Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 568

Gregory to Vitalis, defensor of Sardinia. It has been indicated to us that certain clerics of the Church of Cagliari, fleeing the discipline of their own bishop, seek out against him the solace of your protection, and through this—what is grievous to say—stand contumacious toward him. This matter, if it is so, we have taken very hard indeed. It is also said that, deserting the duties of their own Church and occupying themselves with the services and labors of others, they are found to be strangers wherever they have given in their name to service. Let your Experience therefore henceforth presume to do no such thing; but if the occasion of some cleric's fault arises, as usually happens, in which he ought to seek you as his helper, go reverently to that same bishop;

and, as you shall have learned the merits of the case, approach him not as a defender of the fault but rather as an intercessor, so that by this provision you may both bring aid to the petitioner and not disturb the rights of the prelate. But if there are any who demand what is just, aid from the Apostolic See is not to be denied them through you. Yet nevertheless the reverence of each bishop is to be so preserved that the discipline of the clergy be in no way loosened through the exercise of your protection. It has also been told us that the peasants of that same possession of the Church of Cagliari, deserting their own fields, perform the cultivation of their labor upon the possessions of private persons.

From which it comes about that the possessions of the Church, their own cultivator being occupied on other lands, go to ruin and are not fit for paying their tributes. In which matter we wish your Experience to be altogether solicitous, that you should permit nothing of the sort to be done after this authority given by us to you—knowing that, if you neglect it, our minds will thereupon be stirred against you over your lesser diligence. We have also learned (Gratian, Cause I, q. 2, c. 19) that certain persons, according to each one's own pleasure and in the execution of various matters, disturb the monasteries of the servants of God and even of women;

which we have taken altogether gravely, and we admonish your Experience concerning this, that you permit no one, once our authority has been received, to usurp this anew; but let it be the care of the bishops of that place, under whose governance they live, to arrange their affairs and interests. For it is exceedingly unfitting that, this bishop being passed over, any other person whatever should mix himself into their affairs. Rather, he ought to arrange their life with fitting and regular moderation, who is compelled to render an account for the souls committed to him.