The Intention of the Minister Necessary for the Administration of the Sacraments
- The Clifton Tracts, Vol. III. By the Brotherhood of St. Vincent of Paul. New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1856. Published under the sanction of the Bishop of Clifton, Cardinal Wiseman, and republished with the approbation of the Most Rev. John Hughes, D.D., Archbishop of New York. PP.3-30
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In the Catholic Church for the performing of a true Sacrament three things are necessary: 1, that the right matter be used; 2, that the right form of words be spoken; and 3, that the min­ister intend to do what the Church does. Thus, for the Sacrament of Baptism water, and no other liquid, must be applied; while, at the same time, the following form of words is ut­tered: “I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;” and besides this, the person who ministers must intend to do that religious act which the Church calls Baptism, otherwise it is not a Sacrament, but a mere washing with water.

Now Protestants think this requirement of the Church both foolish and wicked. Of course, as in all other things so in this, they put their own construction on the Church’s doctrine, and even pretend to know what it means better than the Church herself does. Indeed, so fully are they possessed with their own notions, that they seem positively incapable of understanding any explanation that is offered them. The reason of this will appear more plainly as I proceed; at present I will only observe that it seems mainly to arise from Protestants not being in the habit of regarding spiritual things as reali­ties; for absurd as they think the Catholic doc­trine to be, and incapable as they seem of taking in the simplest idea of it, they do themselves admit and maintain the necessity of intention in matters which are realities to them, that is to say, such as have to do with the affairs and interests of this life.

Take marriage, for instance. Everybody will allow that the persons who go through the ceremony must really mean to marry each oth­er; nobody fancies you can find yourself mar­ried without having intended it. Be the cere­mony performed externally with all the solem­nity imaginable, let the words of betrothal be correctly spoken, and the ring placed on the legitimate finger; yet if the parties have no thought of marrying, and enact the whole thing by way of a joke, nobody would look upon the proceeding as any thing else than a mock-cere­mony. Decent Christians might very well re­gard it as a piece of profaneness, but they would not consider it a marriage in the sight either of God or of man, or as partaking in any way of the nature of a marriage. Say even, as in the eye of the law you may say if you please, that marriage is nothing more than a civil con­tract, the result is the same. Most comedies finish with a wedding; yet nobody supposes the two actors are really pledged to marry each other at the end of the play, notwithstanding their many public professions; nobody would really think them man and wife, even though they went through the form of being contracted in the presence of the registrar of their district, or any number of registrars, attentively regard­ing them from the pit, boxes, and gallery. No one would say it was a marriage all but the signing of the names in the registrar’s book, or any other formalities which the law may pre­scribe; and for this simple reason, that, whether on a Pagan or a Protestant view of the matter, to constitute a marriage the parties concerned must really intend to do what they appear to do: without such intention it is but a farce.

Well, apply this to the case of Baptism. It is the doctrine of the Catholic Church that any­body, even a lay person—man, woman, or child —may baptize when there is danger of death; nay, that it is a true and valid Sacrament even though it be administered by a Jєω, a heathen, or an infidel, so only that he intends to do what the Church does. I beg you to pay par­ticular attention to this fact, because it shows the irrelevance of the common Protestant ob­jection. I shall return to it hereafter; but I mention it here because it makes the case I am about to put a much more pertinent one than you might otherwise imagine. Suppose you were to take one of those poor Hindoos whom you sometimes see shivering at the comer of a street selling Protestant tracts, who knows nothing about the Christian religion, and has never heard of Christian baptism; but suppose you were to take and teach him the way of baptizing, bidding him do as he sees you do, but without telling him that the act had a re­ligious meaning, or any meaning at all; and suppose, by way of amusement, or to keep himself in practice, he were to go through the form over a child or any unbaptized person, say one of his own race, such child or such person (according to the Catholic doctrine) would not really be baptized, because the Hindoo had no intention of baptizing. He did not know what the Church does, and had no intention of doing what the Church does; all he intended was to do what you had taught him to do.

