Advice for Clergy

16. For your clergy, the times require a very particular unanimity in your guidance, concern and love in admonishing and exhorting them, and extraordinary firmness in defending ecclesiastical discipline. In turn, all priests should have strong faith in their bishops, accept their directives, and support their undertakings. In their sacred duties and their pastoral work, they should always be ready and zealous, guided by love. Because, moreover, priests set an example, they should be living models of virtue and constancy. They should be cautious, however, not to get too involved in civilian or political affairs, and let them often recall this passage from St. Paul, "No one serving as God's soldier entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please him whose approval he has secured."(³)