4 hours ago
FOURTEENTH OBJECTION. THERE ARE CERTAINLY SOME BAD PRIESTS - HOW CAN THEY BE THE MINISTERS OF GOD?
Answer. Because, in becoming bad men, they do not cease to be Priests.
Do you cease to be a Christian, because you commit a sin? Does a judge cease to be a judge, do his decisions cease to have a binding
force because his own integrity is not above reproach? Does a father cease to be a father because he fails in his duties? Does a captain lose the right to command his men because he himself commits a breach of discipline?
If it is so in human affairs, where public trusts may, in the strictest sense, be taken away from those who are not worthy of them, how much more stable, more inalienable yet, should not be, in spiritual things, that sacred character of the priesthood on which rests the security of men's consciences, and the whole life of the faithful!
If our Priests ceased to be Priests by the sole fact of committing some grievous sin, we should never know if we really received the holy things from their hands; for God alone knows and searches men's consciences.
It is for us that they are priests; and for us that they remain so, even when they forget their greatness.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre