THE BRIDGE BUILDERS OF
THE CITY OF GOD





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"N ever before have I heard such language." The holy
pride of Basil in the dignity and strength of his office
arose in him; and his words became those of the entire
Episcopate of the Catholic Church, past, present and
future. "Then," he said, "Never before have you met
a bishop."
St. Augustine used a phrase in his learned writings
that has often since been taken as a motto for the
heraldic bearings of many of his fellow-bishops:
((I deo victor, quia victima- Therefore a victor, be­
cause a victim." Strange words these! Do they
apply to the Episcopate of the Catholic Church as did
the proud words of Basil? Quite evidently yes, since
so many Catholic bishops have placed them near enough
to their persons to keep their lesson in constant
memory.
More than once has the Book of the Prophet
Jeremiah, which we know chiefly for the sublime
Lamentations, been called upon to supply a text
applicable to the consecration of a Catholic bishop.
So it serves me now: "Lo, I have set thee this day
over the nations, and over kingdoms, ,to root up, and
to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to
build, and to plant." Do these words also apply to
the Catholic Episcopate? I answer that, as bishops
are successors of the Prophets as well as of the
Apostles, the words apply to them.
From the defiance of St. Basil, from the motto con­
tributed by St. Augustine to his brethren, from the
text of Jeremiah, comes the conviction that, in the
glory and the joy of this occasion, there is a note
of dread. St. Basil's pride was not so much for his
own dignity, as for the ability in those who bore it
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the bishops, united to him, rests also this infallibility.
So the bishop is the Doctor by excellence. Though
learned men who are not bishops may be teachers,
yet the purity of their doctrine is guarded by the
bishops; for the right of guardianship in the bishop
comes from a higher source than science. The
bishops keep the defences of the Christian Church.
Great as are the powers, high as is the dignity of
a bishop as pastor, yet his right to rule is the strong
citadel of the gifts of God to the people. It is his
jurisdiction that protects these gifts. He is, there­
fore, over priests and people. To that he must take
heed, as St. Paul warns him, for he is set "to rule
the Church of God." It is here that he must
invoke the sources of strength that he needs for
himself as a ruler. I t is here that we note the strange
paradox of a necessary humility in dignity as the
best preserver of a necessary authority in action. The
saintly Fenelon, in his letter to the Elector of
Cologne, upon whom he. was to lay the hands of
consecration, expresses this well and warningly;
"We (bishops) must be meek and humble of heart,
firm without haughtiness, and condescending without
weakness; poor and vile in our own eyes in the
grandeur inseparable from our state, not allowing to
this grandeur any more than what we have no right
to refuse to it."
I t is plain that the bishop as a chief pastor is the
guardian of the spiritual rights of his priests and of
their flocks, but he is more. He is the vigilant sentry
to prevent the intrusion of worldly ambitions and
worldly questions into their spiritual interests. In this
he is constantly aided by the admonitions of the
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origin, not so the symbolism of its form. The Pope
carries no crosier. Peter gave his staff to a disciple to
raise the dead to life. Peter's successor authorizes the
crosier being given today, as a sign of a duty to
correct, to judge, to promote virtue, to censure and
to save from evil. What is this but to heal spiritua1
sickness, to raise to life again souls dead to sanctify­
ing grace?
II.
Important as is the office of a bishop as pastor of
souls, yet for the Church his title and rights as a
pontiff are more important still. As a chief pastor
he is intimately concerned with the government and
care of only a small part of the flock. As pontiff
the bishop has his obligations towards the whole
Church.
What is a pontiff? Far back into the mists of
early history we would have to go to trace the origin
and development of this dignity; but the meaning of
the word will suffice to show us what the title implies
in its possessor. The word "pontiff," or "pontifex,"
means a bridge-builder. In the early days of pagan
Rome there were six pontiffs; later fifteen, and, under
Julius Caesar, sixteen. The office was a religious
one; but it included the care of the bridges over the
Tiber, and formed a Supreme Court with jurisdiction
over all cases connected with religion. It is the
signification of the title upon which I wish especially
to dwell.
The care of the bridges of ancient Rome was
essential to the safety of the City, for the Tiber was
its strong line of defense. To watch the bridges
was to stand guard over the people. Later, when
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Rome became a conquering nation, the bridges took
on a new importance, since over them passed the
victorious armies of the Empire and the returning
triumphs. All of Rome's power and of Rome's glory
had a connection with the bridges of the Tiber. Still
later came a new dignity to the bridges of Rome.
By them passed prefects and governors from the
City with the decrees and laws of the Empire of the
WorId. In return came tribute over the bridges. All
armies, rulers and laws, crossed the bridges to or
from the great military roads that bound the Empire
together. The bridges united the Empire to its
centre; united the provinces to the Capitol.
The day came when a stranger foot touched
the bridges of the Tiber, a foot "shod with the
preparation of the Gospel of Peace," and a new
destiny entered Rome with Peter. Wonder that the
Seven Hills did not tremble with joy that day, to
welcome one who was so soon to be the glory of the
City built upon them. But Peter came in the poverty
of Bethlehem, and men knew him as little as they
had known his Master. Yet Peter was to be known
better than the Caesars. He was to snatch from the
flames that destroyed the Empire the human means
of building better and stronger an Empire not of
the dust but of the soul. He was to begin the reign
of a new line of pontiffs, whose chief would sit in
Rome, but whose brethren would make new Rames
in lands that old Rome could never reach. His statue
was one day to top a column erected to the glory of
a pagan emperor. It still stands in Trajan's Forum,
looking down on the remains of the basilica of the
Ulpia wherein Constantine announced his acceptance
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is the Apostle. There is a sovereign remedy available
then for the cure of all our weaknesses. It is the
healing and helping hand of the Catholic Episcopate.
Archimedes said that he could move the world if he
had a fulcrum and a lever. We have both the fulcrum
and the lever to move it for Christ. The fulcrum is
Catholic Truth. The lever is Catholic Missions. But
the hand that must press the lever is the hand of
the pontiff, a successor of the Apostles, consecrated
for the offiee and work of a bishop in the Church
of God.
Do I need to cite proofs to show that this is the
true conception of the bishop as pontiff? I have
already hinted at two striking ones. Every Catholic
bishop shares, when united to the Pontifex Maximus
-the Pope-in the government of the Church U ni­
versal: for it is the bishops who are called into the
Ecumenical Councils, which mark as milestones the
history of Christianity. N o matter how learned the
doctor who goes to them, he goes only as an adviser
to the bishop. The responsibility rests not on the
doctor, but on the bishop. And again, the bishop,
united to the Pontifex Maximus, shares also with him
the infallibility that guards to the City of God the
purity of the deposit of Faith. If all men must "be­
lieve and be baptized" in order to attain the super­
natural life of grace and consequent salvation, there
must be a divinely preserved foree to keep the gates
and bridges. The supreme exercise of that force is
in the Pontifex Maximus, with his brother pontiffs,
the bishops of the Catholic Church.
The note of dread steals then very distinctly from
out the music of this great rejoicing. We are glad
that a new link is forged for the great chain: but
we know the strain that shall surely test it, and the
strength the trial will demand. We rejoice not in
the task nor in the test, but in the confidence we
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