Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 589

Gregory to Gaudiosus, bishop of Gubbio. Having learned that the Church of Tadinum has long been bereft of the governance of its own bishop, we solemnly delegate to your Fraternity the task of visiting that same Church. This charge you ought so to fulfil, that nothing pertaining to the advancement of the clergy, to the revenues, to the ornaments, to the ministries, or to whatever else belongs to that Church's patrimony, may be presumptuously seized by anyone from the Church.

And therefore let your Fraternity hasten to go to the aforesaid Church, and with unremitting exhortations let it make haste to admonish the clergy and people of that same Church, so that, all zeal for contention being set aside, with one and the same accord they may seek for themselves such a bishop to be set over them as may be found worthy of so great a ministry, and as may in no way be rejected by the venerable canons. And when he has been asked for, let him come to us to be consecrated, with the solemnity of a decree confirmed by the subscriptions of all, and with the testimony of a letter from your Beloved.

We also admonish your Fraternity to permit no one to be chosen from another Church, unless perchance among the clergy of that very city, in which you are exercising the office of visitation, no one worthy of the episcopate can be found—which we do not believe will happen. And provide before all else that no persons of lay condition, whatever their manner of life or merit, presume to aspire to this, lest you—which God forbid—incur peril to your own ordination.