Worthy Priests

Letter 1,51 - to Felix, bishop op Siponto. July 591.

"It has come to our attention that the church of Canusium is so destitute of the office of priesthood that the dying cannot receive penitence there, nor infants baptism.
Most disturbed therefore by the importance of something so holy and so necessary, we order your Beloved to go and visit the above mentioned church, supported by the authority of this injunction, and you should ordain two parish priests at least, but only those whom you have seen as worthy of such an office through holiness of their life and gravity of their morals, and men subject in no way to the rules of canon law, so that Canusium is provided with the worthy safeguard of a sacred church."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 175.