A Grave Warning to Bishops

BY SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

God has raised you to a condition of dignity so that you might serve the Church in proportion to your high estate. If you should defraud Him of what He hopes of you, He is powerful to cast down the mighty from their seats. If you have not responded according to the obligations of your position, He will expel you from the heights of where He has placed you.

What misfortunes are now desolating the Church of Christ! Although they horrify us more because we see them from a closer vantage point, they undoubtedly have not failed to reach your ears and shock you.

Sometimes in ambush and sometimes making open, flagrant and brazen assaults, the bloody wolf roams every day around the sheep that Christ has won with His Blood. You know very well that this state of affairs does not date from yesterday nor the day before; you know that ever since the beast began to grow, from the time the whelp’s teeth began to appear, not a day has gone by without the flock of the Lord being surrounded with snares. From then on, as I must, I have done nothing but sound the alarm and cry out, stirring up the dogs and the shepherds against him.

What your obligation is, and how you must fulfill it, it behooves you to see. It is not for me to give lessons to those who know more than I. ■

Translated from Obras Completas de San Bernardo, by Fr. Jaime Pons, S.J., Vol. V., page 477.