This is but common sense, or (if you prefer the term) sound philosophy. Baptizing, if, like any other action, it is to be a human action, that is to say, the action of a man, or of a ra­tional moral agent, must be done with an in­tention of doing it. It is pouring water and saying words; but it is not baptizing, unless the intention of baptizing do in some way or other go along with the action. What but in­tention can distinguish acts externally alike? A devout mother, while in the act of washing her child, might repeat the form of baptism, meaning thereby merely to invoke the blessing of the Holy Trinity upon her offspring; a Prot­estant would say—at least, on his own princi­ples he ought to say—that child was baptized; but a Catholic would say there was no baptism, simply because no baptism was intended. This is so in all human affairs; it is the intention which constitutes an act what it is. The same action, externally or materially, is quite a different thing when done with one intention to what it is when done with another. If I shoot at a pigeon and kill a crow, people will con­sider me only a very bad shot; but if I shoot at you and kill a pigeon, they will rightly judge me guilty of murder, because my inten­tion was to kill you; whereas, on the other hand, if I aim at the pigeon and kill you in­stead, nobody will lay your blood at my door, though materially die act is the same as if I intended to murder you: it is the intention that makes all the difference. What a man in­tends to do, he does; what he does not intend to do, he does not do: he does not do it for­mally, or so as to make it his own act, unless he intend to do it. If you put your name to a piece of paper, and it turns out to be what you never thought of its being, a bond for £1000, no one would consider the docuмent your own act and deed; you intended to do one thing, and by fraud or by error you did another, for which you are not responsible and which, in right and in truth, is not your act at all.

Such is the doctrine of intention in its sim­plest form; and thus for, everybody, I should suppose, must see the reasonableness of it. If God wishes the sacraments of His Church to be administered by men, He wishes that those who administer them should intend to do so. If Christ has His ministers on earth, and those ministers are men, and not brute creatures nor automaton figures, but rational beings, they must act as such when they perform ministerial acts: their acts must be human acts. But they would not be human acts, they would not be done as by rational beings, unless they were done with an intention. This is clear. Once, therefore, allow that Christ has His ministers on earth, and you, in fact, allow that these ministers must act with an intention. To deny the necessity of intention is all one with denying the existence of ministers and sacraments. This is so clear, that I am sure no Protestant would make any difficulty about the matter, if Catho­lics would only admit that Sacraments were merely human acts and nothing more; and if Catholic priests and bishops would only allow themselves to be “accounted” not “the minis­ters of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. iv. 1), but mere mechanical agents, destitute of all real authority and power in things divine. It is because they claim to be sent by Christ, as His Father had sent Him (John xx. 21; compare Luke x. 16); claim to rule the flock which He has purchased (Acts xx. 28; Heb. xiii. 17); to act for Him and in His name; to stand to us in His stead (2 Cor. v. 20); to be, though “earthen vessels,” the depositories of His “treasure” (iv. 7); it is be­cause they profess to regenerate by baptism; to bestow the Holy Ghost; to bless and forgive sins in the person of Christ (John xx. 23; 2 Cor. ii. 10); to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ; in short, it is be­cause they declare that these acts of theirs have supernatural effects, that Protestants do not like to think they are their acts at all. This is why they cannot receive the doctrine of inten­tion: it makes the Catholic priest really Christ’s minister, and his acts real spiritual acts.

Before I go further, I wish you to observe that this is the true ground of the Protestant objec­tion. Protestants profess to object to the doc­trine of intention: but what they really assail is that of the priesthood and the Sacraments. I beg you then thoroughly to understand that I am defending, not the latter doctrine, but the former. I am not proving to you that priests are what we say they are, or that they have the powers we say they have, but that, as priests are men, their acts, to be their acts, must be done with an intention. What powers they may possess, or what effects their acts may pro­duce, is another and a distinct question.

However, as the two questions are practically mixed up together in people’s minds, and the necessity of intention for the validity of any ministerial act is made an argument against the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood and the Sacraments, I am willing to take the Protestant objection as it commonly stands.

Protestants hate priests; and though they affect to despise, are afraid of them. They can­not get rid of the notion that they are all knaves or the tools of some malevolent power. They think, therefore, that if the Sacraments are any of them necessary to salvation, and if the in­tention of the minister is necessary to the Sac­rament, then, indeed, people have a poor chance of being saved. At the best, a man’s intention is so uncertain, and Catholics are so unable to say how much intention is necessary, and the priests are so crafty and so wicked,—many of them believe nothing at all; indeed it is quite certain that one in every twelve is a downright infidel—that it is plain the whole system is one of fraud and delusion. Poor Papists! Bad priests! bad bishops! and, worst of all, that old sinner the Pope, who thinks to do what he likes with people’s souls!

