Robin Hood and the Bishop (1847)

Today, we have the sharpest admonition yet from St. Gregory the Great’s treatise entitled Pastoral Care. Through the eyes of St. Paul the Apostle, the saint warns against those who seek the office for power and position. We clearly have gone a long way in the West from those times when consecration as a bishop was nigh on to a guarantee of martyrdom. (Book I, Chapter 8)

Of those who covet pre-eminence, and seize on the language of the Apostle to serve the purpose of their own cupidity.

For the most part, those who covet pre-eminence seize on the language of the Apostle to serve the purpose of their own cupidity, where St. Paul says, “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work.” (I Timothy 3:1) However, while praising the desire, the Apostle immediately turns what he has praised to fear when at once he adds, but a bishop must be blameless. (I Timothy 3:2)

When St. Paul subsequently enumerates the necessary virtues, he makes manifest what this blamelessness consists in. So, with regard to their desire, he approves them, but by his precept he alarms them. It is as if he is saying plainly, “I praise what you seek; but first learn what it is you seek.” If you neglect to measure yourselves, your blamefulness will appear all the fouler for its haste to be seen by all in the highest place of honour. The great master in the art of ruling impels by approval and checks by alarms; so that, by describing the height of blamelessness, he may restrain his hearers from pride, and, by praising the office which is sought, dispose them to the life required.

Nevertheless, it is to be noted that this was said at a time when whosoever was set over people was usually the first to be led to the torments of martyrdom. At that time, therefore, it was laudable to seek the office of a bishop, since through it there was no doubt that a man would come in the end to heavier pains. So it was that even the office of a bishop itself came to be defined as a good work, when it is said, “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. (I Timothy 3:1) Wherefore he that seeks, not this ministry of a good work, but the glory of distinction, is himself a witness against himself that he does not desire the office of a bishop. Inasmuch as that man not only does not love at all the sacred office, but even knows not what it is, who, panting after supreme rule, is fed by the subjection of others in the hidden meditation of his thought, rejoices in his own praises, lifts up his heart to honour, exults in abundant affluence. In this way, worldly gain is sought under color of that honour by which worldly gains should have been destroyed. When the mind thinks to seize on the highest post of humility for its own elation, it inwardly changes what it outwardly desires.

Read Full Post »

As posted yesterday, I am re-reading an older copy of The Christian Priest Today by the late Archbishop Michael Ramsey, who was in my view, the last truly Archbishop of Canterbury. To be sure, he eventually did go squishy in retirement on the issue of women’s “ordination”, although he apparently never was comfortable with the notion. However, the substantial corpus of his work that is sound, engaging and worthwhile reading.

As one might expect from an archbishop, his book includes a chapter on the episcopate. (Ch. 14, pp. 94-99 of the 4th printing). The chapter references St. Gregory the Great’s treatise entitled Pastoral Care or Pastoral Rule (Regula Pastoralis). Never able to resist a patristic reference, I immediately departed on a frolic and detour from Abp. Ramsey’s book to the referenced work of St. Gregory. The substance is timeless and desperately in need of application in various branches of the Church, whenever there is a possibility of elevating a man to the episcopate. (Disclaimer: Yes, I still hold to the “branch theory”, although it seems that my apprehension and concerns deepen by the day!)

Using an older version of the text, I thought I would post St. Gregory’s work-or paraphrases of it- here on The Cathedral Close as I read and meditate on the various sections. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome, although I note that I reserve the right to exclude messages that are offensive or not germane. And, no, I will not be offering deals on Ray-Ban sunglasses on this site!

So today we look at the extensive “blast radius” when clergy, particularly bishops, go bad.  Note, here, the emphasis on those who do not conform their own lives to what they have learned and purport to preach.

That none should enter on a place of government who practice not in life what they have learned by study.

There are some also who investigate spiritual precepts with cunning care, but what they penetrate with their understanding they trample on in their lives. They teach the things which not by practice but by study they have learned. What in words they preach by their manners they impugn.

Whence it comes to pass that when the shepherd walks through steep places, the flock follows to the precipice. So it is the Lord through the prophet complains of the contemptible knowledge of shepherds, saying, “Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34:18-19) For indeed the shepherds drink most pure water, when with a right understanding they imbibe the streams of truth.

But to foul the same water with their feet is to corrupt the studies of holy meditation by evil living. And verily the sheep drink the water fouled by their feet, when any of those subject to them follow not the words which they hear, but only imitate the bad examples which they see. Thirsting for the things said, but perverted by the works observed, they take in mud with their draughts, as from polluted fountains.

So, it also it is written through the prophet, “A snare for the downfall of my people are evil priests…” (Hosea 5:1; 9:8). Hence again the Lord through the prophet says of the priests, “They are made to be for a stumbling-block of iniquity to the house of Israel.”

For certainly no one does more harm in the Church than one who has the name and rank of sanctity, while he acts perversely. For him, when he transgresses, no one presumes to take to task. The offense spreads forcibly for example, when out of reverence to his rank the sinner is honoured.

But all who are unworthy would fly from the burden of so great guilt, if with the attentive ear of the heart they weighed the sentence of the Truth, Whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea Matthew 18:6. By the millstone is expressed the round and labour of worldly life, and by the depth of the sea is denoted final damnation.

Whosoever, then, having come to bear the outward show of sanctity, either by word or example destroys others, it had indeed been better for him that earthly deeds in open guise should press him down to death than that sacred offices should point him out to others as imitable in his wrong-doing; because, surely, if he fell alone, the pains of hell would torment him in more tolerable degree.

Read Full Post »