Summa de Ecclesia

TO these it is easy to answer for those who well understand what we have already said. To the first reason therefore¹ when it is said that of one and the same etc., answer is given that that major has no truth when one power is totally from another; for then two ordinary powers can immediately be with respect to the same both person and case, namely so that both that power and this can exercise jurisdiction immediately upon that person and in such a case; but that there should be two ordinary powers, of which one is not under the other nor totally subject to it, immediately with respect to the same is impossible, because since one does not check the other nor impose law upon it, it is impossible for the same subject to satisfy both. But when one power is subject to the other, the subject can well satisfy, because the superior power can suspend the inferior as to execution. Or, as St Thomas says in 4, dist. 17, it must be said that it would be unfitting for two to be appointed equally over the same people, but for two, of which one is more principal than the other, to be appointed over the same people is not unfitting; and according to this, over the same people immediately are the parochial priest, the bishop, and the Pope, and any of them can commit those things which are of the jurisdiction pertaining to him to another. To the second² which is taken from the likeness of the heavenly Hierarchy, answer is given. First by denying the minor. For we say that that order can be changed, because that order is not necessary but voluntary as to the head of the whole order, namely God, who can do all things immediately through Himself; the higher angels too, so far as absolute power is concerned, can illuminate a remote order, the middle order being omitted, because it is probable that whatever a lower angel can do through the virtue given to him by a superior, in instructing others, a superior can do through himself; indeed it is held by many doctors that some of the superior orders were sent to some men who are under the order of angels; if therefore, according to them, the order of the heavenly Hierarchy is similar to that of the ecclesiastical, then the order of the ecclesiastical Hierarchy is not necessary but voluntary, and consequently can be changed according as it pleases the head of the whole order, namely the supreme pontiff. Secondly answer is given according to St Thomas that the ecclesiastical Hierarchy imitates the heavenly in some measure but does not perfectly attain likeness to it, since not in all things, and most of all in this, since, as he himself says in the book Against Those Who Attack Religion, in the heavenly Hierarchy the distinction of gratuitous gifts according to which the orders are distinguished follows the distinction of nature, but not among men; and therefore, since the nature of angels is immutable, the order among them has some immutability which is not in the ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and therefore the reason does not proceed.

To the third reason³ taken from the order of the members of the natural body, answer is given in the same way as to the preceding, because there is not likeness in all respects between the natural body and the mystical body, since although in both there is order, yet not equally necessary, as neither is the order by which one moves a stone by means of a staff equally necessary as the order by which a man moves his hand by means of his arm. And therefore, as a man can move a stone by means of a staff and without a staff, and this without monstrosity, so the Pope or bishop can exercise an act of his power, or hierarchize, any parishioner however lowly, through himself or through another, whether a curate or a commissary instituted by him, without any monstrosity or confusion of the mystical body which is the Church.

To the fourth the answer is plain⁴ from the answer given to the second objection in ch. 64.

To the fifth answer is given⁵ that, as St Thomas and Lord Albert and Lord Bonaventure say in expounding that decretal, one's own priest is not the parochial priest alone but also the bishop or the Pope, to whom the care of the people pertains even more than to the parochial priest, as has in manifold ways been shown above. Whence in that decretal own is not taken according as it is divided against common, but according as it is divided against another's. Whence he who has confessed to his bishop or to someone holding his place, or to the Pope, or to commissaries such as penitentiaries or those having privilege from him of hearing confessions, has confessed to his own priest; and so the reason does not proceed.