One word at starting. Many Protestants—and you, kind reader, may be among the num­ber—believe that two Sacraments at least were “ordained by Christ Himself” and are “gener­ally necessary to salvation.” Now I have just as much right to say that your ministers are crafty and wicked, as you have that ours are; mind, I do not say they are crafty and wicked, because I have no wish to sin against charity; but suppose I were to choose to say so, and suppose I were to go on to declare that you and your children were completely at their mercy, for that they might secretly substitute some other liquid for water in the Sacrament of Baptism, and for wine in that of the Lord’s Supper, or that they might slur over or omit the name of one of the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity, or otherwise alter the form of administration, what have you to answer? If you keep to Christ’s institution, you must allow that such defects invalidate the Sacrament. Whatever grace or blessing you consider an­nexed to it, and even if you believe that none is annexed, you must any way admit that Christ’s intention is not fulfilled, and the ordinance is not administered as He willed and enjoined it to be. You will observe, too, that the result is the same, whether it proceed from wilful neg­lect or from simple carelessness and uninten­tional error. The answer you may make to this may perhaps be my answer also; but at any rate you must feel there is a corresponding difficulty in the matter. I shall have a word to say to the “Bible-only Christian” after a while.

But to come to what the Church herself has declared; for Protestants have very wild no­tions on the subject, and fancy that a great deal more is meant by “intention” than is meant. All that she positively requires is, that the per­son who administers a Sacrament should “in­tend to do what the Church does;” and by these words is not meant that the person should intend immediately to do what the Catholic Church, or, as Protestants would say, the Roman Church does; on the contrary, if he in­tend immediately to do what some Protestant sect does, the Sacrament is valid, if only as a matter of fact that sect does what the Catholic Church does. This being so, it is plain that it is not necessary to intend to confer any grace, or produce any spiritual effect, by means of a Sacrament, or even to know the nature of the rite; it is sufficient to intend to do that partic­ular act which the Church does. Neither faith nor knowledge are required; nay, a man may actively disbelieve and deride the doctrine of the Church, and openly protest against and ab­jure any sacramental efficacy in the act that he does, and even deny that it has any sacredness in it, and yet he will perform a valid Sacra­ment if only he intend to do that religious act which the Church does. Hence we see the ir­relevance of all objections grounded on the feet that there have been at times priests in the Church who were secretly infidels; their infi­delity could not invalidate their priestly acts, if only they intended to do what the Church does. And, by the way, I may observe, that an infidel is a most unlikely person to withhold his intention: he does not believe that Sacra­ments are any thing with intention; why, then, should he withhold it? Any how, personal belief or non-belief has nothing to do with the matter. It is what the Church does, not what she intends, that must be intended by the min­ister of a Sacrament. So the Hindoo I spoke of a page or two back would really baptize if, instead of intending to do only, as I supposed, what you had taught him to do, he were to intend to do that religious act which he knew was done by Christians. Such baptism would be valid, and need not be repeated, even though he were ignorant for what end it was done. Nay, further, there is a sense in which the act might be performed by way of amusement, and yet be valid; as in the famous case of the great St. Athanasius when a boy, who is said to have played at baptizing one of his companions, meaning, in his childish sport, really to do what he had seen done by the Church. We know nothing, indeed, of the particulars of the case, and I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of the story; but granting the fact to be as I have stated it, Catholic theologians would hold the act to be sacramentally valid.

However, Protestants may say, that whatever be intended, there must be an intention, or the Sacrament is no sacrament, and Catholics can­not tell you how much intention is enough. Now this I positively deny. Catholics can tell you all that it is necessary for you to know on the subject, though not perhaps in the way which Protestants call upon them to do. Prot­estants, who have no dogmas and no theology, are always saying to us, “Show us your faith; let us look at it; let us see all you believe, or if may believe, set down clearly in black and white.” They have no other notion of faith or religion except as written and printed in a book such as a man may put in his pocket and read, (if read he can) whenever he likes.

