Thomas and the ancients
who had written on it, there might chance to be some simoniacs in
the Church. This rendered it highly necessary for our fathers to
exercise their prudence in finding out a palliative. With what success
they have done so will appear from the following words of Valencia,
who is one of Escobar's 'four living creatures.' At the end of a
long discourse, in which he suggests various expedients, he
propounds the following at page 2039, vol. iii, which, to my mind,
is the best: 'If a person gives a temporal in exchange for a spiritual
good'- that is, if he gives money for a benefice- 'and gives the money
as the price of the benefice, it is manifest simony. But if he gives
it merely as the motive which inclines the will of the patron to
confer on him the living, it is not simony, even though the person who
confers it considers and expects the money as the principal object.'
Tanner, who is also a member of our Society, affirms the same thing,
vol. iii, p.1519, although he 'grants that St. Thomas is opposed to
it; for he expressly teaches that it is always simony to give a
spiritual for a temporal good, if the temporal is the end in view.' By
this means we prevent an immense number of simoniacal transactions;
for who would be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when giving money
for a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so directing his
intentions as to give it as a motive to induce the beneficiary to part
with it, instead of giving it as the price of the benefice? No man,
surely, can be so far left to himself as that would come to.
Pages:
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100