“Not the least.”
St. Thomas said positively that no excommunication of which the injustice is known by the people, ought not to prevent a priest from exercising his ministry among them.
They will perhaps say:
“But where did the people get the right to judge in such things?” St. Thomas must have believed that the people had that right, since he said it. St. Thomas was neither a heretic nor a schismatic for believing these things?
Why, then, should I be one, for having a thought, spoken and acted according to the doctrine of him whom the church has named the angel of the school. Besides that, you know that the excommunication was a nullity from want of being signed.
The reason of this surprise about the right which the people had to exercise its judgment upon this question, is that, lately, the bishops have not only stripped the priests, but also the people, of the holy and just rights which Jesus Christ had given them. Those who have carefully studied the history of the church in the first centuries know this, as well as I do.
But be it known, there are rights against which time does not prescribe. There are rights which the priests and people have never renounced, and which the church of Christ will always like to see them enjoy.
I do not say that the bishops are not ordained to govern the Christian people, but I say that the bishops are not appointed by the church to govern the flock according to their caprices, but according to the unchangeable rules of justice, equity and truth of the gospel. In the primitive church, every time that a bishop forgot this, other bishops reminded him of it.
Do we not see in the gospel, that the first Christians complained bitterly to the apostles themselves of the manner in which they had administered the goods entrusted to them? Were they excommunicated for that? Did they receive in answer the insolent reply that the people receive to-day? viz: “You are but the laity, that does not concern you?” No! The apostles listened to the complaints of the people; they found them just, and the people were allowed to choose the administrators of their goods.
The people, then, were looked upon as something worthy of attention and respect, and were not tied, as to-day, to the feet of a dignitary, and obliged to go right and left at the good pleasure of their pretended master. The people were not, then, bridled; were not mere machines to pay tithes, build palaces, raise proud cathedrals; nor were they degraded, demoralized, as to-day; obliged to believe they had minds, but had no right to make use of them; they were not, then, as now, poor beasts of burthen, whose only duty is to obey their master. But their wants and wishes were consulted; their voice was heard. They had not yet the idea that the Holy Ghost was to enlighten only a certain class of men, and that the rest of humanity were, given up to ignorance, only to walk in the light of a few privileged luminaries.