Annotation LXX

”The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — Matthew 16:18

Whether the priestly power is lost through any [and every] sin.

Origen, in the first of those treatises which now survive on Matthew, seems to allude to the error of the Hussites — [who say] that the power of the supreme pontiff and of the bishops so depends on the imitation of Peter’s sanctity, that as often as they lose sanctity by sinning, they lose also Peter’s power. The very words are written in this manner: “Since those who claim for themselves the place of the bishops use this saying — that, like Peter, they too have received from the Savior the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and teach that the [things] which have been bound by them, that is, condemned, are likewise bound also in heaven, and again that the [things] which have been loosed by them are likewise loosed also in heaven — it must be said that they speak rightly [only] if they also have the deeds on account of which it was said to him who was Peter, ‘Thou art Peter’; and if they be such that upon them the Church may be built by Christ, and that [saying] can rightly be referred to them. But the gates of hell ought not to prevail against him who wishes to bind and to loose. But if he is bound fast by the ropes of his own sins, in vain does he bind or loose. If, therefore, anyone — since he is not Peter, nor has those [qualities] which are here spoken of, as Peter had [them] — believes that he will bind on earth so that what he binds is bound also in heaven, and that he will loose upon earth so that what he looses is loosed in heaven: this [man] is puffed up, not understanding what the Scriptures mean; and, swollen [with pride], he has fallen into the ruin of the devil.” This error is condemned by the authority of the Council of Trent, in whose fourteenth session there is a canon, number ten, in these words: “If anyone shall say that priests who are in mortal sin do not have the power of binding and loosing — let him be anathema.” Consult Annotation 101 of this book.