The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-25 00:00:00

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Archbishop Mannmg; s Pastoral.

The following Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and
Laity of the Diocese of Westminster was read in
the Churches of the Diocese on last Sunday :
HENRY EDWARD, BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND
THE FAVOUR OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE, ARCH-
BISHOP OF WESTMINSTER, TO THE CLERGY, SE-
CULAR AND REGULAR, AND FAITHFUL OF THE
SAID DIOCESE.
HEALTH AND BENEDICTION IN THE LORD.

Your kindness in greeting our return on Monday
week has anticipated our purpose of addressing you.
But in thanking you for your words of attachment
at the time we refrained from giving utterance to
the truths which this moment suggests. we do so
now more fully and in a form which will reach the
whole flock committed to our charge. On the Feast
of St. Michael, as you already know, a day ever to
be remembered by the Catholics of England as the
Anniversary of their reconstitution in the perfect
organisation of the Catholic Hierarchy, the Sove-
reign Pontiff was pleased, after celebrating the Holy
Sacrifice in his domestic Chapel, with his own
hands to confer upon us the Sacred Pallium. By
that act was brought before us in all its vividness
the person of the Good Shepherd, and the Parable
of the Lost Sheep, as it is pictured on the vaults of
the Catacombs, burnt into the sacred vessels of the
altar, sculptured upon the tombs of the Christian
people :—the most perfect symbol of the Incarna-
tion of God, His tender love, His pastoral care, our
wandering, our weakness, and our safety on the
shoulders of the Good Shepherd, folded in the arms
of His love and power.
It is by these beautiful analogies that the Pas-
tors and writers of the Church describe the signifi-
cance of the Sacred Pallium. They, as you know,
have not failed to use the happy verbal coincidence
of the Vulgate in which we read of Eliseus, " Leva-
vit Pallium Elise (4 Kings ii. 13.), he took up the
pallium of Elias ; and again in the Italic, " Sustulit
meloten Elise," he took up the sheepskin of Elias,
the shepherd's garment, with which, as an instru-
ment of power, in the Name of the Lord he divided
the waters. In this they saw the Good Shep-
herd letting fall upon St. Peter the Shep-
herd's Garment and the charge of the whole
flock of God; whereby all the communicable powers
and prerogatives of Jesus passed to Peter ; so that
St. Leo in the consciousness of his world-wide and
imperishable commission has said, "As that which
Peter believed always abides in Christ, so that which
Christ instituted always abides in Peter" (Seri. 2
in die Assump.) The words, " Feed my lambs, feed
my lambs, feed my sheep" (St. John xxi. 15, 16),
conveyed to Peter the cure of souls ; the supreme,
plenary, universal, and perpetual jurisdiction over
all for whom the Good Shepherd laid down His life.
In this is revealed the law and conservative princi-
ple of unity, the distinction between the character of
sacred orders, and the jurisdiction which validates
and directs their exercise. In the power of the Keys,
and of Sacrifice, and of the plenary gifts of Pente-
cost, in the Sacerdotal, Episcopal, and Apostolic
character, all the twelve were equal. But as the
source of jurisdiction Peter was alone, and because
alone was Chief, and Vicar of his Master. The
mantle of the Chief Shepherd had descended upon
him. The regulation, and therefore the unity and
harmonious action of the Apostolic College, flowed
from him, and was sustained by union with him.
The Shepherd's Mantle and the charge of the
universal flock, the Pallium, and the jurisdiction
over both sheep and their shepherds which fell from
him op the Janiculum, in the hour when he ascended
from his Cross to the kingdom of his Master, de-
scended upon Linus. It was the voice of Linus, but
the jurisdiction of Peter who in his successor lived
on, and in Pius the Ninth lives still. And this gives
a special beauty and significance to the words in
which the Pallium is demanded by Patriarchs, and
Primates, and Archbishops kneeling at the feet of
the Vicar of the Good Shepherd and the successor
of the Apostle, " Peto urihi tradi et assignari pal-
Hum de corpore Beati Petri sumtum," the vestment
of wool, woven from the fleece of the lambs, blessed
on St. Agnes's Day, and laid upon the tomb of the
Apostle with the Apostolical Benediction on the
Vigil of St. Peter and St. Paul.
You already know that Orders and Jurisdiction
are distinct : that the power of aclministering Sacra-
ments-does not include a power of administering them
to any particular flock ; that the impressing upon a
man the character of Priesthood does not make him
the Pastor of any parish, or empower him to ab-
solve any individual soul ; nor the impressing upon
any one the character of the Episcopate make him
Bishop of any Diocese. The Priest and the Bishop
are created by ordination and consecration ; but the
charge of parish or diocese is given by the grant of
jurisdiction. Any Bishop can validly ordain a
Priest, or consecrate a Bishop, but the power over
souls in any particular parish or diocese comes from
the Vicar of our Lord alone. And this is derived
from the two-fold power which was conveyed by
our Lord to His Church, the power over His natural
Body, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to
which all other Sacraments and orders are related ;
and the power over His mystical Body or the souls

