Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 154

Gregory to Dominicus, bishop of Centumcellae. It belongs indeed to the priestly office that you should impart consolations to widows and to those bereft of the governance of a husband, so that, whereas in this world they are deprived by the human condition, they may be able to find remedies through priestly protection. Since therefore Luminosa, a woman of noble birth, left as widow of the most illustrious tribune Zemarchus, has committed herself after God to our protection, we admonish you to console her in whatever shall be necessary for her, and let no one be troublesome to her in any matter.

But since the office of count which her husband had undertaken to administer has now, by the grant of Theodorus the palatine, been assigned to the woman herself, that she should discharge it, or to whomever she shall please, until the completion of the present indiction is reached, permit no one to disturb her until she completes it. Act, therefore, so quietly that you both make God your debtor for such deeds, and that our disposition may the more readily rejoice over the consolations bestowed by you. Gregory to Balbinus, bishop of Rusellae. It has reached us that the Church of Populonia is so destitute of the priestly office that neither can penance be provided to those dying there, nor baptism to infants.

Moved therefore by the weight of this matter, so pious and so necessary, we command your love that, admonished by the authority of this instruction, you go as visitor to the aforesaid Church, so as to ordain there one cardinal priest and two deacons. But in the parishes of the aforesaid Church, likewise three priests, whom nevertheless you shall have judged worthy of such office by the reverence of their life and the gravity of their morals, and against whom the established rules of canonical discipline in no way stand, so that provision may be made for the holy Church with due caution.