Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/333

Rh sion, according to the archdeacon, ought to be permanent, equivalent to deposition, because of the difficulty of assembling the bishops for the purpose of deposing such bishops or bishop who simoniacally have sold or sell righteousness. And because a metropolitan—as is the Roman pontiff—may be slow so far as his cardinals are concerned in the execution of this holy duty, therefore, in the third place, they have ordained laws intended to remedy the disorders, namely, that the mass of the priest shall not be heard from him to whom it is notorious that that priest is living in fornication, nor shall the goods of the church be administered to him to encourage the deed. For Pope Nicolas, Dist. 32, Nullus [Friedberg, 1: 117], says: "Let no one hear a mass said by a presbyter of whom he knows beyond a peradventure that he is keeping a concubine." Hence, Alexander II in the same place says: "We charge and command that no one hear mass said by a presbyter of whom he knows beyond a peradventure that he has a concubine." And he goes on to say: "Therefore the holy synod [Roman synod, 1063] also decreed this under the head of excommunication, when it said: 'Whatsoever priest, deacon, or subdeacon, in view of the constitution passed by our predecessor of blessed memory, holy Pope Leo [IX] or Nicolas [II], on the chastity of the clergy, shall again take a concubine or not give up the one he already has, we in the stead of Almighty God and by the authority of the princes, Peter and Paul, charge and wholly forbid that he sing mass or read the Gospel or the Epistle in the missal service or that he remain in the presbytery with those who, in performance of divine service, have been obedient to the aforesaid constitution or that he receive anything from the church.'" On this the archdeacon says: "That the people ought to withhold from such a one vol-