They have no idea of a present, living, teach­ing Church, or of a faith so deeply realized and so universally diffused as to need no formal definition. I say, then, that we do know how much intention is enough, in the same way that we know every thing else about our reli­gion which it is necessary for us to know. The doctrine of the Church is to be found in the decrees of Popes, and in decrees of Councils ratified by Popes; of course, it is in Scripture too, at least implicitly, but it is formally stated where I have said. And if you ask me where it was before it was thus formally stated, I an­swer, that it was written invisibly by the Holy Ghost in the fleshly tables of the hearts of the faithful. The present actual teaching of the Church and the present actual belief of the people,—from these may be conclusively gath­ered what is the Catholic doctrine on all such points as have not been positively ruled by au­thority. If the tide runs strongly in one direc­tion, you may feel morally certain what, the Church would authoritatively decide on any given subject. It is absurd to say you cannot know the doctrine of the Church on some par­ticular point because she has issued no formal decree. You may know her mind from her popular teaching, and from the writings of her great men and doctors.

Well, so is it with the doctrine of intention. The Council of Trent framed a decree about it, and subsequent Popes have issued formal de­cisions upon it; and if you are not satisfied with these, and want to know something more explicit, you may go to Catholic theologians, and ask for further knowledge at their lips, or consult their writings. I do not say it is an easy subject, nor can I see how you can expect it to be so. When we get philosophizing about wills and intentions, we are considering the acts, not of the body, but of the mind; we are dis­cussing abstract questions of metaphysics, and are obliged to think closely and use hard words. Still, as these hard words express simple ideas, I will try and make this piece of theology plain to you in the best way I can.

Divines divide intention into three kinds; viz. actual, virtual, and habitual. Of these, ac­tual intention is more than is required, and habitual intention is less than is required. All agree that virtual intention is enough.

First, then, of actual intention. Suppose two people to be quarrelling, and that each tries to say to the other the most cutting things he can think of; such an intention might last for an hour or more unbroken. Every time each spoke, he would fully mean, heart and soul, to wound the other’s feelings, and direct each sep­arate act to that end. The intention would be as keen at the middle or the termination of the quarrel as at the beginning. This, then, may be taken to illustrate an actual intention, an in­tention which belongs as much to one part of the proceeding as to another; which actively determines every word and look and gesture; which never tires or slackens, but keeps burn­ing on all the time, and is as much the soul of each separate act as it is of the whole business. Now this amount of intention the Church does not consider necessary. She does not require moral impossibilities; she knows that her min­isters are men, not angels, and that even the most devout are liable to distraction and wan­dering thoughts, and therefore she does not re­quire a constant active intention all the while they are performing a function or administering a Sacrament. She desires, indeed, from them the largest possible amount of reverent atten­tion, and takes great pains by means of her various ceremonies, to secure it; but it is not necessary for the validity of the Sacraments.

And now of habitual intention. Suppose I intended to go to church, or to say my prayers at home to-day, and suppose I performed what I intended to do, it is plain I should be doing what is commonly meant by going to church and saying prayers. But suppose I went to church, or knelt down and went through a form of prayers, never having intended so to do, but from sheer absence of mind, and merely because I had done the like yesterday; every­body would see that such acts were not really what they looked to be; I should be acting to all intents and purposes like a man in a dream: my actions would not be the effect of any pres­ent or previous will on my part. And so, if you can fancy a person baptizing, or rather seeming to baptize, in such a state of stupor and unconsciousness or from the force of a habit so merely mechanical, that if he were asked what he was doing he would not be able to say; such act on his part would not be a ministerial or a sacramental act, any more than if it were done by machinery or, by a “learned pig:” it would not be a human act; it would not be connected with any present or previous act of his will. Even if he intended to baptize before he fell into this state, still he would not do a sacramental act while he was in it: his in­tention would not flow on into what he did; it would be altogether checked and stayed; it would have no continuous existence and no continuous action; it would not live and move between whiles.

Virtual intention is different from either of these. It leads to a continued series of acts. Thus, a man goes out in the morning to work with the intention of supporting his family. He talks to his companions, hums a tune, listens to a story, while his hands mechanically continue his work; still his first intention remains in force, and really animates every act of labor he performs. Such is virtual intention; an inten­tion which, once formed, does not die out, but continues and takes effect in spite of distrac­tions and forgetfulnesses, and completes the action it set out to do. In like manner a bishop may put on his vestments and go into church with the intention of ordaining candidates for orders, but through human infirmity or culpable inattention, may have a thousand distrac­tions while performing the function. Still his original intention is enough, in spite of all his wanderings of mind, and the orders so conferred are indisputably valid.

