“Follow this opinion in practice!” cried I. “Will any priest who has fallen into such irregularities, have the assurance on the same day to approach the altar, on the mere word of Father Bauny? Is he not bound to submit to the ancient laws of the Church, which debarred from the sacrifice forever, or at least for a long time, priests who had committed sins of that description—instead of following the modern opinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very day that witnessed his fall?” “You have a very short memory,” returned the monk. “Did I not inform you a little ago that, according to our fathers Cellot and Reginald, ‘in matters of morality we are to follow, not the ancient fathers, but the modern casuists?’” “I remember it perfectly,” said I; “but we have something more here: we have the laws of the Church.” “True,” he replied; “but this shows you do not know another capital maxim of our fathers, ‘that the laws of the Church lose their authority when they have gone into desuetude’—_cum jam desuetudine abierunt_—as Filiutius says.[159] We know the present exigencies of the Church much better than the ancients could do. Were we to be so strict in excluding priests from the altar, you can understand there would not be such a great number of masses. Now a multitude of masses brings such a revenue of glory to God and of good to souls, that I may venture to say, with Father Cellot, that there would not be too many priests, ‘though not only all men and women, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies, and even brute beasts—_bruta animalia_—were transformed into priests to celebrate mass.’”[160] I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagination, that I could not utter a word, and allowed him to go on with his discourse. “Enough, however, about priests; I am afraid of getting tedious: let us come to the _monks_. The grand difficulty with them is the obedience they owe to their superiors; now observe the palliative which our fathers apply in this case. Castro Palao[161] of our Society has said: ‘Beyond all dispute, a monk who has a probable opinion of his own, is not bound to obey his superior, though the opinion of the latter is the more probable. For the monk is at liberty to adopt the opinion which is more agreeable to himself—_quæ sibi gratior fuerit_—as Sanchez says. And though the order of his superior be just, that does not oblige you to obey him, for it is not just at all points or in every respect—_non undequaquè justè præcepit_—but only probably so; and consequently, you are only probably bound to obey him, and probably not bound—_probabiliter obligatus, et probabiliter deobligatus_.’” “Certainly, father,” said I, “it is impossible too highly to estimate this precious fruit of the double probability.”