now a multitude of masses brings such a revenue of glory to God and of good to souls that I may venture to say, with Father Cellot, that there would not be too many priests, 'though not only all men and women, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies, and even brute beasts- bruta animalia- were transformed into priests to celebrate mass.'" I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagination that I could not utter a word and allowed him to go on with his discourse."Enough, however, about priests;I am afraid of getting tedious: let us come to the monks.The grand difficulty with them is the obedience they owe to their superiors; now observe the palliative which our fathers apply in this case.Castro Palao of our Society has said: 'Beyond all dispute, a monk who has a probable opinion of his own, is not bound to obey his superior, though the opinion of the latter is the more probable.For the monk is at liberty to adopt the opinion which is more agreeable to himself- quae sibi gratior fuerit- as Sanchez says.