What I have said, then, comes to this; that all human acts imply intention of some kind; that the Sacraments, though in effect divine acts, as being done ministerially for Christ and in His Name, are not the less human acts as being done by human beings, and therefore they require intention on the part of the minis­ter; and lastly, that the kind of intention which is enough for the purpose is a virtual intention to do that act which the Church does. Now seriously it strikes me—and by this time I think you must be of a like persuasion—that so far from its being a hard thing to have intention enough, it is very hard not to have all that is re­quired. I really believe a man might try to withhold his intention from the act, and not succeed. It is plain, too, that if he were to succeed in withholding it, he would be guilty of a mere gratuitous piece of wickedness, for which he could have no conceivable induce­ment except the gratification of a diabolical malice. It may be well, then, to recollect, that they who minister Sacraments are men, not devils.

However, it may be said that, after all, it is possible to withholds one’s intention, and as there may be absence of sufficient intention from some unknown causes so no one can be certain that what appears to be a sacrament is a Sacrament; This is the most popular objection, and it is often put in the following startling form: If the doctrine of intention be true no one can be sure that the priest who says Mass or bears confessions is really a priest at all; for all you know, the bishop who seemed to ordain him had no intention of ordaining him, or was in­capable of ordaining, having never been validly baptized; nay the Pope himself may be nothing but a layman, or not even a Christian.

Let me first put a question to the Protestant objector: Here is a poor uneducated man who does not even know his letters; you take up a book and propose to read to him a chapter in the Bible. Bible? how does he know that is a Bible? he only has your word for it, and you may deceive him; it may look very like one, but how can he be sure that it is the genuine book? and if it is, how does he know that you will read what is in it? what degree of certainty has he that you will not invent something out of your own head, or artfully mix up truth with falsehood? You are but a man, and for all he knows you may be a very bad and cruel man, however good and kind you may look. But grant that it is the Bible, is it so easy a book to him that he will require no explana­tion of it? It is the sense, not the letter, which is the Word of God; will you not expound it to him, if he ask you? But if you expound, what degree of certainty has he that your ex­position is right? In short, how can he be sure that he has heard the Word of God even in the letter, to say nothing of the sense? My good sir, your objection is really directed against the use of all human agencies and means in the matter of religion; and if it be an argument for any thing is an argument for Deism and even Atheism. It is certain, as you say, that men may deceive or err in administering Sac­raments, and it is equally certain that they may deceive or err in expounding or reading what you consider the only Word of God. I am not saying that the chances of detection are equal, nor do I mean to represent the two cases as exactly parallel; all I wish you to see is, that there is a sense in which even you must allow that the “Bible-only Christian” is in the power of man. He may be sure that the Bible is the Word of God, but he cannot be sure with the same kind of certainty that a particular book is the Bible, or that what is read to him, as from the Bible, is part of God’s Word. He may be sure there is a Gospel to be preached, but he cannot be as sure that the Gospel is preached to him.

But I may carry the argument further, on your own principles. The Bible was composed in a learned language; how, then, is the poor man to be sure that it has been rightly trans­lated? Books used to be written by hand; how, then, is he to be sure that it has been cor­rectly transcribed? There were no printing presses in old times; the Bible could not be stereotyped as now-a-days; how, then, is he to be sure that what you call the Bible is the original book, even if one ever existed? Talk about a Catholic having no certainty whether a Sacrament is really a Sacrament, why, on your principles, you cannot be certain that the Bible is really the Bible; it has come to you through men, and men may deceive. You say the Cath­olic Church is a satanic conspiracy against the truth of God, why may not a similar conspiracy have existed in old times against the Word of God? The Bible was then in the hands of the priests, and if priests are wicked enough to withhold their intention from Sacraments, they were wicked enough to make away with the Bible itself; at least they may have suppressed certain parts, corrupted particular texts, or per­verted whole passages to serve their own pur­poses. Your objection is an infidel objection; it goes as much against the Bible as against the Church and the Sacraments. The Bible has ever been in the hands of men, and (so to say) in their power. It comes to you through hu­man agents, and is still ministered to you by human agents.

