Henry M. Baird · 65 of 379

CHAPTER I · No regard to the spiritual wants of the people.

Such a condition of utter indifference on the part of the clergy to the interests of the souls committed to their charge cannot surprise us when we learn that benefices were conferred without regard to the wants of the people. The Venetian Soranzo, in an address delivered after the fruits of the concordat had had full time to mature, declared that in the majority of cases these ecclesiastical positions were dispensed with little respect to things sacred, and through simple favor. They served as a convenient method of rewarding good services. Little account was made of the qualifications of the candidate, who might have earned his reward in the army or in the civil service. And so it often happened that he who to-day was a merchant or a soldier, to-morrow was made bishop or abbot. When, indeed, the fortunate man had a wife or was reluctant to assume the habit, he could readily get permission to place the benefice in the name of another, himself retaining the income. "These new pastors," said Correro, "placed in charge of the churches men who had taken it into their heads to be clergymen only to avoid the toils of some other occupation—men who, by their avarice and dissoluteness of life, confused the innocent people and removed their previous great devotion. This was the door, this was the spacious gateway, by which heresies entered France. For the ministers sent from Geneva were easily able to create in the people a hatred of the priests and friars, by simply weighing in the balance the life led by the latter."