The Dialogue

Of the sins and evil life of wicked priests and ministers.

" Now listen, dearest daughter, so that thou and My other servants may have more reason for offering to Me your humble and continual prayers for them. I will show thee their iniquitous life ; for in whatever direction thou mayest look among secular and religious priests, clerics, and prelates, small and great, young and old, and of every kind, thou wilt see nothing but offences against Me and the stench of mortal sin, which they all exhale; which stench, indeed, hurts me not at all, but themselves grievously. Up to the present I have told thee of the excellence and virtue of My good ministers in order to refresh thy soul, and that thou mightest the better know the misery of these wretches, and see how grave is the reproof, and how intolerable the punishment of which they are worthy, even as My beloved and chosen priests, on account of having virtuously used the Treasure given to them, are worthy of a greater reward than other men, and of being placed as pearls in My sight. So contrariwise these wretches, who shall receive a terrible punishment.

"Dost thou perceive, dearest daughter, with grief and bitterness of heart, in what they have placed their principle and foundation ?

" They have placed it in their own self-love, whence has grown the tree of pride and the offshoot of indiscretion ; for indiscreetly do they seize honour and glory for them selves, seeking great prelacies and ornaments, and delicate treatment for their bodies. To Me they render abuse and offence, attributing to themselves that which is not their own and to Me that which is not Mine. For to Me should glory be given, and to My Name the praise, and to them selves should they render hatred of their own sensuality with true self-knowledge, deeming themselves unworthy of so great a mystery as they have received from Me. But these do the contrary, for, inflated with pride, they cannot

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satiate themselves with gnawing the earth of riches and worldly delights, becoming mean, greedy, and avaricious towards the poor, from which miserable pride and avarice, born of their own self-love, they have abandoned the care of souls. They only apply themselves to take care of temporal things and abandon My lambs, whom I have placed in their hands, like sheep without a shepherd, and do not feed them temporally or spiritually.

" Spiritually, indeed, they administer the Sacraments of the holy Church, which Sacraments cannot be taken away, or their virtue lost through their defect ; but they do not feed you with hearty prayers, with hunger and desire for your salvation, together with a holy and honourable life. Nor do they feed their subjects with temporal things, that is to say, the poor with the substance of the Church, of which I said to thee that three parts should be made : one for the priests' necessities, another for the poor, and the third for the uses of the Church. These do the contrary, for not only do they not give to the poor the substance which they are obliged to give them, but they even rob their neighbour with simony and lust money, selling the grace of the Holy Spirit ; for often are to be found some of them so wicked as to refuse to give to him who is in need thereof the Mystery Which I have given them freely, and will only dispense It to those who fill their hands and persuade them with many gifts. They love their subjects for what they can get out of them, and nothing more. Their share of the Church they spend entirely on their own garments, loving to go delicately apparelled, not as clerks and religious, but as lords and courtiers. They take pains to have fine horses, and many vessels of gold and silver for the adorn ment of their dwellings, possessing that which cannot be ultimately retained, with much vanity of heart ; and with this disordinate vanity their heart swells, and they place all their desire in food, making of their belly their god, eating and drinking without restraint, so that they promptly fall into an impure and lascivious life.

" Woe ! woe to their wretched life ! For they waste with harlots that which My only-begotten Son, the sweet

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Word, acquired with such pain on the wood of the holy Cross ; they are devourers of souls bought with the Blood of Christ, devouring them in their great misery in many and diverse ways, and with the substance of the poor do they feed their children. Oh ! temples of the Devil, I have appointed you to be earthly angels in this life ; and you are devils, for you have taken the work of devils. These devils give in return darkness, for what they have received from their flocks, and administering to them cruel torments, drag their souls away from grace, with persecutions and temptations, in order to reduce them to the guilt of mortal sin, striving to do what they can to this end ; although no sin can occur unless the tempted soul herself wish it, yet they do what they can. So these wretches are not worthy of being called My ministers ; they are incarnate devils, for by their sin have they conformed themselves to the will of the Devil, and do his work, at the same time administering Me, the True Sun, in the darkness of mortal sin, casting the darkness of their disordinate and criminal life over their subjects and all other rational creatures. They cause con fusion and pain in the minds of creatures, who see them living in disorder ; they are also the cause of confusion of conscience to those whom they often drag from the state of grace and the way of truth, and leading them to sin cause them to go by the way of lies. Not that he who thus follows them is on that account excused for his sin, for no one can be obliged to the guilt of mortal sin, either by invisible devils or by these visible ones ; wherefore, no one should look at their life or imitate what they do, but as My Truth admonished you in the holy Gospel you should rather do what they say — that is, you should follow the doctrine which is given you in the mystical body of the holy Church, by means of the preachers who go about as town-criers, proclaiming My Word in the Holy Scripture. And as for the woes which these wretches deserve, and their evil life, do not imitate the latter or seek to inflict the former, for in doing so you will offend Me ; but leave them their evil life, and take My doctrine, leaving their punish ment to Me, for I am the sweet Eternal God Who reward

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every virtue and punish every sin. They will not evade their punishment through the dignity of being My ministers, but on the contrary if they do not amend they will be more severely punished than all others, because they have received more than others. Their sin being so terrible they deserve the greater punishment. See therefore that they are in truth devils in the same way as My elect are earthly angels, inasmuch as they do angels' work."