Now to these objections I defy any Protest­ant, on his own principles, to give a satisfactory answer. He must allow that, humanly speak­ing, the Word of God has ever depended for its existence and for its application on the min­istry of man; and this is all for which it is my present object to contend. But if he really be­lieves the Bible to be the Word of God, he will feel confident that, by some means or other, God has provided, and does provide, both for its preservation and for its effectual use among men. Well, what a good Protestant believes with respect to the Bible, the Catholic believes with respect, not only to the Bible, but to the Sacraments of the Church. He believes that God has instituted priests and Sacraments; and believing this, he believes also that God has provided, and does provide, for the preservation and due administration of His own institution. The Protestant objection takes for granted that Pope, bishops, priests, and Sacraments are no parts of Christ’s institution for the salvation of men. It assumes that the Church is a human device; and its whole force lies in this assump­tion. For if, on the contrary, the Church be a divine institution, and the Pope Christ’s Vicar, and bishops His representatives, and priests His ministers, and Sacraments His ordinances, it follows surely that He will not suffer His own work to fall to ruin, but will provide for its preservation in spite of all possible dangers from the errors or malice of men. Protestants seem determined to ignore the fact, that Catho­lics believe in grace and in the Providence of God; and so it is easy to make game of our doctrines. It is quite true that we believe that Sacraments are void without the minister’s intention; but it is true also that we believe that that intention is subject to the particular grace and Providence of God. We believe that the ministers of the Church are gifted with a special grace for the discharge of the office with which they are invested; and that as “the hairs of our head are all numbered” under God’s ordi­nary Providence, so not only the acts but the intentions of His ministers are overruled and ordered by that special Providence whose do­minion extends even to the wills and innermost thoughts of men. Thus it never occurs to the pious Catholic to have a misgiving on the sub­ject; and when men without faith would try to thrust doubts into his mind, he says to himself, “God is as wise as He is good. It was not at random that He put the ‘treasures’ of His sac­ramental graces into ‘earthen vessels,’ and made the validity of His ordinances depend on the intention of His ministers. It is His intention which is the soul of their intention, and which sways them without interfering with their personal freedom. I believe it is true that inten­tion, being an act of a man’s own will, may be withheld, and the Sacrament consequently be void; but I believe, nay, I am confident, that, as Sacraments are the ordinances of God, He will see to the fulfilment of His own gracious purposes.”

This, then, is my answer to the Protestant objection. It is true that we cannot be certain with the certainty of faith,—that is, with the cer­tainty with which we believe the being of God or the articles of the creed,—that this or that priest has been validly ordained, or this or that Sacrament has been validly administered; but we are certain, with the certainty of faith, that priests and Sacraments are Christ’s institution; and moreover we may be morally certain that in any indefinite number of instances there was an intention to do what the Church does; and these two certainties are enough for all practi­cal purposes. The Protestant has nothing like the same kind or degree of certainty in any thing that he believes.

I may add, that though we cannot have the certainty of faith, we may have, and ought to have, the certainty of hope, for hope rests on the general promises of God. We hope in God, that what He has promised in the general, He will fulfil to us in the particular; and this re­lieves us of all personal fears and anxieties.

Remember too, that no Catholic believes that the grace of God is tied down by some fated necessity never to give itself except through Sacraments. God may, if He pleases, act by extraordinary ways, as well as by ordinary ones, and give a soul grace which supersedes the necessity of Sacraments. Indeed, we know that the desire of baptism, when it cannot be had, and an act of true contrition for sin with the desire of confession to a priest, when con­fession is not possible, is deemed by the Church as sufficient to a dying person without the ac­tual reception of either Sacrament.

You must not confound two things which are quite distinct. That Sacraments are the ordinary channels by which God gives His sanctifying graces is one thing; that God in His good pleasure may give those graces with­out Sacraments is another. What the Catholic Church teaches is, that there is no Sacrament without intention; she is not so foolish or so im­pious as to teach that there is no grace without Sacraments, much less does she say that anoth­er’s intention is necessary for our salvation. On the contrary, she would have us be sure that God, who is love, will rather work a miracle than suffer a man of good will to be really a loser by an act of volition in another without fault of his own. It is true that priests are God’s ministers, and that, as being His minis­ters, He acts by them in the work of salvation; but as to the monstrous doctrine which Protestants attribute to Catholics, that He has made over His power, and His goodness, and His providence, and His grace into the hands of the priests to do as they please with the souls of men, as though God Himself stood by a helpless spectator, unable to interfere in their behalf,—this is simply one of those numerous calumnies which malice has invented, and pre­judice believes out of hatred for the Catholic Church.