which are united to Him as their head, and kni

together in the unity of His visible Church. The
power over His natural Body descends by consecra-
tion in thepiscopate, which isithe plenitude of the
Priesthood : the power over His mystical Body is
distributed to every several Bishop by the Successor
of St. Peter alone. This constitutes the cure of
souls or the personal relation between the Bishop
and his diocese, which excludes every other juris-
diction, and is excluded from every other Diocese.
Thus much it may not be out of place to say, in
order to make more clear and vivid, if possible, the
one truth we desire now to bring before you
in order that we may ask, for the love of Jesus, the
help of all your strength and of all your hearts ;
that is, the personal charge and care of souls, and
the personal responsibility for the salvation of souls
which is laid upon us.
There is no more tremendous thought foryou, dear

Children in Jesus Christ, than that you must all
stand before the judgment-seat of God, to give ac-
count of your stewardship to the last farthing. You
willbe held to answer for thoughts, words, and
deeds
; for all the works done in the body for the
whole of this mortal life, with all its intense activity,
day and night from birth to death ; multiplied by
all the gifts of nature and of grace, all the oppor-
tunities and seasons of doing good, all the influences,
trusts, and powers of serving God and saving souls,
committed to you. Well may the heaven and the
earth flee away before the face of Him who sitteth
upon the great Throne (Apoc. xx. 11), for who shall
endure the day of His coming, or who shall stan(l
when he shall appear? Tremendous indeed for you,
but what for us? Of you will be required the ac-
count of one soul, that is your own. Of us, of tens
of thousands. Of us the.stewardship of the whole
flock will be exacted ; and of every several soul in
it for whose salvation we can in any way labour.
Jesus died for them that they might be saved. He
gives them to us that, through the power of His
precious blood, we may save them. If His precious
blood be not applied• to them, their blood will be
required at our hands. And if they be lost, how
shall we be saved? This is a thought still more
tremendous than that in which we shall stand alike
before God, on our own personal account. For this
reason it is that St. John Chrysostom says, "Iwon-
der how any ruler of the Church can be saved."
This cure of souls resides always habitually in the
person of the Bishop, and also actually, so long as
he shall not have transferred the same canonically,
and therefore in perpetuity, to another. So intimate
and personal is this jurisdiction of a Pastor over his
own Flock, that while the Church forbids to all her
saving only the Sovereign
Pastors, even the highest.,
Pontiff, to absolve out of his own Diocese a single
soul subject to another Bishop, without his express
authority communicated for that purpose, every
Bishop may absolve in all the world the members of
his own Diocese, wheresoever he may find them, by
sea or by land.
The personal charge of souls which is given by
the Vicar of Our Lord immediately to every Bishop
in his Diocese, is given mediately by him to every
Bishop, Priest, or Rector of a Mission, canoni-
cally erected ; and this burden rests on all, whe-
ther Secular and Religious, who shall be admitted
by the Bishop to the pastoral care of any parti-