Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 535

Gregory to Romanus, defensor. Although the rule of law does not permit those things that come under the rights of the Church to be alienated, yet the severity of strictness must sometimes be tempered where regard for mercy invites it—especially when the amount is such that it neither burdens the giver nor, as regards the receiver's poverty, brings some measure of consolation. And therefore, since Stephania, the bearer of the present letter, together with her little son Calixenus, whom she asserts she bore to Peter, her late husband, and that she is oppressed by extreme poverty, coming here with constant entreaty and tears has demanded of us that we command to be restored to the same Calixenus the house of possession in the city of Catania, which Ammonia, once the mother-in-law of the same woman and grandmother of Calixenus, had offered to our Church under the title of donation;

asserting that the said Ammonia had not the right to alienate it, but that it was in every respect the property of the aforementioned Calixenus, her son; against which claim our most beloved son Cyprianus the deacon, who was acquainted with the case, stood as an objector, saying that the complaint of the aforesaid woman had no justice, and that she could not reasonably claim or demand back that house in her son's name;

but lest we should seem to leave the tears of the above-mentioned woman empty, and to follow the way of rigor more than to embrace the causes of piety, we command you by this precept that you should restore to the oft-named Calixenus the said house, together with the donation made by Ammonia concerning that house, which is known to be there in Sicily; because, as we have said, in doubtful cases it is better not to pursue strictness, but rather to bend toward the kindly side—especially since by the yielding of a small thing the Church is not burdened, and the orphan and the poor are mercifully aided. Given in the month of November, in the second indiction.