More from Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year:
The Church, the spotless Spouse of Jesus Christ the immaculate Lamb, is by God's appointment FREE, and subject to no earthly power.
But in what does this sacred liberty consist? It consists in the Church's absolute independence of every secular power in the ministry of the Word of God, which she is bound to preach in season and out of season, as St. Paul says, to all mankind, without distinction of nation or race or age or sex: in the administration of the Sacraments, to which she must invite all men without exception, in order to the world's salvation: in the practice, free from all human control, of the Counsels, as well as of the Precepts, of the Gospel: in the unobstructed intercommunication of the several decrees of her sacred hierarchy: in the publication and application of her decrees and ordinances in matters of discipline: in the maintenance and development of the Institutions she has founded: in holding and governing her temporal patrimony: and lastly in the defense of those privileges which have been adjudged to her by the civil authority itself, in order that her ministry of peace and charity ight be unembarrassed and respected.
Such is the Liberty of the Church. It is the bulwark of the Sanctuary. Every breach there imperils the Hierarchy, and even the very Faith. A Bishop may not flee, as the hireling, nor hold his peace, like those dumb dogs of which the Prophet Isaias speaks, and which are not able to bark. He is the Watchman of Israel: he is a traitor if he first lets the enemy enter the citadel, and then, but only then, gives the alarm and risks his person and his life. The obligation of laying down his life for his flock begins to be in force at the enemy's first attack upon the very outposts of the City, which is only safe when they are strongly guarded.
