McCarthy, E: Pastoral Letter Addressed to the Clergy and Lai

Excerpt from Pastoral Letter Addressed to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Halifax

Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in leave: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven (st. Matthew, XVIII, In these words of Our Lord, we read the constitution of His Church as a law-making body. Until they were spoken, the legislative power of men went no farther than the bounds of temporal justice and utility. All law in the pagan world was directed toward the welfare of the State, of the family as forming a part of the State, and of the individual as a member, either actual or prospective, of the State. The Jews, it is true. As God's favoured people, had received explicit ordinan ces that covered all the details of their private and public life, of religious ceremonial and of their dealings with the gentile races by which they were surrounded. But not until Christ conferred upon His Apostles the power of binding and loodng was there so clear an eu dorsement, on the part of God, of laws intended for man. In this comprehensive authorization, there is no mention of details; there is simply the right to make laws, to enforce them or to dispense from them - yet always with the assurance that what the Church shall do here on earth, will be ratified in Heaven. Weak as men may be and unwise as their counsels so often are, the promise of Christ is plain beyond all doubt and cavil; the enactments of His Church will never be reversed in the Eternal Tribunal where He is the Judge of the quick and the dead.

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